Hello, China, here's our new rayguns

Greg Broadmore is keen to see how the Chinese react to his vision. Photo / Supplied

A New Zealand company is exporting the high-tech weapons it has developed to China.

At a Wellington warehouse yesterday, crates were being packed with the armaments, which include such fearsome ordnance as the "Pomsom 6000 Sub Atomic Wave Gun" and the "Grordbort 66 Sonic Destabiliser".

But the firm claims the shipment is part of a charitable art exhibition and cultural exchange.

And it is. The international gun runner is Weta Workshop. The "weapons" are the collectible (and non-working) retro-futuristic rayguns of concept artist Greg Broadmore, whose paintings will also feature in The Exceptional Exhibition, which opens next week at the Sichuan Provincial Museum in Chengdu.

The show will include other props and sculpture from the workshop's productions as well as the Oscars workshop boss Richard Taylor won for The Lord of the Rings trilogy and King Kong.

Broadmore is bemused to think what the locals might think of his work, which has created the fictional Flash Gordon-meets-Monty Python universe of raygun inventor Dr Grordbort and Lord Coxswain, a derring-do British space explorer-soldier whose mission is to discover intelligent life on other planets - and then shoot it.

His adventures are depicted in Broadmore's new art-comic book Victory: Scientific Adventure Violence for Young Men and Literate Women.

"For me it's how the hell are the Chinese going to take it?" says Broadmore.

"This stuff is all Western cultural references about cultural imperialism from the West and playing on all those cliches and I don't know if they will get any of that - and then add science fiction into the mix.

"Hopefully they will get it as 'art' at the very least. I am sure they had a few Lord Coxswains venturing around China way back when."

Taylor says the exhibition has a serious purpose of fostering NZ-China relations after last year's free trade agreement.

"The opportunity to take this art exhibition to China gives us a forum in which to explore this idea. It is an opportunity to discuss how establishing of the trade agreement could help elevate a sharing of art and culture between New Zealand and Chinese artists. This is something I am hoping to explore while I am in China.

"It is a chance to showcase the New Zealand film industry and look for allegiances between our two industries.

"The Chinese film industry is growing at a significant speed and they will eventually want to make international pictures. To that end it would be fantastic if they considered New Zealand as a destination for their work."

Taylor and Broadmore are both going to Sichuan with their faux weapons and paraphernalia and will host public lectures on art as a career choice during their stay.

Any profits from the exhibition will go to Sichuan earthquake relief.