Is it safety first -- or last?

PRODUCER Terence Chang said it was the wind that caused the horrific fatal fire on the set of John Woo's latest epic, "Red Cliff." The production, Asia's most expensive movie ever, was re-creating a major battle from 3rd century China on the outskirts of Beijing last month. Small ships, set ablaze, were purposely torpedoed into a group of large warships that had been chained together.

"It was an outdoor shoot, and the wind was so strong, the fire began blowing in the direction of the stuntmen, who were stationed on a larger ship getting rammed by a fireboat," says Chang, who has produced dozens of films, including "Mission Impossible 2" and "Face/Off." A 23-year-old stuntman was burned to death. Three other stuntmen were burned but will recover. Two more hurt their legs when they jumped off the stunt ship into the water to escape. "It was horrible, truly horrible," Chang says.

"Red Cliff" isn't the only would-be blockbuster beset by accidents and tragedy. Two stuntmen were burned while making the Adam Sandler comedy "You Don't Mess With the Zohan." Visual effects technician Conway Wickliffe was killed while prepping the Batmobile for the upcoming "The Dark Knight." According to a production source, Wickliffe and a colleague were videotaping the Batmobile as it spun around a racetrack to see if it was properly rigged to do stunts. Wickliffe was hanging out the window with the video recorder when the driver accidentally careened into a tree. The police investigated and found no wrongdoing.

A Bond curse?

And then there is the upcoming James Bond film, "Quantum of Solace," which has been so riddled with accidents big and small that the English papers have begun talking of "The Bond Curse." An Aston Martin delivery person did manage to drive the $190,000 car into Italy's Lake Garda (he survived; the car didn't).

Yet the far more serious accident -- and the one that actually was the responsibility of the film production -- took place along the twisty, narrow road around the lake, when the Bond team attempted to film "Solace's" spectacular opening sequence.

According to London's Sunday Times, the scene consisted of two Alfa-Romeos chasing Bond's Aston Martin. One of the Alfas gets stuck behind a slow-moving truck, tries to overtake the vehicle and slams into an oncoming truck -- at 100 mph.