Chinese actor-director Jiang Wen, who was recently banned from making films for seven years by the Chinese authorities, has set his next project with a Korean company, Ahn's World Production. Despite the ban he intends to shoot the film in China with an all-Chinese cast.

Based on the best-selling novel The Story of Xu San-Guan The Blood Seller, by Chinese writer Xu Hua, the film traces the life of a man who lives on the fringes of Chinese society, selling his blood to survive. Covering the period from the Cultural Revolution to the present, the $4.5m film will star Jiang Wen in the title role.

Speaking to reporters in Seoul, Ahn's World Production president Ahn Dong-Kyu said that he intended to raise 60% of the film's budget from foreign investors and the remainder from Korean sources.

Jiang received the seven year ban in response to his Cannes Grand Prix winner Devils On The Doorstep, which was deemed insufficiently patriotic by the Chinese Film Bureau. However Ahn noted that Jiang had been slapped with a similar seven-year ban for his performance in Zhang Yimou's 1987 Red Sorghum, but had gone on to make more films regardless. "We believe he will be released from this current ban as well by the end the year," said Ahn.