Hollywood Popular Artists

Apr 22nd 2013, 15:30

When Keanu Reeves directs a movie called "Man of Tai Chi," you better believe it's going to come loaded with tai chi. Reeves debuted the first trailer for his directorial debut at the Beijing International Film Festival, and the teaser for his martial arts epic comes heavy on the awesome action sequences and light on the plot.

It makes sense that this movie will have excellent action choreography and will show off Reeves' love of tai chi. Tiger Hu Chen, a martial arts trainer on "The Matrix" trilogy, stars in the movie with legendary action choreographer Yuen Woo-ping designing the moves. As they proved in the Wachowski movies, they are definitely experts in creating impressive action sequences. Reeves, of course, both directs and stars in the movie.

Still, don't expect to get too up-close and personal with the fighters in this film. MTV News caught up with Reeves after he wrapped principal photography on "Man of Tai Chi" and he revealed that he was unable to use the highly articulate and precise mechanical arm with a camera in this movie like he revealed was his intention in a proof of concept video.

"It was really exciting to go into this idea. I got some feedback from [the reaction to the proof of concept]. It turns out though, ultimately, because we were filming in China, it was a lot simpler to do the proof of concept than to actually use it in the film," Reeves said. "One of the events that happened that was tough was that I wasn't able to use tool in the movie."

Reeves still said he was inspired by the way that arm worked in how he filmed the movie, though. "It was tough. It was just too big and too much. We had to ship it to China. All sorts of practical consideration ran into the vision and the dream," he said. "It certainly influenced the way that we went forward in terms of shooting some of the fight scenes in terms of the organicness and movement of how we shot some of the fight scenes. I just couldn't go on top. [laughs] I couldn't do an overhead shot with no cut into a close up."

"Man of Tai Chi" does not yet have a US release date.

What do you think of this first trailer for "Man of Tai Chi"? Tell us in the comments section below or on Twitter!

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