Director Michel Gondry and Rogen had no idea of Chou's popularity in the Pacific region, but Gondry initiated a Skype audition after watching a video clip of Chou playing billiards. In the video Chou shows his dry humor by making the loser act like a drunkard.

It is the first time Chou (right) has worked on a Hollywood project.

"I did not know he is a singer," Gondry says. "In the video he was cool, which we thought would make for dramatic chemistry with Rogen, who never stops talking."

"It is so cool that they chose me for my acting skills rather than my star aura in the Asian market," Chou says. "It's like making friends - when someone approaches me because I am a star, that makes me uncomfortable, but if I run into someone on the basketball court and we get along well, that feels much better."

The best part of working in a Hollywood production, he says, is that it allows Westerners to have a better understanding of the Chinese. Kato's identity in earlier adaptations has been both Japanese and Filipino, but in this film he is a Shanghai-born Chinese.

"Western audiences will find that Chinese people can not only fight, they can also sing, dance, play the piano and basketball," Chou says, adding that he does all of this in the film, with some of those written into the script and others added to the plot impromptu. He even performs magic, he reveals, but that scene did not make it to the film's final version.

Chou admits that he is fully aware of online criticism by Asian-American actors of his broken English, and producer Neal H. Moritz's defense, saying the accent was endearing.

"They can have their opinion," Chou says. "For me, as long as I can speak some Chinese lines in the film, it's cool."

He is also thrilled that there are Chinese touches to Black Beauty, the fantastic car of the duo, besides the fact that the song at the film's ending is a Chinese one written by him.

"All these things were rare in previous Hollywood movies," he says. "I am a person with strong awareness of who I am, I am Chinese. I feel happy that we can place some Chinese elements in a Hollywood film. In the film I sing an English song with Seth, and I hope one day we will sing a Chinese song together in a film."

The film took top spot at the box office in the US over its debut weekend on Jan 14, but had received mixed reviews.

Roger Ebert calls it "an almost unendurable demonstration of a movie", in his influential column in Chicago Sun-Times.

Colin Covert of Minneapolis Star Tribune, however, thinks "the movie these guys have come up with is fresh, funny and a bewildering surprise".

Chou is unaffected by the controversy. "I don't live on Hollywood films, I have my Asian market, which is thriving now," he says.

The film is more like a window, opening for him a bigger stage on which to realize more dreams.

"Maybe I will compose songs for Hollywood films, or direct a film with capital from Hollywood," he says. "But the only thing I am sure of now is, if there were a sequel, I would do it."

The film will be released in China on Feb 6.