Start-up Chinese production outfit JA Media has unveiled plans to invest $200m in film and TV production over the next five years, along with details of its debut $30m five-picture slate.

Hong Kong filmmakers Stanley Kwan, Tsui Hark, Ann Hui and Stephen Fung are lined up to direct projects for the company, along with Taiwan's Cheng Hsiao Zer.

Kwan, who JA Media has hired as a consultant to oversee its production strategy, is lined up to direct a $12m biopic of Bruce Lee for the company which focuses on the relationship between the late martial arts star and his son Brandon Lee. Kwan's long-time collaborator Jimmy Ngai (Lan Yu) is writing the project and William Chang is attached as production designer and editor.

Hui will direct an adaptation of Denise Chong's best-selling true story Concubine's Children, scripted by Li Qiang (Peacock). JA Media is in talks with Chow Yun Fat to play the lead in the $8m period drama set in China and Vancouver. Tsui will direct $2.6m Beijing-set comedy She Ain't Mean, which he is currently co-writing with Korean director Kwak Jae-yong (My Sassy Girl).

Wong Kar Wai's Jet Tone Films will co-produce Cheng's project, Miao Miao, a teenage romantic drama set to star Fan Chih Wei and Ke Jia Yan. Jet Tone's Jacky Pang will produce with Kwan.

Stephen Chow's The Star Overseas will co-produce Stephen Fung's Jump, a Shanghai-set dance drama based on an original story by Chow. Edison Chen is set to star along with Zhang Yuqi, who appears in Chow's upcoming comedy feature A Hope.

As previously reported, the new Beijing-based outfit, a subsidiary of Jilin-based alcohol/energy company Jian Group, has also hired Nansun Shi and former Media Asia distribution chief Jeffrey Chan as distribution consultants.

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