Keanu Reeves will direct, write and star in Man of Tai Chi, a Mandarin and English language film. He is now is in talks with Village Roadshow Pictures and China Film Group.
The martial arts film will be Reeves’ directorial debut and will also star Tiger Chen, who was part of the martial arts team on The Matrix films.
Reeves penned the film with hopes he would get the chance to direct and star as well. If it goes ahead as planned, he will star as the villain.
This all makes perfect sense as Village Roadshow were backers of The Matrix films and with the film being partially in Mandarin it is exactly the sort of high profile, star driven, but still China-friendly project that the mainland Chinese industry is lusting to get in to on a co-production basis.
China is keen on getting as many big name actors as possible, to star in Chinese produced motion pictures. Reeves is the second major star to get involved with the country. Christian Bale recently finished work on The 13 Women Of Nanjing, where he was the only English speaking member of the Chinese cast/crew.
As for the action in the film, Reeves is on record saying that his script includes 18 fight sequences that should have a run time of forty minutes of actual fighting.
