Hong Kong - The director of a 40-million-dollar movie version of the hit 1970s TV series Kung Fu was in Hong Kong Tuesday looking for his leading man. Max Makowski has been holding auditions in his quest to find an unknown, English-speaking Asian actor to take the role of Kwai Chang Caine made famous by David Carradine three decades ago.
About 20 wannabes from Hong Kong, the US, Japan, Australia and China auditioned on Monday and Makowski was continuing auditions Tuesday with at least another 20 candidates.
He told the South China Morning Post he was "not overwhelmed" by the first day's candidates, but he still expected the home city of Bruce Lee to produce his lead character.
Makowski said he was looking for an actor aged 20 to 35 who spoke English with an American accent and said he hoped to break an unknown actor into the big time with the role.
Auditions for the Warner Brothers movie, which starts filming in March and is due for release in summer 2009, have already been held in Los Angeles, Vancouver, Hawaii and Singapore without success.
Kung Fu, which ran as a TV show from 1972 to 1975, will be partly filmed in mainland China with post-production work due to be carried out in Hong Kong.
