Jackie Chan to shoot first Chinese-Indian co-production

Jackie Chan has revealed he hopes to shoot the first ever film commissioned under a groundbreaking co-production treaty between China and India, this autumn. The martial arts superstar told the Hindustan Times he would be returning to India to film Kung Fu Yoga with regular collaborator Stanley Tong, the director of Rumble in the Bronx and Police Story. “I am planning to start a new movie called Kung Fu Yoga,” said Chan, according to the Hollywood Reporter’s translation of the Times article. “So, I will be returning to film it in India. Hopefully, we will start filming in autumn.” The co-production treaty, which is expected to transform relations between the two nations on a film-making level, was signed in September 2014. Kung Fu Yoga swiftly emerged as the most likely debut product, with India’s Viacom18 Motion Pictures India and China’s Taihe Entertainment Corp and Shinework Media working together on the project. The treaty is likely to prove a boon for the Indian film industry, which has struggled to get its movies into China. The world’s most populous nation operates a strict quota system of 34 films per year for foreign fare, and Indian films are often crowded out by better-known Hollywood products. Officially sanctioned co-productions with Chinese film companies are usually allowed to circumvent the quota. Chan’s films are hugely popular in India, so China also looks likely to gain from the deal. The actor’s new action movie Dragon Blade, co-starring John Cusack, Adrien Brody and Lin Peng, is released across the nation this weekend. The veteran martial arts star spent time in India in 2013 to launch a Chinese film festival in New Delhi, featuring Chan’s own Chinese Zodiac movie as its opening film.