The celebrated Hugh Hudson movie, set in the early 1920s, featured Ian Charleson as the Scottish Christian runner and Ben Cross as British Jew Harold Abrahams.

The film picked up four Oscars, including Best Picture, and now directors Stephen Shin and Michael Parker are set to pick up the story where Chariots of Fire left off.

The Last Race will follow Liddell after his win at the Paris Olympics in 1924, when he returned to his missionary work in China. He later died in a Japanese internment camp in 1945.

Shakespeare in Love star Fiennes will officially announce the project at an upcoming ceremony in China, where the film will shoot.

Chinese actor Xiao Dou will play Liddell's prisoner friend Xu Niu. Further casting details have yet to be revealed.