Taiwan Showbiz Latest News and Updates

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Yakusho Koji, the Japanese star who was named best actor at Cannes this year in Wim Wenders’ “Perfect Days,” is set as the subject of a seven-title showcase at the upcoming Golden Horse Film Festival in Taiwan. Among the septet are classic erotic film “Lost Paradise” from 1997, this year’s “Perfect Days” and 1996 film “Shall We Dance,” which was later remade in Hollywood. A former civil servant who first ventured into Taiga drama (long-running TV series broadcast by NHK), then played in several films by Kurosawa Akira, Yakusho became a major 1990s star in Asia as a result of “Shall We Dance?,” in which he portrayed a ball room dancer, and “Lost Paradise.” He also starred in Itami Juzo’s “Tampopo.” Directed by Morita Yoshimitsu, “Lost Paradise” is a tale of a man and a woman whose marriages no longer make them happy, but who rediscover desire in each other’s arms. Fatefully, however, their newfound joy means ever greater transgression of Japan’s strict morality laws. At the time of the release of “Lost Paradise,” the producers deliberately darkened the erotic scenes to make them less explicit and to achieve less restrictive release classifications.

John Hopewell Chief International Correspondent “On the Go,” a spirited, freewheeling road movie capturing the first lead performance in a movie of ‘Elite’ star Omar Ayuso, has clinched its first major sales, selling to Salzgeber for Germany, Austria and Switzerland, and to Cineplex for Taiwan. Paris-based MPM Premium picked up world sales rights to “On the Go” in the run-up to the Locarno Festival where it world premiered in its Filmmakers of the Present section.

WOODZ has announced his 2023 ‘OO-LI And’ world tour.The K-pop musician is set to kick off his ‘OO-LI And’ tour with a two-night concert in Seoul, South Korea on October 28 and 29. WOODZ will then play three shows in Japan in early-November, as well as one concert in Taiwan.At the start of end of November, the singer kick off the US leg of his tour, which will feature six shows over two weeks in New York, Chicago, Los Angeles and more.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Kim Jee-woon’s black comedy “Cobweb,” which debuted this year at Cannes, is set for a U.S. theatrical release in early 2024.

Elsa Keslassy International Correspondent Chinese director Bi Gan, whose 2018 film “Long Day’s Journey into Night” played at Cannes, will next direct “Resurrection.” The ambitious sci-fi detective movie is to be headlined by Chinese superstar Jackson Yee (“Better Days”) and Taiwanese actor Shu Qi (“The Assassin”) who sits on this year’s Venice jury. Boasting Bi’s edgy aesthetic and narrative style, the film tells the story of a woman whose consciousness falls into the “eternal time zone” during a surgical procedure.

Thania Garcia Universal Music Greater China (UMGC) has appointed Timothy Xu as its new chairman and CEO of the Greater China division. He will be responsible for the music company’s operations across mainland China, Hong Kong and Taiwan, effective immediately.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief The QCinema International Film Festival in the Philippines has beefed up its industry program by introducing a project market strand, QCinema Project Market (QPM). It acts as a networking and funding platform for Filipino and Southeast Asian projects in advanced development.

Leo Barraclough International Features Editor “Stella. A Life.,” which stars Berlinale best actress award-winner Paula Beer, has been sold to France, Scandinavia and Australia. The film will have a market screening at Toronto Film Festival, and will have its world premiere with a Gala Screening at the Zurich Film Festival.

This year’s Taipei Golden Horse Film Festival will open with a double bill of Snow In Midsummer, directed by Malaysia’s Chong Keat-aun, and Be With Me, from Taiwanese filmmaker Hwarng Wern-ying.

Taiwan’s Bureau of Audiovisual and Music Industry Development (BAMID) has announced the submission of Cheng Wei-hao’s Marry My Dead Body for the Best International Feature category of next year’s Oscars. 

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief The Taipei Golden Horse Film Festival has announced dual opening night titles, both inspired by faith and local memories, as well as its closing gala presentation. The festival will open with “Snow in Midsummer,” directed by Chong Keat-aun, a former winner of the Golden Horse Film Awards’ best new director prize with “The Story of Southern Islet,” and “Be With Me,” by Hwarng Wern-ying, who previously won Golden Horse prizes for art direction, costume and makeup. The festival, which runs Nov.

EXCLUSIVE: Karlovy Vary competition pic The Hypnosis, starring Herbert Nordrum (The Worst Person In The World) and Asta August (The Kingdom), has inked a series of international deals for Totem Films. 

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief “Lost in Perfection,” the second film by journalist-turned-filmmaker Sung Hsin-yin (“On Happiness Road”), has set Oct. 27 as the date of its commercial release in Sung’s native Taiwan. Ahead of the Taiwan release, the film is expected to have its world premiere at a major festival.

