Orlando Bloom has signed up to lead Shanghai-set actioner Smart Chase: Fire & Earth, the first movie from BlissBloom Productions, a venture co-financed by both Bloom and Chinese outfit Bliss Media. As well as taking his first leading action role in a while, Bloom’s also set to produce the pic, which has got quite the international assembly both in front and behind the camera.
Bloom stars as Danny Stratton, described as “a washed-up private security agent,” who is given a chance to turn around his bad luck by “escorting a valuable Chinese antique out of Shanghai, but is ambushed en route. With the safety of the women he loves in jeopardy, Danny has to work with his team of security experts, the S.M.A.R.T., to save her, as a dreadful conspiracy begins to unravel.”
That sounds like it has potential to reinvigorate the actor’s career and recast him as an action star. Who knows? It’s been years since Bloom’s dallied with anything that sounds this frenetic, and Jason Statham can only shoot one movie at a time. French helmer Julien Seri (Night Fare) directs Smart Chase: Fire & Earth from a script by Kevin Bernhardt (The Immortals), and the supporting cast includes Jing Tian (Great Wall, King Kong), Leo Wu (The Wonder), Cao Kefan (The Flowers of War) .