Basketball player-turned actor Mengke Bateer tries on costumes as he joins the star-studded cast of the action thriller "Bodyguards and Assassins". [sohu.com]

Filmmaker Peter Chan has said he wants to make the action thriller "Bodyguards and Assassins" an all-star film. By that, he doesn't just mean movie stars.

Chinese basketball star Mengke Bateer, once an NBA player, has become the latest addition to the film's cast, which already includes Donnie Yen, Leon Lai, Nicholas Tse, Eric Tsang and Hu Jun, Sohu.com reports.

The 2.1-meter (6.9 feet) Bateer will play a street vendor and is set to challenge many action scenes. "Have you ever seen such tall vendor?" the sports star joked as he joined other cast members in Shanghai recently.

Although this is not his film debut - Bateer starred in a family drama in 2006 named "Blue Hanggai" - the star said memorizing lines is "so much harder" than playing basketball.

"Bodyguards and Assassins", produced by Peter Chan and directed by Teddy Chen, tells a story of a group of bodyguards who protect revolutionary forerunner Sun Yat-Sen from assassins in 1905 Hong Kong.

The film is slated to hit theaters over the Christmas season.

(CRI May 22, 2009)