As "Snow Flower and The Secret Fan" is filming in Shanghai without Zhang Ziyi, who delared to quit the project in January, the movie's director Wayne Wang responded to the star's exit at a press conference in Shanghai on Monday, claiming Zhang's pullout was due to her neck injury during the shooting of Wong Kar-Wai's martial arts film 'The Grand Master'.

Though previous media coverage has reported "Snow Flower and The Secret Fan" was the debut project of a joint film adventure by Zhang Ziyi and her friend, media magnate Rupert Murdoch's wife Wendi Deng, as Deng had revealed in an interview with Vogue magazine in 2008, spokesperson from Shanghai Film Group denied that Deng is in any way linked to the financing of this film.

"It's totally a domestic-funded project, no foreign investment is involved," said Xiong Xiao'ou, representative of Shanghai Film Group, one of the film's production company.

Xiong also explained that Shanghai Film Group bought the copyright of "Snow Flower and The Secret Fan" from Deng, who previously gained the adaptation right of the original novel.

But Deng was recently spotted visiting another Snow Flower shooting base as the "executive producer" in eastern China's Zhejiang province.

Zhang Ziyi pulled out from the film as the lead actress and co-producer in late January right after her relationship rumor started a splash in December 2009.

The buzz broke out from Zhao Xinyu, known as the "party queen" of Beijing's socialite circle. Zhao told a Beijing-based shopping guide paper that as a close friend to Zhang, she introduced her to a Shanghai businessman, with whom Zhang developed a "deeper relationship".

Zhao revealed that the businessman had given Zhang luxurious gifts worth of 200 million yuan and his wife found out about his "special relationship" with the star, which led to the split of her friendship with Zhang.

In a pointless effort, Zhang Ziyi filed a lawsuit against the newspaper for tainting her reputation with fabricated reports. No subsequent details about the suit has come out so far.