The late Bruce Lee stars in a movie set to be released in 2004.

Bruce Lee lives!

Using computer graphics technology, a South Korean filmmaker is making a $50 million movie that will be the first to feature a long-dead star in a leading role. Chul Shin, a producer of 15 Korean-language films, said he is developing software that will fool audiences into believing they're seeing Bruce Lee in the flesh.

"I think you saw Final Fantasy?" the 45-year-old producer said in halting English from his office in South Korea. "The characters in that film didn't have the vitality essential to life. We will create vitality."

Final Fantasy, an animated science-fiction adventure, is considered the state of the art in creating close to photo-realistic animation. Films like Jet Li's current film, The One, have short sequences featuring digitally created actors.

But Shin's Bruce Lee film, tentatively titled Dragon Warrior and slated for release in 2004, takes the quest for photo-realistic "synthespians" to an entirely new level.

The devil will be in the details. "It's very difficult to create liquids on the skin, like sweat or blood," Shin said. "That's one thing we're now solving."

Shin is looking for an actor whose voice resembles Lee's voice to read his lines; he says it's a relatively simple task to digitally doctor the voice to make it a near-exact replica of Lee's voice.

Shin also has a short list of Asian martial arts performers who have learned to imitate Lee's moves very closely. He plans to film them using motion capture equipment that he can then incorporate into his digital Bruce Lee models -- giving fight sequences a natural flow.

To secure a worldwide audience, Shin wants to find American stars for the film, and will make the dialog in English. (Most of Lee's films were in Cantonese). Shin plans to open a West Coast office early next year.

Ideally, he'll make the film himself, and then ally with a Hollywood studio to market it worldwide. Sony Pictures bankrolled the biggest Asian-themed box office smash to date, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon.

The producer declines to talk about the plot for the film, saying it's now in development.

Shin said he has raised $30 million of the $50 million he needs for the film from Asian investors, and doesn't foresee any problems raising the rest.

For Shin, a Bruce Lee fan since high school, the film's biggest challenge may have been persuading Lee's widow and daughter to back his idea. Both are living in the United States, and took about four years of convincing as to why a Korean producer practically unknown in the United States should make a Bruce Lee movie.

"I just kept coming back and back," he said. "Finally, they were convinced by my enthusiasm."

Bruce Lee made his American debut in 1966 as Kato in the TV series The Green Hornet. His first breakout hit was 1971's The Big Boss, followed by Fists of Fury, Way of the Dragon and his biggest hit, Enter the Dragon. He died in 1973 at age 32 of an apparent cerebral edema.