The rise of Mao Zedong in China is to be brought to the big screen by actor-director Robert De Niro, entertainment press reported on Monday.

The Oscar-winning star of Taxi Driver and Raging Bull has secured the rights to Chasing the Dragon: A Veteran Journalist's Firsthand Account of the 1949 Chinese Revolution written by reporter Roy Rowan, Variety reported.

Rowan, a former Shanghai-based correspondent for Time and Life who was one of the few western journalists reporting from inside China at the time of Mao's rise to power, will act as a consultant on the film, the report added.

(Agencied via CRI.cn July 19, 2007)