Chow Yun-fat is reteamingwith Hong Kong director Ann Hui on the US$5m drama, The Aunt's PostmodernLife, produced by start-up Beijing-based production outfit Cheerland Films.

Chow said he would forgo hisusual fee to work with Hui, who directed him in his first critical success,The Story Of Woo Viet, in 1981. Their new project together is written by LiQiang, scriptwriter of Berlin Silver Bear winner Peacock, and isscheduled to start shooting in Shanghai and northern China this October.

Chow will play a con artistwho falls in love with a potential victim played by veteran Chinese actressSiqin Gaowa (In The Heat Of The Sun). Chinese star Vicky Zhao Wei willalso star in the film.

"I agree to this moviebecause I haven't worked with Ann in a long time," Chow told Hong Kong's AppleDaily newspaper. "I admire her and Siqin Gaowa a lot. Plus the role I wasoffered in this movie is something new. I've never played a swindler before, soI want to try."

The film will be theinaugural production of Cheerland Films which was formed by three producers -Taiwan's Peggy Chiao and China's Yuan Mei and Zhang Wang - and scriptwriter LiQiang. The company is financing Hui's film along with Chinese private investorsand is looking for pre-sales and perhaps a co-production deal in the US orEurope. It also has several other projects in development.

Chow is also set tostar in the third instalment of Pirates Of The Caribbean and is jugglingother Chinese-language projects including John Woo's China-set blockbuster TheBattle Of Red Cliff. He's also been linked, along with Gong Li, to a ZhangYimou project about China's only female monarch Wu Zetian.