Alibaba founder Jack Ma unveils debut film s trailer at sales fest

Shanghai Nov 11 (IANS) Chinese e-commerce major Alibaba s founder Jack Ma unveiled the trailer of his debut film on Friday at the company s 11.11 Global Shopping Festival an annual sales event.

Titled "Gong Shou Dao" the film is based on the Chinese martial art form Tai Chi practiced for its defense training as well as its health benefits with the 53-year-old founder and Executive Chairman of Alibaba playing the role of a Tai Chi master. Along with popular Australian Hollywood actress Nicole Kidman Ma dressed in a traditional Tai Chi costume unveiled the trailer at the shopping extravaganza s gala night. The film has been produced by celebrated Chinese film actor and martial artist Jet Li and was directed by the Chinese actor Wen Zhang. Ma known to be a practitioner of the Chinese martial art form can be seen performing some spectacular Tai Chi moves in the seven-minute-long trailer. Taking to entrepreneurship after quitting his job as a teacher in Hangzhou about 180km to the south of Shanghai Ma had practiced the art form for nearly 30 years. The twenty-minute short film will be in Mandarin and has been subtitled in English for viewers outside China. Through the film the makers aim to share Chinese culture with the rest of the world and pay tribute to an art form that has been practiced for over 5 000 years in China. (Bhavana Akella is in Shanghai at the invitation of Alibaba. She can be contacted at bhavana.a@ians.in) --IANS bha/vd