Los Angeles-based Harbor Light Entertainment and Tokyo-based Lotus have assembled an international consortium to remake helmer Akira Kurosawa’s 1950 classic "Rashomon."

Action will be moved from ancient Japan to contempo America, where a court must decide the facts about the rape of a woman and the murder of her husband.

Harbor Light and Lotus will be joined by L.A.’s Lexicon Filmed Entertainment and Singapore’s Upside Down Entertainment on the English-language project, "Rashomon 2010."

Harbor Light announced a "Rashomon" remake in 2001, but struggled to get the pic greenlit.

The partners are also gearing up to make "The Masque of Black Death," a feature toon based on an unproduced Kurosawa script penned in 1977.

The partners plan to have the remake and the toon in theaters in 2010 as part of a 100th anni celebration of Kurosawa’s birth.

Kurosawa planned to have Japanese anime auteur Osamu Tezuka make the pic, but the project never got off the ground before Kurosawa’s death in 1998.

Set in Russia in the early 20th century, "The Masque of Black Death" depicts a disease that kills most of the population.

Source: Variety