Paramount+ to Launch in Japan via Partnerships With J:COM and Wowow

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Korean sales agency Finecut has struck a raft of rights sales on upcoming fantasy-romance “Secret: Untold Melody.” The film, which will premiere at the upcoming Hawaii International Film Festival, tells the tale of a man whose promising piano career is cut short by a wrist injury. He returns to Korea and falls in love with a mysterious woman at his music college.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief The growing media and entertainment connections between Korean Americans and those Koreans living in Korea may be changing both communities, a public discussion at the Busan International Film Festival on Friday heard. “Being in a room full of fans, feels like they accepted me as a member of the family. It feels like, culturally, Korea [may be in] a moment of transition,” said John Cho. He was joined in the debate by actor-director Justin Chon (“Gook”), director Lee Isaac Chung (“Minari”) and actor Steven Yeun, who are all either first or second generation immigrants to the U.S. They were careful not to speak about their current movies or projects out of respect for SAG strike protocols, but the avoidance of promotional niceties permitted a wider-ranging and more philosophical discussion. It touched on issues of identity, generational change and the development of the post-pandemic, streaming-era global village. “The reception I’ve had [in Busan] feels connective, not foreign, like living in a global reality,” said Yeun.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Korean sales agency, Finecut has picked up international sales rights to dance drama film “Victory,” which it will launch during the Asian Contents & Film Market that sits alongside the Busan Film Festival. The film, currently in post-production, is an upcoming title by Park Beom-su, a director known for a promising debut film “Red Carpet” in 2014. The story of “Victory” is centered around a high-school dance duo and an underdog school soccer team on a remote island. Two girls initially create a cheerleading club to pursue their love for dance, but they soon find themselves passionately cheering for the soccer team, eventually becoming a source of support for the entire island. The film stars Lee Hye-ri, a member of K-pop girl group Girl’s Day, who has become a popular actor with roles in “Monstrum” and TV’s “Reply 1998,” and Park Se-wan (“Life Is Beautiful,” “6/45,” “Collectors”) as the two protagonists.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Issues of cultural diversity, different Asian diaspora populations and the quest for the Asian cinematic identity came up for discussion on Thursday as the New Currents competition jury at the Busan International Film Festival prepared to get down to work. Filmmaker and academic Jung Sung-il, who is set as the jury president, appeared to invite a degree of dispute that might get the blood racing. “I have high hopes, hope for controversies and good conversations among the jurors,” he said in opening remarks.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Japan‘s Fair Trade Commission on Tuesday approved a remedial proposal by Toho Cinemas, the country’s largest movie theater operator, not to apply unfair pressure on third-party film distributors. The FTC opened an investigation into film booking practices in March of last year, having received reports that Toho Cinemas, which is also in the same family of companies as Japan’s leading distributor, had pressured other companies to only use its theaters. In its decision, reported by Japanese media, the FTC said that it accepted Toho Cinemas’ proposed remedies and said that it would not need to issue a cease-and-desist order or take other punitive measures that the anti-monopoly laws allow. The FTC explained that distributors choose so-called main cinemas as venues for promotional events (stage greetings, fan meetings and gala screenings). It found that since 2016 Toho would not accept film bookings at cinemas in its circuit unless a Toho Cinemas venue had also been designated as a main cinema. At the time of the complaint, the Asahi Shimbun business newspaper mentioned ‘intimidation’ by Toho.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief K-pop star Suzy, playing a retired singer, dazzles Yang Se-jong as a freshman student in forthcoming K-Romance series “Doona!”. The Korean show will launch on Netflix on Oct.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Anthony Chen (“The Breaking Ice”) is attached to direct and Shinho Lee to write “Sunset Park” for Barunson C&C, a film and TV production subsidiary of Barunson E&A, the Korean company that produced Oscar-winning hit “Parasite.” “Sunset Park” recounts a surprising journey in the U.S. made by a Korean father with his son’s room mate, after the man receives tragic news about his son.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief The Johnny & Associates talent agency in Japan is to dissolve following scandal caused by the acts of sexual abuse conducted by the group’s late founder Johnny Kitagawa. The company announced on Monday that it will break itself into two parts – one to be called Smile-Up, entirely devoted to compensating victims – the other as a talent agency operating with a new name, that has yet to be decided. The group began to take action last month following two damning investigations that found that Kitagawa’s abuse had been hugely extensive and continued for years and that the company and Japanese media had ignored, if not covered it up. On Monday it said that some 325 victims had come forward to claim compensation. In a statement by Fujishima read out in her absence, the former chief executive, who owns 100% of the agency, said it was her duty as Kitagawa’s kin to put an end to Johnny & Associates. “I want to remove all traces of Johnny Kitagawa from this world,” her statement said.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief TIFFCOM, the rights market that sits alongside the Tokyo International Film Festival, is celebrating its return to an in-person format for the first time since 2019, with a move to another venue and the launch of the new Tokyo Story Market. The three-day market (Oct. 25-27) will relocate from Ikkebukuro to the Tokyo Metropolitan Industrial Trade Center (aka Hamamatsucho-Kan) in Hamamatsucho district.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Netflix has given a green light to a third season of dystopian Japanese thriller series “Alice in Borderland.” The announcement was made by Netflix VP of APAC content, Kim Minyoung on the second day of the APOS conference in Indonesia. Based on the manga series of the same name by Aso Haro, “Alice in Borderland” follows the story of Arisu after he is transported to a parallel universe in which he has to play and win games to remain alive. The games are divided into four categories represented by suits on a deck of playing cards.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Equal numbers of Chinese and Japanese titles adorn the main competition section of the Toyo International Film Festival, which was announced on Wednesday – three each. Among the Chinese films is “Snow Leopard,” the last feature by the late Pema Tseden, and “Dwelling by the West Lake,” directed by Gu Xiaogang, the surprisingly inexperienced joint recipient of this year’s Kurosawa Award. The full competition with 15 titles, set to play between Oct. 23 and Nov.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Paramount+ has unveiled three new Korean TV shows which it will launch in selected international territories including North America, the U.K. and parts of continental Europe.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Studio Ghibli, the iconic Japanese cartoon firm behind Miyazaki Hayao’s recent “The Boy and the Heron” is selling a controlling stake to Japanese broadcaster NTV.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Disney has given a green light to a second season of Japanese drama -horror series “Gannibal.” Set in a fictional Japanese village, season one of Gannibal saw recently relocated police officer Agawa Daigo arrive in his new home a broken man. Wrestling with his guilt over an event that traumatized his daughter, things started off promisingly for the new arrival before a series of alarming events quickly led Agawa to the horrifying realization that something was deeply wrong with the villagers and the mysterious Goto family.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Ozu Yasujiro, the leading Japanese film director behind classics including “Tokyo Story” and “Late Spring,” has had his double birth and death anniversaries – Ozu died in 1963 on the day of his 60th birthday, a little more than a year after the release of his last film “An Autumn Afternoon” – celebrated throughout 2023 at places as varied as the Cannes Film Festival, Los Angeles’ Margaret Herrick Library and the Taiwan Film & Audiovisual Institute. But it falls to October’s Tokyo International Film Festival to put on this year’s biggest and most comprehensive reconstruction of Ozu’s surprisingly varied career. Working in conjunction with the National Film Archive of Japan, the festival will present an extensive retrospective that covers almost all the films that Ozu directed (TIFF/NFAJ Classics: Ozu Yasujiro Week) from Oct. 24-29. Ozu spent his entire career, from camera assistant in 1923 to renown director in 1962, as an employee of major Japanese studio Shochiku, with all the advantages and disadvantages such an arrangement brought. While Ozu is best known for his stripped-down dramas, often centered on family relationships, sometimes troubled or contentious, involving parents and young or grown-up children, many hinging on questions of marriage, generational misunderstandings or the loneliness of the elderly, the director’s register may not entirely have been of his own choosing. “The apparent consistency of the post-war films surely owes as much to this production situation as to Ozu’s aesthetic choices,” wrote critic Tony Rayns in a recent Sight & Sound portrait.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Steven Yeun has bucked stereotypes and carved a new niche as sexy Asian leading man with his roles in “Burning” and “Beef.” Justin Chon transitioned from a supporting role in “Twilight” to directing “Gook,” “Jamojaya” and half of Apple TV+’s “Pachinko.” And Busan-born Daniel Dae Kim has expanded from “Lost” and “Hawaii” to becoming one of Hollywood’s leading producers. The stateside successes of Korean-born and Korean American talent are growing and are worth celebrating. But the Busan International Film Festival’s planned party is being dialed down a notch under the impact of the twin writers’ and SAG Actors strikes in the U.S. Busan’s ‘Special Program in Focus: Korean Diasporic Cinema’ will go ahead with a screening schedule including six films, public talk sessions that include Oscar-winning actor Youn Yuh-jung, Lee Isaac Chung, director of Oscar-winning film “Minari,” and John Cho, the Seoul-born “Star Trek” and “Searching” star.

