The Pang brothers latesthorror film Recycle, now shooting in Thailand, marks the beginning of along-term co-operation between Hong Hong's Universe International Holdings andThailand's Matching Motion Pictures.

The $5m picture reunitesDanny and Oxide Pang with Lee Sin-je, star of their international breakout hit TheEye. Lee plays a writer who discovers that events depicted in earlierdrafts of her novel have not been deleted, but remain in a parallel existence.She co-stars with local singer and TV star Jay Jetrin, in his most importantfeature film role to date.

Matching chief SangarChatchairungruang said "co-investment of this kind is a key part of ourlong-term strategy to develop our skills and the position of Thailand in thefilm industry. We expect to work again with Universe on projects originatingfrom Hong Kong."

Although they have a stringof individual projects the Pang brothers are under contract with Universal forfuture joint-directing efforts.

Universe's Alvin Lam said:"co-productions of this sort are the way forward if Hong Kong companies likeours are to produce films with bigger budgets."

Universe is handlinginternational sales and has already completed presales on Recycle withAurum for Spain, Tartan films for the UK, Audio One for Malaysia and PT Warna for Indonesia. Shooting is now 30%completed with delivery scheduled for late summer or the autumn. Lam expects toshow first footage to other distributors at March's FilMart in Hong Kong.

Lee, who also starred inSylvia Chang's 2004 Berlin competition film 20 : 30 : 40, told ScreenInternational: "I was very happy to be offered the chance to work with thePang brother again, but at first I was nervous about accepting another horrorrole. However this is very different from The Eye. There are many morespecial effects and I have to do more blue screen work, which is a challenge."