Tokyo Film Festival Gives Prominence to Chinese Titles in Competition and Gala Selections

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Two titles which debuted at Cannes this year were named as the major prize-winners at the seventh edition of the Pingyao International Film Festival in China. Wei Shujun’s black comedy-thriller “Only the River Flows” won the festival’s Fei Mu prize for best Chinese film.

Wei Shujun’s Only The River Flows was presented with Best Film in the Fei Mu Awards at this year’s Pingyao International Film Festival (PYIFF), while Inside The Yellow Cocoon Shell, directed by Vietnam’s Pham Thien An, won Best Film in the festival’s Roberto Rossellini Awards.

The Wrestler, directed by Bangladeshi-Canadian filmmaker Iqbal H. Chowdhury, and September 1923, from Japan’s Tatsuya Mori, picked up the New Currents Awards as Busan International Film Festival wrapped a busy 28th edition on October 13. 

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Iqbal H. Choudhury’s “The Wrestler” and Mori Tatsutya’s “September 1923” were announced joint winners of the New Currents competition at the Busan International Film Festival. “The Wrester” “was like a single round match, magically depicting an exciting narrative,” the jury said.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief “Solids by the Seashore,” “The Berefts” and “House of the Seasons” were all multiple winners of the Vision Awards at the Busan International Film Festival on Thursday evening. Another winner was “Yellow Door: ’90s Lo-fi Film Club,” a documentary celebrating Korea’s early cinephiles, who include “Parasite” director Bong Joon-ho. The Vision Awards precede the main New Currents Competition and the Jiseok Competition prizes which will be presented on Saturday at the festival’s closing ceremony.FIPRESCI Award“That Summer’s Lie” Dir. Sohn Hyun-lok.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Some twenty aspiring film projects have been selected to participate in the inaugural edition of the Qcinema Project Market (Nov. 18-19) that this year represents and expansion of the QCinema Film Festival in The Philippines’ Quezon City. The selected titles include development projects by several of East Asia’s better known independent and art-house directors and projects.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Leading Chinese film director Zhang Yimou is to receive a lifetime achievement award at the Tokyo International Film Festival later this month. The award will be presented to him during the festival’s opening ceremony on Oct. 23. Later, Zhang will take part in a special talk session at the TIFF Loungeco-hosted by the Japan Foundation. Additionally, his “Full River Red,” which was a box office sensation in China at the beginning of the year, will play as a gala selection during the Tokyo festival. Zhang, consider to be among China’s “fifth generation” of filmmakers, has had an extraordinary career that he has sustained for over three decades.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief EST N8, a recently-established finance, production and rights sales company, has added a Hong Kong remake of classic film “Tape” and the LGBT comedy-drama “ASOG” to its bulging sales slate at the AFCM market that accompanies the Busan Intenational Film Festival. “Tape” tells the story of three best friends who, following an event at a graduation party that transforms their lives, reunite 15 years later where a case of blackmail forces them to confront a terrible secret from their past. The original film starred Ethan Hawke, Uma Thurman and Robert Sean Leonard and played at the Sundance, Toronto and Rotterdam festivals.In the Cantonese-language remake directed by Bizhan Tong, Selena Lee, Kenny Kwan, and Adam Pak play the contemporary characters while Mason Fung, Summer Chan, and Angus Yeung portray the characters’ younger versions. The script is written by Stephen Belber, Tong, Lee and Bonnie Lo, and is an adaptation of Belber’s own scripts from both the original film and stage play. The writers and director have significantly modernized the script to reflect advances in technology. Producers on the film include Tong, Lee and Belber.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Seoul-based sales company Finecut has struck key Asian deals for the vigilante action movie “Brave Citizen.” In Korea, the film is presented by Content Wavve, one of the country’s leading OTT platforms and is headed for a Korean theatrical release on Oct. 25.Finecut has sealed deals with Kadokawa Plus for Japan, with Moviecloud for Taiwan and with Lumix Medi for Vietnam.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Leading Korean content firm Showbox Corp. has added “The Killers,” an unusual anthology film, to its Busan rights sales line up. The film takes its title and themes from Ernest Hemingway’s 1927 short story of the same name.

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 “I hope we can communicate and reconcile again,” said Busan Mayor Park Heong-joon on the opening night of the South Korean city’s film festival. With so much of the dialogue in opening drama “Because I Hate Korea” discussing Korean societal rigidities, group loyalties, long working hours and poor pay (which cause the protagonist to emigrate to laid-back New Zealand), it is easy to forget that many of these characteristics are what may have saved this year’s Busan International FIlm Festival from going off the rails.

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 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.

It’s no exaggeration to say that Korea’s Busan International Film Festival (BIFF) has been through a fair amount of drama this year. 

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief EST N8, a recently-established finance, production and film sales company, has appointed Chen ; Tata’ Xinrui as its sales and distribution manager. Chen will serve under Tenten Wei, head of studios for EST N8 and will be based in Los Angeles. EST N8 is a partnership between EST Studios and Bangkok-based N8 Studios that was officially launched at Cannes this year and operates under the combined moniker.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief A clutch of Chinese movies released for the end of September holiday season dominated the global box office over the latest weekend. Mainland Chinese-produced films took first, third and fifth places across the planet, according to U.S.-based data service Comscore. Comscore shows “Under the Light,” which released only in mainland China, grossing an estimated $54 million between Friday and Sunday.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Trinity CineAsia has picked up U.K. and Ireland rights to Chinese hit film “The Ex-Files 4: Marriage Plan.” The film ranked third worldwide at the box office over the latest weekend. Trinity CineAsia will give it an official release from Oct.

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.