NEW DELHI: Legendary martial arts exponent Jackie Chan's movie will be the opening film at the 17th Far East Film Festival in Udine in Italy.

The event opens with the international festival premiere of Dragon Blade. The period epic about exiled Chinese soldiers partnering with Roman soldiers to protect China's borders also stars John Cusack and Adrien Brody along with Chan.

The Festival will be held from 24 April to 2 May and will screen around seventy feature films from eleven countries. The festival will see six world premieres, 13 international premieres, 25 European premiers and 14 Italian premieres.

A highlight will be a live concert by Joe Hisaishi, the composer best known for his soundtracks to films by Hayao Miyazaki and Takeshi Kitano, a day before the formal opening.

The festival's closing film is Tsui Hark’s The Taking of Tiger Mountain, a period action-adventure in which Communist soldiers infiltrate and raid a bandit group's mountain base. It stars Zhang Hanyu, Tony Leung Ka-fai and Lin Gengxin. The festival will screen the 2D version of the film.

Five other films will have their international festival premiere in Italy namely Parasyte: Part 1 from Japan, Miss Granny from China and gangster epic Gangnam Blues 1970 from South Korea, romance thriller My Ordinary Love Story and palace drama The Royal Tailor.

This year's films include Hong Kong thriller Helios, Chinese romance The Old Cinderella, Japanese boxing drama 100 Yen Love and Yubari award-winning comedy Make Room.

Other films include China road movie The Continent, Vietnamese horror Hollow and Cambodian youth drama The Last Reel. It is the first time that a Cambodian film will be screened at the Italian festival.

The programme includes a six-film retrospective dedicated to Hong Kong martial arts films from the 1970s and 1980s. The festival will also screen two restored classics, China's Two Stage Sisters (1964) and samurai dramatic The Tragedy of Bushido (1960) from Japan.