Asian Content Attracts and Retains 80% of Region’s VOD Audiences, Report

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Columbia Pictures’ action-comedy movie “Bad Boys: Ride or Die” is set to play in cinemas in mainland China from June 22, it was announced on Thursday. Starring Will Smith and Martin Lawrence, the film is the fourth in the nearly 30-year-old Bad Boys franchise. It sees the titular Miami cops investigate corruption in the police force after their late boss is accused of colluding with a foreign mafia.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Los Angeles- and Bangkok-based film sales joint venture EST N8 is expanding into theatrical distribution in parts of Southeast Asia. As a first step, it will release the Michael Mann-directed “Ferrari” in Thailand on Thursday and in Myanmar on June 21. The film, which premiered in Venice in September last year, was released in other territories between December and February.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Two South Korean superstars Gianna Jun and Gang Dong-won head the cast of “Tempest,” an espionage action drama series being readied by streaming service Disney+ for release next year. The contemporary Korea-set story sees Jun portray a highly-accomplished diplomat and former ambassador to the U.S.

The final round of Britain’s Got Talent auditions aired on Sunday 16 May before it switches to the live semi-finals. Some viewers, however, didn't quite feel satisfied by the latest episode.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Sony is to launch an academy that will develop talent involved in the creation of anime, it was announced on Thursday. The initiative was revealed as part of Japanese electronics and entertainment conglomerate Sony Group Corporation’s annual corporate strategy presentation.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Fresh from its Cannes premiere George Miller’s “Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga” dashed into the lead at the South Korea cinema box office. In doing so, it deposed “The Roundup: Punishment,” the local crime actioner that has dominated Korean cinemagoing for the past month. “Furiosa” earned $575,000 from 75,400 ticket sales on Wednesday, giving it a Korean total of $597,000, including a sprinkling of preview showings, according to data from the Kobis tracking service that is operated by the Korean Film Council (Kofic).

Marlène Masure is TikTok’s new General Manager, Operations, across Europe the Middle East and Africa. She has replaced Rich Waterworth, who has left the Chinese-owned social media platform. The role gives Masure oversight of the mobile video company’s work with creators and publishers, effectively making her the organization’s content chief in the EMEA region.

Naman Ramachandran Indonesia has unveiled the four film projects that will be the pilot recipients of the country’s first government-funded film grant, Film Matchfund, at the Cannes Film Festival. As revealed by Variety, the $13 million annual fund was launched at Cannes 2023 by Nadiem Makarim, Indonesia‘s minister of education, culture, research and technology.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief “Delivery Man,” the next film project for hit-making Thai director Kongkiat Komesiri has been picked up by Los Angeles- and Bangkok-based EST N8. The company is launching it at the Cannes Market, adjacent to the Cannes Film Festival. Komesiri, known for his hit “Khun Pan” film trilogy, popular BL series “KinnPorsche” and horror films including “Slice” and “Art of the Devil II.” The new film, which he also wrote, is pitched as “a spine-chilling horror experience [..

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief The 27-member European Film Agency Directors Association and the Asian Film Alliance Network, which was established this time last year and currently has seven members, have agreed to work together on topics of common interest and to jointly develop a better world film ecosystem. At a meeting this week held on the sidelines of the Cannes Film Festival, EFAD and AFAN promised to enhance understanding and collaboration between Asian and European national film agencies. Topics included: dialog on policy and regulations; the development of the film industry in both regions; and addressing new media and challenges ahead. Separately, the founding AFAN members convened for a closed-door roundtable discussion on May 16.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Local blockbuster, “The Roundup: Punishment” extended its dominance of the South Korea theatrical box office for a fourth weekend. That lifted its cumulative total to a powerful $75 million. “Punishment,” the fourth part of a brutal action comedy film franchise produced by and starring Don Lee (aka Ma Dong-seok), earned $3.05 million between Friday and Sunday, according to data from Kobis, the tracking service operated by the Korean Film Council (KOFIC).

