Pics: Jackie Chan, Mike Tyson help kick off Shanghai Film Festival

Legendary actor Jackie Chan, Mike Tyson and Fan Bingbing walked the red carpet last night as a somewhat subdued Shanghai International Film Festival got underway in China’s bustling commercial capital. (Jackie Chan, 61, pictured on the red carpet yesterday at the festival in China).

Despite the rumour that he is dead...again, he is still very much alive. Jackie Chan posed on the red carpet during the opening ceremony of the Shanghai International Film Festival in Shanghai on June 13.

The festival offers cinema-goers the chance to see a number of American films that were never imported into theaters in China, which restricts the number of foreign films that can enter the market each year. Among some of the U.S. films screening are “Whiplash” and “Birdman.” Former boxer Mike Tyson is attending the festival not because he has an American film in the festival but because he has a guest part in the upcoming Chinese movie “Ip Man 3.” DreamWorks Animation chief Jeffrey Katzenberg also attended the event.

This year, the Shanghai fest will offer fans the chance to see all six films in the “Star Wars” series, a first for the mainland. “Jackie Chan Action Movie Week” is expected to draw a number of international filmmakers, including Renny Harlin and Brett Ratner for a series of forums and screenings that organizers said “will leverage the prestige of Jackie Chan in the world of action movies, highlight Chinese culture reflected in action movies, and pool together worldwide resources in support of the globalization of Chinese films and culture.”