EXCLUSIVE: Hong Kong-based Golden Network Asia has picked up international rights to Jackie Chan’s next project, $50m action comedy Railroad Tigers, to be directed by Ding Sheng.

Set in China in 1941, the film will star Chan as a railroad worker heading a team of freedom fighters who use their extensive knowledge of the train network to ambush Japanese forces and steal food for starving Chinese.

Investors in the film include Sparkle Roll Media Corporation, Shanghai Film Group, Beijing Going Zoom Media and Shanghai New Culture Media Group.

Scheduled to start production in October, the film aims to revive the spirit of classic Chan comedies such as Project A and Drunken Master II, but with a bigger budget and more elaborate action sequences.

Ding recently launched Beijing Going Zoom Media and previously worked with Chan on hits Little Big Soldier and Police Story 2013.

Railroad Tigers is being lined up for release in October 2016, around the time of China’s National Day holidays.

Chan scored a massive hit earlier this year with historical action film Dragon Blade, also starring Adrien Brody and John Cusack, which grossed $130m in Asia and will screen as one of the first titles on the new Lionsgate Premiere label. Railroad Tigers reunites some of the investors in that film.

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