Amanda Jiang Leads “Dracula: The Crimson Code” Filming

By Daniel Okafor

Starmist Films’ first feature, “City of Masks,” is due a world premiere (a first public screening) in London on Oct. 29. Filming has started on “Dracula: The Crimson Code.”

Variety calls the project a gothic romance (a love story shaped by mystery and horror) and a supernatural thriller (a danger-driven mystery), with Andrea M. Catinella directing and Enrico Tessarin writing the screenplay.

Variety places the reimagining in contemporary London and the English countryside, keeping the vampire legend in the present rather than a historical costume setting.

Amanda Jiang, Joey Phillips, Richard Brake and Shayne Ward will lead the cast, according to Variety.

Who leads the vampire cast?

Variety’s cast rundown gives Jiang the role of Countess Isolde Dragomir, a centuries-old vampire aristocrat at the center of London’s most exclusive social circles.

It pairs Phillips with “Outlander,” Brake with “Game of Thrones,” “The Mandalorian,” “Kingsman: The Secret Service” and “Barbarian,” and Ward with “The Good Ship Murder” and “Coronation Street.”

What does the Crimson Code hide?

Variety’s synopsis puts Isolde in London’s most exclusive social circles. Her glamorous Crimson Code soirées (formal evening gatherings) conceal an ancient conflict between two vampire bloodlines (hereditary families), the Dragomirs and the Howes.

The Crimson Code soirées resemble an exclusive dinner party with a blood feud beneath the conversation, and that tension supplies the engine of the story Variety describes.

Variety’s synopsis centers that conflict on Isolde’s centuries-old desire for revenge against the man who murdered the great love of her life.

What does Theo Mercer change?

Variety’s synopsis says that Isolde kills the son of her old enemy and draws the man back into her world. Her plans then meet a complication in Theo Mercer, whom she recognizes as the reincarnation (rebirth in a new life) of the lover she lost centuries earlier.

Theo, however, is not simply Adrian returned, Variety says. He is his own man, and his arrival forces Isolde to confront whether she can finally let go of the past.

Who is behind the production?

Variety identifies Enrico Tessarin, Jiang, Catinella and Carla Fuschillo as the producers for Starmist Films. The company’s first feature, “City of Masks,” is scheduled for its world premiere in London on Oct. 29.

In a statement, Jiang said:

I have always been drawn to gothic atmosphere, the theatricality of it and the way those worlds can create a sense of mystery, danger and desire. That was very much part of what inspired ‘City of Masks,’ and it is something I wanted to explore even further with ‘The Crimson Code.’

She added:

With ‘Dracula,’ we have the opportunity to take that love of gothic storytelling into a much larger world. Isolde is powerful, dangerous and deeply vulnerable, and at the heart of the film is a story about love, revenge and the possibility of choosing a different future.

For the film to deliver the larger world Jiang describes, Isolde’s chosen future must outlast the revenge plot that set her in motion.