The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor, the third of the Mummy series directed by Rob Cohen will be released at the Majestic cinema Colombo from August 15.

Following the success of 'The Mummy' and 'The Mummy Returns', the latest comes under the produciton of Bob Ducsay, Sean Daniel, Stephen Sommers and James Jacks, the film stars Brendan Fraser, Jet Li, Maria Bello, John Hannah, Russell Wong, Liam Cunningham, Luke Ford, Isabella Leong and Michelle Yeoh.

The film begins with a narration about the rise to power of Emperor Han, the Dragon Emperor. He conquered all his enemies, many of whom were buried under the Great Wall of China, and mastered the five elements, but could not conquer death.

To that end, he sought the help of Zi Yuan, who knew where to find the secret of immortality. Jin declares to his first in command, General Ming, that no man is to touch her; however, the two fell in love during their search. After Zi Yuan supposedly casts the immortality spell on Jin, he ushers Zi Yuan to the balcony to watch as General Ming is pulled apart by horses.

He then stabs Zi Yuan. She reveals that she has in fact cursed the Emperor and his army, turning them into terra cotta statues, and manages to escape.

Started in November 2001, director Sommers wanted to do third Mummy film, as a "bigger and better produciton" and in December 2005, with a review of a script written by Alfred Gough and Miles Millar was about a Chinese mummy (China's first emperor, who wants to take over the world with his army of accursed warriors in 1940) he initated the project.

The idea of the emperor and his army is based on the real-life Qin emperor Qin Shi Huang, who was buried amidst thousands of crafted and fired terra cotta soldiers, called the Terracotta Army, dated at latest to 210 BC.

The Tamil dubed version of the film will be released at ‘Eros’-Pamankada on the same date.