Feluda, the popular detective in a fiction penned by Satyajit Ray in the 1970s, will soon be chasing goons in Hong Kong on the trail of a stolen painting by Italian Renaissance painter Tintoretto.

Feluda, the refined middle-class private investigator, played by Tollywood  actor Sabyasachi Chakraborty, will conduct his investigations in the magnificent backdrop of the Hong Kong skyline in Tintorettor Jishu.

“I am hopeful about wrapping up the shooting for the Hong Kong part of Tintorettor Jishu by August 2008 and the film will be ready for release by next Christmas,” film-maker Sandip Ray, son of Satyajit Ray, said. “There have been films in recent times shot in places like Singapore and London. But these are mostly song and dance sequences. In my film, Hong Kong is an integral part of the storyline,” Sandip said.

The super sleuth with the razor-sharp mind, piercing gaze, whipcord physique and a bhadralok’to boot, first hit the screen in the 70s in Sonar Kella (The Golden Fortress), which was followed by Jai Baba Felunath (The Mystery of the Elephant God), both directed by Satyajit Ray.

“We are trying to make Tintorettor Jishu in sync with the previous Feluda films, directed by my father, while making it more contemporary,” he said. Speaking about his selection of Sabyasachi for the new-age Feluda, Sandip said: “My Feluda is a mixture of brain and brawn.”

“Feluda is undoubtedly techno-savvy. He knows more about a mobile phone with blue tooth than an ordinary user but he doesn’t own one. Feluda fans will be outraged if I show him using a mobile,” said Sandip, as he described Pradosh Chandra Mitter, affectionately known as Feluda.

He was also confident of the casts which include Sabyasachi Chakraborty as Feluda, Parambrata Chatterjee as Topshe, his young assistant, and Bibhu Bhattacharjee as the endearingly misinformed thriller writer, Lalmohanbabu or Lalmohon Ganguly.