Wu Jing, the star of hugely successful Chinese action franchise, Wolf Warrior, is set to star alongside Chris Pratt in an upcoming English-language remake of Saigon Bodyguards.
That was a 2016 Vietnamese action comedy about buddy security guards from director Ken Ochiai. See a trailer for the original movie below:
It’s set to be produced by the Russo brothers, who worked with Pratt on Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers: Endgame, and consulted on Wu Jing’s Wolf Warrior 2. That latter film is the highest grossing ever in the Chinese mainland.
Wu is one of China’s most bankable stars. In addition to featuring in Guan Hu’s patriotic war film Sacrifice last month, he also had a prominent role in China’s third highest grossing film of all time, The Wandering Earth in 2019.
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Given Wu’s status as one of the most popular actors in the country, the film is sure to attract a lot of attention in China. The buddy nature of the story is also reminiscent of some of Jackie Chan’s biggest Hollywood hits, Rush Hour and Shanghai Noon.
The news comes as nominations for the 33rd Golden Rooster Awards — the Chinese mainland’s biggest film awards — have been announced. Blockbusters like My Country, My Homeland and Gong Li-fronted volleyball movie Leap have multiple nominations, while the surprising hit coming of age story Better Days, which starred Jackson Yee, also features on a number of shortlists. That award ceremony is set to take place in seaside city Xiamen from November 25 to 28.
Around the same time, the “Oscars of Chinese-language cinema” the Golden Horse Awards, will take place in Taiwan. In 2019, the government in Beijing ruled that directors from the Chinese mainland could not take part in the awards, with the ban continuing into 2020. In 2018, mainland Chinese movie An Elephant Sitting Still, by tragic director Hu Bo, won the Golden Horse Award for best picture.
