Frater Asia: Last News

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Cheng Pei-pei, the beloved Chinese actor who died last month, will be honored with a lifetime achievement award at the Golden Horse Film Awards in November. Cheng, considered a pioneer of martial arts roles for female actors, died in the San Francisco Bay Area after suffering from a degenerative brain disease. She was 78.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Investment in content for the theatrical film, TV and streaming markets of India and East Asia amounted to $15.5 billion in 2023, a new report shows. But spending slowed to a growth rate of just 4%, a significant slowdown compared with the investment peak in 2021-22, driven by COVID. Media Partners Asia‘s (MPA) 2024 Asia Video Content Dynamics, report which covers India, Korea, Indonesia, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam, describes the slowdown as “a normalization of budgets and a rationalization of local content investment in streaming VOD.” India was the strongest-growing market, with a robust 12% growth, driven primarily by sports content, while Indonesia followed with a 5% increase.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief “MA – Cry of Silence,” a topical drama film from Myanmar, which will debut in the Busan festival’s New Currents main competition, has been picked up by Franco-Japanese sales firm Alpha Violet. With Myanmar’s civil war now in its third year, the film tracks Mi-Thet, a young Burmese woman employed in a garment factory in Yangon. For the past two months, wages have not been paid and a group of female workers, led by the young Nyein-Nyein, get organized to claim.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Korean thriller film “A Girl With Closed Eyes,” which will have a market launch at the Toronto International Film Festival, before world premiering in October’s Busan festival, has secured a world sales representative in Finecut. The company is also representing “By the Stream,” the latest project by Korean auteur Hong Sangsoo, which premiered in Locarno earlier this month, where it won the best performance award, and will next play in the Centrepiece section in Toronto.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief “Alien: Romulus” claimed a second weekend victory at the South Korean theatrical box office in another quiet session that may signal the end of the summer season. The horror-action franchise film collected $2.70 million between Friday and Sunday, according to data from Kobis, the tracking service operated by the Korean Film Council (Kofic). After 12 days on release, it has a cumulative of $9.81 million.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Michael Brooks has been appointed GM for Australia and New Zealand at Warner Bros. Discovery. In addition to his existing role as MD, Warner Bros.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Oddball Canadian comedy, “Universal Language” was named the winner of the Bright Horizons Award on Saturday at the Melbourne International Film Festival. Other top prizes went to went to Latvian director Gints Zibalodis’ animated ecological fantasy, “Flow” and to Jaydon Martin, creator of docu-fiction hybrid “Flathead.” “It has been such a thrill to see the enthusiasm and outright cinematic maximalism with which Melbourne audiences have taken to the MIFF program this year – across 280 films, we’ve seen audiences celebrate incredible new Australian filmmaking with us, discover the year’s cinematic highlights, explore unseen corners of the history of film and meet over 130 attending guests and artists,” said MIFF artistic director Al Cossar.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief “Alien: Romulus” has become Hollywood’s second biggest film of the year at the mainland China box office, following a strong second weekend hold. The film picked up RMB140 million ($19.7 million) between Friday and Sunday in China, according to data from consultancy firm Artisan Gateway. That compares favorably with its $26.2 million opening weekend and gives it a cumulative of RMB523 ($73.7 million) since releasing on Aug.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Japanese director Tanigaki Kenji has completed production in Bangkok, Thailand, on his upcoming film “The Furious,” intended as an elite-level Asian martial arts actioner. Written by Mak Tin Shu, the film follows a simple tradesman (portrayed by mainland Chinese star Xie Miao) who fights his way through a complex web of criminals and evil agents in a frantic attempt to win back his kidnapped daughter by any means necessary. (For full Bangkok set report see here.) Produced by the region’s top producer Bill Kong (“Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon,” “Hero”), Frank Hui and Shan Tam, the film features a pan-Asian cast that also includes Indonesian’s Joe Taslim (“The Raid,” “Mortal Kombat”), Thai star Jeeja Yanin (“Chocolate”), Yang Enyu, Brian Le, Joey Iwanaga and Yayan Ruhian.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief The “police station” built in a few days from an old retail unit in Surawong, central Bangkok, is so realistic from the outside that several pedestrians stop and stare, perhaps wondering if this is the place they should come to report some petty crime in the adjacent Patpong red light district. Inside, the building’s temporary reality as a set for the martial arts action movie “The Furious” is quickly revealed.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Lucy Liu and Singer Studios are expanding their “Pirate Queen” media universe into graphic novels and a podcast. The franchise is built around a retelling of the stories about real life character Cheng Shih, who was a powerful female pirate in the South China Sea at the beginning of the 18th century. The franchise’s first iteration, a VR experience based on a story by Maja Bodenstein, won the Tribeca Storyscapes Award and the Raindance Discovery Award in 2023.