At a press conference in Beijing on Friday, Chinese streaming site iQiyi announced that it had entered into an agreement with CCTV Movie Channel to coproduce more than 10 films. According to iQiyi, this five-year-long in-depth collaboration project includes three movie series, 10 made-for-streaming movies as well as movie distribution rights and financial backing.

As China's only national level movie channel, CCTV Movie Channel has produced more than 1,700 movies and has an audience base of more than a billion viewers.

Kungfu Man, iQiyi's first coproduction, will star well known martial arts star Chen Hu, the same actor who played the lead role in 2013 film Man of Tai Chi with Keanu Reeves. The new movie aims to push kungfu movies into new territory by mixing Chinese martial arts, oriental culture and futuristic robots together.

At the press conference, Chen said these attempts to include more varied elements is sure to be a breath of fresh air for traditional Chinese martial arts movies.

The movie is scheduled to reach cinemas in 2016.