Austin Smithard. [Photo provided to China Daily]

"I say they are crazy because this type of content is exactly what people here are looking for."

Brody shares Piech's vision of China's movie market.

The actor became a producer last year, with the launch of his own company, Fable House, with investments in part from Sparkle Roll Culture Media, a Beijing-based production group that's 50 percent owned by Jackie Chan, according to the Hollywood Reporter.

Growing up watching a lot of 1970s and '80s Hong Kong martial arts movies in New York's China Town area, Brody's connection with Chinese cinema has strengthened in the past few years with his major appearance in director Feng Xiaogang's historical epic 1942 and Chan's latest kung fu hit, Dragon Blade.

Brody says his company is in the process of creating Chinese content with the sensibilities that he can bring from a lifetime in the movie industry.

"Rather than the Hollywood idea of bringing something that may fit into the Chinese market, my intention is to help China build something that has the full depth of storytelling, with the infrastructure and the might that this nation has to bring those ideas to creation, and have that appeal to the world market."