Istanbul, where Asia and Europe merge, falls under the spell of Hong Kong and Hollywood star Jackie Chan

DIRECTOR Teddy Chen Tak-sam hasn't been home in four months. When you are working on a Jackie Chan movie, life can get that way. When you're working on the most expensive Hong Kong film ever made you can expect to be spending a lot of time on it.

'I think they must have cut off my electricity and water supply by now,' muses the director of Downtown Torpedoes and Purple Storm.

Chen is directing Accidental Spy, Chan's next Hong Kong blockbuster, for which Golden Harvest is reportedly forking out a record HK$170 million - almost three times the reported bill for the ground-breaking martial arts film Storm Riders.

Accidental Spy is about a training equipment salesman, Bei (Chan), duped into believing he is the long-lost son of a wealthy Korean businessman. Settling into the good life, he travels to Turkey, then Seoul, only to discover he is being used to locate a strain of virus that causes lung cancer. Besides Chan, the movie stars Hong Kong actor Eric Tsang Chi-wai (Metade Fumaca), journalist-turned-actress Kim Min (The Hole) and Taiwanese actor Wu Hsing-kuo (Temptation Of A Monk).

Location shooting has already taken the Accidental Spy cast and crew from Hong Kong to Korea. On this day, we are on an unfinished bridge in Asian Istanbul. The crew has already been shooting in Turkey for more than two months and has another fortnight to go.

'The authorities have been very co-operative. Initially we thought it would be difficult but they have helped us in blocking off busy streets,' Chen says.

Language has been a significant problem for Chen. The security and land crew are Turkish; the car stunt crew French and Canadian; the lead actress Kim Min is Korean but, thankfully for Chen, speaks fluent English; some of the cast are Taiwanese; the rest of the crew are from Hong Kong. It is the United Nations of film-making.