Hong Kong-based We Distribution is launching pre-sales on The Flying Guillotines, from the award-winning hit team who created Bodyguards And Assassins.

The company has announced casting with Ethan Juan from Monga, Taiwan’s highest grossing Chinese film of 2010, and Huang Xiaoming from the espionage film The Message.

The $15m film is currently in pre-production with a projected release later this year.

The Flying Guillotine team is an elite crime-fighting unit in the emperor’s court, trained to use flying blades to decapitate people in their search-and-destroy operations.

Bodyguards And Assassins director Teddy Chen, producer Peter Ho-sun Chan, production designer Kenneth Mak and costume designer Dora Ng are reunited in the production. Yuen Bing, the action choreographer for such films as Tsui Hark’s Flying Swords Of Dragon Gate, will also be working on the film.