Kaspi.kz turned Jackie Chan into 'Jackie-zhan', an ordinary Kazakh taxi driver

Kaspi.kz, Kazakhstan's leading fintech with a super app used by 15 million people in a country of 20 million, wanted to celebrate itself as a company 'made in Kazakhstan' and inspire pride in a homegrown brand.

A 'what if the global star were actually Kazakhstani?' premise: naturalize his name to Jackie-zhan, seat him in a taxi, and give him a Kaspi card issued in 60 seconds.

A teaser, then a first film in which Jackie-zhan gets a Kaspi bank card in 60 seconds at a card machine and picks up CEO Mikhail Lomtadze, who cameos. Shot in Almaty over four production days by a 230-person international crew under Spanish director Lonan Garcia, including 30 setups with Chan in a single day — his only note on the storyboard: 'Easy!'. A whole series of films follows.

The campaign kicked off in October 2026 with the first film and a teaser; a major film series was still in post-production at reporting, with no performance numbers released yet.

Action movie legend Jackie Chan had been living in Kazakhstan for months while filming Armour of God 4. Kaspi.kz, the country's leading fintech, took the situation one step further: what if Jackie Chan were actually Kazakhstani? In that case, the campaign reasons, he wouldn't be Jackie Chan anymore — he'd be Jackie-zhan ('zhan' being a real Kazakh name ending), maybe working as a taxi driver, and, like every other Kazakhstani, a Kaspi.kz customer.

The GForce Grey campaign, 'Jackie-zhan. Made in Kazakhstan', opened with a teaser and a first film in which Jackie-zhan, now an ordinary Kazakh cabbie, gets a Kaspi bank card issued in just 60 seconds at a Kaspi card machine, then picks up a passenger played by Kaspi CEO Mikhail Lomtadze in a cameo. The idea at the heart of the campaign is to celebrate Kaspi.kz as a homegrown company and inspire pride in a brand that grew into a service used by millions.

The production scale dwarfs the agency's previous star campaign with Antonio Banderas: four shooting days across multiple Almaty locations versus two days and one location, a 230-person international crew led by Spanish director Lonan Garcia (also a cameo), and 30 setups with Chan in a single day. Executive creative director Yevgeny Kostylev: 'Nobody believed it was possible... when Jackie looked at it, his only response was: Easy!' A series of further Jackie-zhan stories around different Kaspi services was still in post-production when the campaign was reported on October 8, 2026.

The premise metabolizes a coincidence — the star really was in the country for months — into the whole campaign idea.

Naturalizing the name to Jackie-zhan does the storytelling in one word: the foreign icon becomes a local everyman.

The product demo is written into the fiction: the 60-second card issuance is the plot of the first film, not a cutaway.

Scale signaled commitment: four shooting days, 230 crew and a film series make it the agency's biggest recent production.

A celebrity endorsement upgrades into a story when the star's real circumstances are folded into the fiction — the joke only lands because Chan really was in the country.

The first film and teaser were live in October 2026; further Jackie-zhan films around different Kaspi services were announced, with the agency still in post-production at reporting. No performance results had been published.