Jackie Chan to show Shaolin Kung-Fu

Jackie Chan has found an ideal place to demonstrate his kung-fu skills - the Shaolin Temple.

The temple, a martial-arts hotbed in central China's Henan Province, held a ceremony on Thursday to welcome Chan, as well as other film stars including Andy Lau, Nicholas Tse and Fan Bingbing. The stars were there to kick off the filming of "New Shaolin Temple".

The film is the first to be allowed on location since the 1982 smash-hit movie "The Shaolin Temple", which turned Jet Li into a star. Besides the star-studded cast, the new film will feature Shaolin monks demonstrating martial arts that have rarely been seen elsewhere.

Jackie Chan visits the Shaolin Temple in central China's Henan Province on October 22, 2009. [Photo: Beijing Times/CFP]

"New Shaolin Temple" revolves around a Shaolin monk, played by Nicholas Tse, who grows to be a hero during war time. Jackie Chan plays the monk's kung-fu master.

The film will be directed by Benny Chan with a release scheduled for late 2010.

The thousand-year-old Shaolin Temple is widely regarded as the birthplace of Shaolin martial arts, which have inspired a bevy of film and TV productions, including the award-winning 1970s American TV series "Kung Fu", starring David Carradine as a Shaolin monk.