The wife of media magnate Rupert Murdoch will produce an English-language Chinese drama starring Zhang Ziyi, who, some say, is China’s hottest female acting star.

The film, Snow Flower and the Secret Fan, tells the 19th-century story of the lifetime friendship of Lily and Snow Flower, who were subject to the strict codes governing the women of the times. Wendi Murdoch, a China-born former news executive and beauty, will produce the movie along with the Malaysian-Chinese wife of MGM chairman Harry Sloan, Florence.

Zhang won acclaim in 2005’s Memoirs of a Geisha.

She will also produce, while Wayne Wang of Joy Luck Club fame will direct.