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief First-time feature director Constance Tsang makes a splash in Cannes with “Blue Sun Palace,” the first U.S. film in Critics Week that is in the Mandarin Chinese language. Set in a massage parlor, staffed with Chinese immigrants, in Queens, New York, the melodramatic film tells of how the romantic relationship between a man and a woman is disrupted by a sudden disappearance. Tsang was careful to avoid stereotypes and to be true to the community that she grew up in and observing. But the feature effort was also a big step up from the short films she cut her teeth on. Underlining that point, she amassed a powerful cast of leading Chinese-speaking actors, including Lee Kang-sheng (“What Time Is It There” and a dozen Tsai Ming-liang films), Wu Ke-xi (“Nina Wu,” “The Road to Mandalay”) and rising Mainland China star Xu Haipeng.How did you jump from a succession of short films into your first feature? I would say that jumping into the feature is exactly what happened.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Through the Lens Entertainment, the East-West film studio that made a splash at Cannes last year, is expanding into manga. It has launched Hoshi Studios, a manga development and publishing startup with outposts in Singapore and Japan. The outfit will create teams combining western film and TV talent with established Japanese manga artists to create books and other comic-book properties.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Netflix probes issues of sex education and societal taboos in Asia back in the 1970s in new series “Doctor Climax,” which it will upload from June 13. Supposedly drawn from real events, the show’s central character is a skin doctor who dreams of becoming a novelist. In the meantime, he moonlights as a newspaper sex-help columnist operating behind a pseudonym.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Female stunt performer Wiriya Caesar will step up into the lead performer role in upcoming Thai action film “The 24.” The film project is being launched this week in the Cannes Market by new international sales firm Boz Pictures. Wiriya (aka Porntip Wiriya, aka “Fan”) has previously been a stunt double for Mary-Elizabeth Winstead in “Kate” and Golshifteh Farahani in “Extraction,” and has other credits on “Thirteen Lives” and “Hidden Strike.” In “The 24” she will star as an assassin who wakes up with a time bomb strapped to her body. She has clear instructions to kill a hit list of 24 members of the Bangkok underground, with each successful hit buying her more time alive. Caesar is joined in the cast by Japan’s Sakaguchi Tak (“Re:Born,” “One Percenter,” “Versus”), Dan Chupong (“Ong Bak 1 &2,” “Born to Fight”), Sunny Pang (“The Night Comes for Us,” “Headshot” and Gareth Evans’ upcoming “Havoc”) and Simon Kook (“Ip Man 3,” “Mayhem”). The film, which will shoot in the fourth quarter of this year, is written and directed by Lee Thongkham (“The Maid,” “The Lake,” “Kitty the Killer”).

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Alex Garland’s critically-acclaimed “Civil War” has confirmed a theatrical release in mainland China. Marking the first A24 production to be released in China, it will arrive in cinemas from June 7. Huahua Media took rights to the film for China. Tech and entertainment giant Alibaba will also be partnering with Huahua throughout the release. Depicting a dystopian future America, the film’s story follows a team of military-embedded journalists as they race against time to reach Washington DC before rebel factions descend upon the White House.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Chatchai Chinnasri and Nattawut Sanyabut, two stars from runaway Thai hit film “The Undertaker,” are reunited on upcoming supernatural horror film “Night Shift.” The new film, directed by Chaiwat Sitalasai (“Spirit of Ramayana”), centers on an upcountry graveyard worker who finds himself haunted by spirits in an abandoned building in Bangkok. The film is directed by Chaiwat Sitalasai (“Spirit of Ramayana”) and is now in advanced pre-production ahead of a June start of production. Delivery is anticipated in March 2025.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief “Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes” opened in second place at the South Korean weekend box office, a distance behind local holdover title “The Roundup: Punishment.” “Punishment,” the fourth part of Don Lee’s “Roundup” action franchise, dominated proceedings for the third weekend in succession. It earned $5.53 million and advanced its cumulative total to $67.7 million, according to Kobis, the tracking service operated by the Korean Film Council (Kofic).

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Skyline Media, a leading Vietnamese studio, is getting ready for Cannes with a string of sales on its local and Southeast Asian film sales slate. Since appearing at FilMart in Hong Kong in March, Skyine has licensed Cambodian horror title “The Night Curse of Reatrei” to Taiwan’s Cai Chang International and to Exponenta Film for the CIS region.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Korean sales firm Finecut has inked multiple deals for horror thriller “Noise” and for “A Traveler’s Needs,” the recent Berlin prize-winner directed by Hong Sangsoo.“Noise” is a “multi-sensory and realistic horror” film that intertwines societal motifs of “floor noise” with suspenseful elements. Directed by Kim Soo-jin, the film centers around a woman with a hearing aid haunted by inexplicable sounds linked to her sister’s disappearance in her own apartment and attracting a malevolent presence.