Director Jeff Lau ("A Chinese Odyssey") is transforming Chinese superheroes with his 100 million yuan ($14.6 million) sci-fi romantic comedy "Kung Fu Cyborg".

Posters of the film were released Monday at the Hong Kong Film Mart. A trailer was previewed by film buyers and will be unveiled to the public in early April.

Lau's inspiration for "Kung Fu Cyborg" came from the flood of superhero movies that has come out of Hollywood since the early 2000s. "When I saw 'Spider-Man,' 'Superman' and 'Batman', I wondered why we don't have similar superheroes in China," Lau asked.

For him, "Transformers" was the final trigger. "I burst out laughing when watching 'Transformers'," he said. "The effects were amazing, but the robots didn't know how to fight. So I decided our Chinese superheroes should be kung fu experts."

Thirty percent of the "Kung Fu Cyborg" budget was spent on motion capture and CGI to create gigantic mechanical robots transformed from normal-sized humanoid automatons. One was designed based on Bruce Lee, with fiery wheels for legs; another is a huge robotic version of "Mr. Vampire", the character made famous in the 1985 horror comedy hit that also found a following in Japan.

Kung fu actor Wu Jing plays the super cyborg "K-88."

"The director didn't show me the script, but simply told me I'm the most powerful robot in the world," he said. "I think he was testing me to see how much imagination I have in my acting."

"Kung Fu Cyborg," which also stars Hu Jun, Alex Fong, Sun Li and Ronald Cheng, will be released in July by Mei Ah in Hong Kong.

(CRI March 24, 2009)