Associated Press

Mumbai, May 30: Hollywood actor Chris Tucker is set to star in a Hollywood remake of the Bollywood hit Munnabhai MBBS, which is about a mafioso who enrolls in medical school.

Munnabhai MBBS was also a hit among South Asians living abroad, and will be remade as Gangster M.D., the remake's director, Mira Nair was quoted as saying to Mumbai Mirror.

"Chris Tucker will be playing the main character in the film," said Nair, adding that filming should begin after Tucker finishes making Rush Hour.

Munnabhai MBBS tells the story of a mafia leader who pretends to be a doctor whenever his parents visit him from their village.

But when his cover is blown, he decides to better himself by trying to become a doctor, which he hopes will also prove himself to the woman he loves and her father, a dean/principal of a medical college-cum-hospital.

Nair said she may cast some actors from the Bollywood original, and is on the lookout for an Indian woman to star opposite Tucker.

Nair, who splits her time between homes in New York and Uganda, has made movies including Vanity Fair, Monsoon Wedding and Mississippi Masala.

Her 1988 film, Salaam Bombay! about the city's street children, was nominated for an Academy Award for best foreign language film.