in 2007, lundgren directed and starred in the mongolia-based action adventure, "diamond dogs". lundgren portrays the character of xander ronson, a mercenary hired by a group of american fortune hunters to act as their guide and bodyguard, while they search for a priceless buddhist artifact deep within the chinese wilderness. they get more than they bargained for, however, as they come face to face with russian mercenaries also after the artifact. the film, a canadian-chinese production, was shot on location in inner mongolia. later in 2007, lundgren wrote, directed and starred in "missionary man" alongside charles solomon jr.. described as a "modern western" by lundgren, he plays a lone, bible-preaching stranger named ryder who comes into a small texas town on his 1970's harley-davidson motorcycle to attend the funeral of his good friend j.j., a local native american carpenter, only to later get mixed up in a series of brawls with a local gang. according to lundgren, it had long been a desire of his to direct a western, having long been a fan of clint eastwood and john wayne, yet he did not want to spend the time and money building an old western town and hiring horses, so decided to set it in modern times with a motorbike instead of entering the town on a horse in the manner than clint eastwood would. lundgren's co-writer, frank valdez's wife's brother happened to be a notable actor working in texas and invited lundgren's team to shoot there. the film was shot on location in waxahachie, south of dallas and was produced by andrew stevens and it was specially screened at the 2008 afi dallas film festival.