Bharath Bala productions who make television commercials, documentaries and music videos, have tied up with Walt Disney to produce an English feature film in which audience can experience a fusion of Japanese and Indian martial arts.

This martial arts film titled ‘19 Steps’ will feature Kamal Hassan, Japanese superstar Tadanobu Asano, and Asin Thotukmkkal who shot to fame with blockbuster Ghajini, both the Tamil and Hindi versions.

Asin who made her debut in Sathyan Anthikkad’s Narendran Makan Jayakanthan Vaka in 2001 is acting opposite Kamalhasan for the second time. The first was Dasavathaaram directed by K.S Ravikumar.

19 Steps will be directed by Bharath Bala and will have music by A.R Rahman. Bala and Rahman have made music videos like Jana Gana Mana and Vande Mataram earlier.

Asin who won the Film fare Award is now completing her second Bollywood film London Dreams in which Salman Khan and Ajay Devgan play key roles.

In the film Kamal plays the role of a Kalaripayattu guru who trains Tadanobu Asano to fight against his enemies. Asin plays a Malayali princess.

The film is based on a script written by five time National award winner for screenplay M.T Vasudevan Nair. He is the writer behind Oru Vadakkan Veeragatha and upcoming Hariharan film Pazhassi Raja, the costliest Malayalam film.

MT’s script is re-written to give international feel suitable for overseas audience by Hollywood script doctors.

The casting for this film is progressing. The selection of actors for key roles is apt as Kamal is an actor who strives for perfection and brings his films to higher standards. Asin too is a perfectionist who has already started studying Kalaripayattu for this film.

The shooting of the $ 50 million film is likely to start in the April 2009; a good portion will be shot in Kerala.

It will have English, Hindi, Tamil, Telugu and Japanese versions.