Leo Barraclough International Features Editor “Evil Does Not Exist,” the new film by the Oscar-winning auteur Ryūsuke Hamaguchi, has sold to several additional territories. The film will world premiere in competition at the Venice Film Festival, will have its North America premiere as a special presentation at Toronto, and will go on to screen at New York and San Sebastian. Hamaguchi received Oscar nominations last year for directing and adapted screenplay, shared with Takamasa Ôe, for “Drive My Car.” The film was also nominated in the best picture category and won the international feature film Oscar.

John Hopewell Chief International Correspondent Headlined respectively by “Sound of Metal” lead Riz Ahmed and “Matrix” stars Jessica Henwick and Hugo Weaving, Christos Nikou’s “Fingernails” and Kitty Green’s “The Royal Hotel” figure among seven newly unveiled films which will play in main competition at September’s San Sebastian Film Festival. Also in the running are buzz titles “A Journey in Spring,” from Taiwan’s Peng Tzu-Hui, Wang Ping-Wen, and “Kalak,” directed by Denmark’s Isabella Eklöf.

Aussie filmmaker Kitty Green’s latest pic, The Royal Hotel, starring Julia Garner, and Fingernails, the latest film from Christos Nikou, with Riz Ahmed and Jessie Buckley, have been added to San Sebastian’s competition lineup.

Disney+ has scored the next breakout hit from Asia after “Squid Game.” Star-studded international espionage series “Moving” has become the most watched Korean original on Disney+ globally and Hulu in the U.S., based on hours streamed after seven days. In its first week since launch on Aug. 9, the series also became the most watched series on Disney+ across Asia Pacific, including in Korea, Japan, Southeast Asia, Hong Kong and Taiwan – based on hours watched – and the biggest premiere on Disney+ in Korea to date, based on hours streamed in the first week since launch.

Song of the Bandits, starring Kim Nam-gil and Seohyun.Set in the 1920s, the upcoming Song of the Bandits revolves around Koreans who have escaped to the Gando region in China during the Japanese occupation. The series is led by Kim Nam-gil (Through the Darkness) and Girls’ Generation’s Seohyun (Jinxed at First).The new trailer opens with an introduction to the bandits of Gando led by Lee Yoon (played by Kim), a defected Japanese soldier who now steals and kills to protect his countrymen in the region.“Chinese land, Japanese money and Joseon’s people.

Chile on Wednesday named the anti-colonialist Western The Settlers from first-time feature filmmaker Felipe Gálvez as its official entry for Best International Feature at the 2024 Academy Awards.

Refresh for latest…: It’s been another very busy weekend at the international box office with milestones and great holds, as well as a new entry and local-language movies adding to the mix. 

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Production begins next month on “Black Tide Island,” a historical drama series that presents a Taiwanese insight into the Korean War. Production is headed by Hakka TV and Go Inside. Halla TV is the local Hakka-language linear satellite television channel operated by Taiwan Broadcasting System.

Yeo Siew Hua, the Singaporean director whose “A Land Imagined” won the Locarno Film Festival’s top prize in 2018, has cast acclaimed Taiwanese actors Lee Kang-Sheng (“What Time Is It There?”, “Days”) and Wu Chien-Ho (“A Sun”) in his new “Stranger Eyes.” The film, a thriller with domestic surveillance at its core, is currently shooting. It is set to wrap post-production by early 2024 and start a festival run thereafter. International sales are handled by France’s Playtime.

The UK’s Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) has opened applications to hire a new chair for the British Film Institute (BFI) as Tim Richards’s tenure in the role is set to end next year.

A Time Called You, starring Ahn Hyo-seop and Jeon Yeo-been.Based on the popular 2019 Taiwanese television series Someday or One Day, Netflix’s new K-drama A Time Called You will focus on the story of Han Jun-hee (played by Vincenzo‘s Jeon Yeo-been), who is still grieving her late boyband Gu Yeon-jun (A Business Proposal‘s Ahn Hyo-seop) a year after his passing.Jun-hee travels back in time, 25 years to 1998, where she wakes in up in the body of 18-year-old Kwon Min-ju. As Jun-hee tries to figure out how she ended up in this situation, she meets Nam Si-heon, a near doppelgänger of the late Yeon-jun.The new teaser for A Time Called You opens with glimpses of Jun-hee’s life with Yeon-jun, and their sweet moments together before his tragic accident.

Eduardo Williams’ latest Locarno main competition title “The Human Surge 3.” Ever since he broke into the festival scene with 2011’s “I Could See a Puma,” and later solidified his festival standing with Golden Leopard – Filmmakers of the Present winner “The Human Surge” (2016), Eduardo Williams’ oeuvre has stood out by embracing the formal possibilities of new media, and rethinking our relationship with images through its insightful inquiries on human connectivity and digital textures. These thematic concerns are also integral to “The Human Surge 3,” in which he continues his ever-present forage for novel cinematic avenues.