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief “A Pale View of Hills,” the debut novel of Nobel Prize-winning author Kazuo Ishiguro, is being adapted as a feature film. The picture is now in production and being directed by Japan’s Ishikawa Kei. The film is presented by U-Next, Japan’s leading local streaming company.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief China-based video streaming company iQiyi recorded a 5% decrease in revenue in the second quarter and an 80% plunge in net profits. The firm said Thursday that revenues in the April to June period came in at RMB7.45 billion ($1.04 billion at current rates of exchange), down year-on-year and also 6% lower than the first quarter.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Sony Music Entertainment Korea has signed a global distribution deal with Attrakt Entertainment, a fast-rising K-pop management company. They aim to expand the global reach of Fifty Fifty, a girl group that recently had to be rebuilt after most of its members quit. SMEK said that it will: “spearhead the worldwide distribution of Fifty Fifty’s music, while also overseeing global marketing campaigns and business development initiatives.” Sony’s Arista Records will handle U.S.-based marketing efforts and distribution.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief When was the last time a Chinese-developed video game created a global stir as boisterous as the launch of “Black Myth: Wukong”? The noise is mostly plaudits for the quality of the game’s action, design and playability, which has been amplified by Chinese state media. But that has been dampened somewhat by clumsy censorship and attempts to sweep aside allegations of sexism at the company that developed “Wukong.” In its review, U.K.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Daisy Ridley, star of the “Star Wars” sequel trilogy, is a different kind of vigilante in Zak Hilditch‘s upcoming horror-survival-thriller “We Bury the Dead.” The film, which will have its world premiere at Australia‘s Adelaide Film Festival in November, unveiled a first look at Ridley in the role of a desperate woman who joins a body retrieval unit, hoping to find her husband alive after a disastrous military experiment destroys the population of Tasmania. As she sifts through the corpses, she discovers that many are not quite dead. Ridley’s character looks haggard as she journeys to the south of Tasmania and is forced to make peace with her own unfinished business in the face of futility.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief “Mojo,” a rom-com film whose cast of oddball characters includes a cow who has gone viral, has been set as the first feature to emerge from Sympatico, a U.K.-Malaysia coproduction venture that launched last year. The film is to be directed by Min Lim, who also heads operations at Sympatico.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Some 18 books, manga and webtoons hailing from outside Korea have been added to the Busan International Film Festival’s Busan Story Market. They join 29 previously announced pieces of IP from Korea and 30 Asian film projects selected for the Asian Project Market. The overseas IP selections include ten from Taiwan spanning the drama and romance genres with elements of fantasy, thriller and science fiction, and six from Japan (five books and one comic) covering sci-fi, murder mystery, time travel and stage magic.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief “Naruto,” the long-running Japanese anime series “Naruto” will get its own free, ad-supported linear channel as part of Amazon Freevee. The move follows a deal between local rights holder Viz Media and the platform and means that fans have choice between a dedicated linear channel and an on-demand viewing experience. It also follows similar FAST channel launches for “Hunter x Hunter” and “Sailor Moon Classic.” Created as a 1999 manga (comic book) by renowned mangaka Kishimoto Masashi, the series sees Naruto as a young shinobi (or ninja) with an incorrigible knack for mischief.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Sky Documentaries has unveiled plans for “Boyzone,” a three-part documentary series that will examine the trials and tribulations of Irish boyband and 1990s pop sensation Boyzone. “For the first time in 30 years, band members Ronan Keating, Keith Duffy, Shane Lynch and Michael Graham grant rare and exclusive interview access [..] revealing their personal experiences in a band that sold over 25 million records worldwide, the boys also talk candidly about how they grappled with the true cost of global fame,” Sky said. “They confront the strained relationships and tragic events that have had a lasting impact on all their lives, families and friendships.” “The documentary examines the key events that shaped Boyzone, including the highs and lows of global stardom, the intense tabloid intrusion in 1990’s Britain forcing Stephen Gately to come out, and after a sensational comeback in 2007, a devastating tragedy struck the band, as Gately died.” The series is a Curious Films production, commissioned for Sky Documentaries by Poppy Dixon, director of documentaries and factual, and Tom Barry, commissioning editor.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Jonah Lomu, who was the youngest ever New Zealand rugby union player and who rose to become the sport’s biggest icon, is to be immortalized in “Lomu,” a feature documentary. As previously announced, the film is being co-directed by Ireland’s Gavin FitzGerald (Netflix’s “Conor McGregor: Notorious” and “Liam Gallagher: As It Was”) and Tongan-New Zealander Vea Mafile’o, who is known for her works “Lea Tupu’anga/Mother Tongue” and “For My Father’s Kingdom.” Mafile’o also shares familial roots with Lomu in Tonga’s Ha’apai islands. “Lomu” delves into the life of the 6ft 5 inch (1.95m) Tongan-Kiwi player who was known for his speed and agility as well as his huge size and who holds the record for the most tries scored in Rugby World Cup history.