Vanessa Redgrave To Be Feted At European Film Awards

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Japanese comedian Shinagawa Hiroshi has been set as the director of “Among the Dead,” the first project flowing from the co-production and co-financing venture between U.S.-based People of Culture Studios and Japan’s Yoshimoto Kogyo. The previously-announced project is an English-language, found footage zombie movie in which, following an apocalypse of the undead, one emotionally unstable man abandons friends and family to go live among the few remaining zombies before they’re all gone. The screenplay was written by father/daughter duo, Andy Cosby (“Hellboy,” “2 Guns” “Eureka”) and Charlie Danger Cosby, collectively known as Midnight Pizza. Other writing credits go to Brian Caldirola, Patrick Hasson and Juan Carlos Saizarbitoria. Shinagawa is one-half of the comedy duo Shinagawa Shoji, alongside Tomoharu Shoji, and has a considerable acting filmography in his own right including “Kantoku Kansen,” “Deadman Inferno,” “One Third,” and “Drop.” Shinagawa additionally served as director, writer, and starred in the 2011 comedy-drama “Slapstick Brothers,” which won a Citizen’s Choice Award for feature film and an award from the Japanese Academy for rookie of the year.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Japan’s Dean Fujioka (“Fullmetal Alchemist,” “The Man From The Sea”) and the U.K.’s Callum Woodhouse (“All Creatures Great and Small,” “The Durrells”) are set to star in “Orang Ikan,” a WWII-set creature horror film. The picture is scripted by Singapore and Indonesia-based Mike Wiluan (“Buffalo Boys,” HBO series “Grisse”) who will also direct the picture from next month. International rights to “Orang Ikan” have been picked up by London-based SC Films International, which will give the project its sales launch at the Busan festival and accompanying market next month. Set in the Pacific, 1942, a Japanese ship transports prisoners of war to occupied territories as slave labor.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief A+E Networks is continuing its investment in Korean entertainment content with “A Good Day to Be a Dog,” a fantasy romantic comedy that will upload from Oct. 11. Within Korea, the show will play on public broadcaster MBC and Lifetime Korea, releasing at the rate of one episode per week, every Wednesday.