The organizer of a Malaysian music festival is seeking 12.3 million ringgit ($2.7 million) in losses from British band The 1975, after its lead singer’s onstage protest of of the country’s anti-gay laws prompted authorities to shut down the festival, the company’s lawyer said Friday.

EXCLUSIVE: Following the powerhouse Netflix launch of his latest feature, the action thriller Kill Boksoon, Byun Sung-Hyun has signed with Independent Artist Group for representation.

John Bleasdale Guest Contributor Celebrated Malaysian-Taiwanese director Tsai Ming-liang sat down with Variety on the eve of receiving the Locarno Film Festival Career Award. The award is only the latest in a series of prizes from major European festivals the art-house maverick has received – from the 1994 Golden Lion from Venice for “Vive L’Amour” to the Silver Bear that “The River” won in Berlin in 1997. So how does he feel to have received this latest sign of esteem from the film community? “This is very special for me,” Tsai says.

Courtney Howard While “Love in Taipei” promises transportive and transformative escapades with its adaptation of Abigail Hing Wen’s novel “Loveboat, Taipei,” the story’s core strengths are undervalued in the translation from book to screen. This Paramount Plus feature, centered on a young woman embarking on a life-changing overseas journey, only pays lip service to the struggle of a first-generation Asian-American caught between two worlds.

Sequin- and self-actualization sprinkled congratulations are in order for Greta Gerwig, Margot Robbie and all the dolls and guys as the phenomenon that is Barbie has now crossed $1B global in just its third weekend. We said yesterday it was on the cusp, and now here’s the pudding.

Match Me! Shepherding them are 30 producers hailing from the length and breadth of Europe, plus Taiwan and the Dominican Republic, in town for the three-day event, kicking off Friday. Set up at mainly young-ish production houses, they underscore major trends now coursing through European cinema: the rise of genre and animation – such as Christophe Reveille’s “To Live and Die with Che Guevara” an animated doc feature about three guerrillas who pledged allegiance to Che Guevara – as well as films of large artistic ambition made on contained budgets, such as Taiwan’s “Goodbye North, Goodbye.” Above all, there’s a gathering shift from straight-arrow arthouse drama to genre-bending thrillers that nevertheless maintain art pics’ traditional social issue focus.

Busan International Film Festival has announced the 30 projects selected for this year’s Asian Project Market (APM), including new projects from leading Asian filmmakers such as Japan’s Koji Fukada, Indonesia’s Makbul Mubarak and India’s Rima Das.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief The Busan film festival’s Asian Project Market is set to welcome several of the region’s top auteurs either as producers or prospective directors at its next edition in October. APM organizers Thursday unveiled 30 projects to be presented during a four-day round of one-on-one meetings and pitching sessions. India’s Rima Das (“Tora’s Husband”) will pitch “Malti My Love.” Japan’s Fukada Koji (“Love Life,” “Harmonium”) will pitch “Nagi Notes.” Indonesia’s Makbul Mubarak (“Autobiography”) will pitch “Watch It Burn.” Among the successful producers adding their weight to APM contenders are: Patrick Mao Huang (“Moneyboys,” “Tiger Stripes”) selling Peter Ho’s project “Appetite for Desire”; Jeremy Chua (“Inside the Yellow Cocoon Shell,” “Autobiography”), pitching Rafael Manuel’s “Filipinana”; Ichiyama Shozo (“Ash Is Puirest White”) pitching Song Fang’s Japan-China collaboration “Full Moon”; Fran Borgia (“A Land Imagined,” “Tiger Stripes”) pitching Aakash Chhabra’s “I’ll Smile in September”; and Tan Chui Mui (“Barbarian Invasion”) pitching Jian Xiaoshuan’s “To Kill A Mongolian Horse.” The project market and the Asian Contents & Film Market are both scheduled to operate Oct.

International cinema chain Vue says it has recorded its “best ever week” in large part due to the Barbie and Oppenheimer releases ten days ago.

Fans of singer and songwriter Coco Lee, who was known for her powerful voice and live performances, were gathering with flowers to pay their respects to their idol at her funeral in Hong Kong on Monday.The evening services were expected to be attended by her family, friends and supporters. Lee died July 5 at age 48.She was born in Hong Kong and attended school in San Francisco before releasing her first album in 1994 at age 19.

STAYC have announced their 2023 ‘Teenfresh’ world tour, featuring shows in the US, Asia and more.STAYC are set to embark on their newly announced ‘Teenfresh’ world tour, in support of their upcoming mini-album of the same name, which will be released in August. The tour will first kick off with a two-date concert in Seoul, South Korea on September 23 and 24.Following which, STAYC will head stateside to play seven shows across five states in October.