Like Son: Last News

EXCLUSIVE: UTA has signed Hirokazu Kore-eda, the internationally celebrated Japanese filmmaker known for titles like Monster and Shoplifters, for representation in all areas.

The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Ace Japanese film director Kore-eda Hirokazu is in advanced post-production on “Asura,” a family drama series that marks his second show for global streaming giant Netflix. “Asura,” which will premiere on Jan. 9, 2025, is a modern take on “Like Asura” a 1979 family drama series that was originally based on a Mukoda Kuniko novel of the same title.

Vanity Fair profile, an “executive murder plot” killed the movie and nearly took his career out with it.“Vice Versa” was a body-swap movie that starred Reinhold and Fred Savage playing the part of his son. It was released in 1988, and although the actor had appeared in a number of successful movies prior to this one, the movie did not perform at the box office.According to Reinhold, that was because of several things that went down behind the scenes.He explained that David Puttnam, a producer of “Chariots of Fire,” became the CEO of Columbia Pictures in 1986, and “he wanted to bring the price of lead actors down, but make the backend profits real.”Reinhold believed in his ideas, but “he wasn’t, unfortunately, around long enough to prove that formula” because of what he called an “executive murder plot” by higher-ups in the industry.He said that Puttnam “went public with his disdain for how high the salaries were and what he wanted to do, and he pissed a lot of people off.

Great Absence, the second feature film from Japanese director Kei Chika-ura, is receiving its world premiere in Toronto International Film Festival’s Platform section. Inspired by Kei’s real-life experiences, the film tells the story of an actor living in Tokyo who is forced to travel home when the police call to say his father is suffering from dementia and has lost touch with reality. Making matters worse, his father’s second wife appears to be missing. The actor makes the trip home with his own wife, full of conflicted emotions over a man who left the family when he was still a child, and starts an exploration into the mysteries of his father’s life.

Japan’s most prolific and successful contemporary filmmaker, Hirokazu Kore-Eda, is back in a favorite place, Cannes, for the unveiling of his latest effort, a return to his Japanese storytelling roots and a good one at that. For his seventh film in the main Cannes competition and his ninth overall (counting two that appeared in Un Certain Regard), Monster represents the first movie since his 1995 debut feature Mabofosi that the director has not had a screenplay credit on — this film being written by Sakamoto Yuji — but clearly with its humanist family-centered themes is right in this master craftsman’s wheelhouse.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Netflix will give a May launch to “Sanctuary,” a sports drama series set in the specialized world of Japanese sumo wrestling. Produced by the Slowtide company for the streamer, the show follows a juvenile delinquent who becomes a sumo apprentice. He soon finds himself on a collision course with a voiceless wrestler carrying a secret. Netflix pitches it as “a gritty look into the underbelly of professional sumo, a world full of young men with ambitions for money, women, fame, and power […] where some may find sanctuary with a history of more than 1,500 years in Japan’s traditional culture and as a religious ceremony.”

MK2 Managing Director Fionnuala Jamison was the focus of the London Film Festival’s second ‘spotlight’ industry talk Wednesday, during which she provided insights on navigating the international film market, including how regional prejudices can impact how films are sold.

EXCLUSIVE: In a dream on-screen sitcom pairing two decades in the making, Damon Wayans and Damon Wayans Jr. are set to star in a father-son multi-camera comedy. CBS is developing the untitled project, co-written by the elder Wayans and former Last Man Standing executive producer Kevin Hench.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Korean film producer Baek Jaeho has been named as the inaugural recipient of the Choon-yun Award, a prize set up in honor of Lee Choon-yun, the late chairman of the Korean Association of Film Art & Industry. The award, worth KRW10 million ($7,100), will be presented on the sidelines of the Busan International Film Festival on Oct. 6 in conjunction with IOK Company. Baek participated in the production of 2021 title “Snowball” and was previously involved in indie films “Jane” in 2016 and last year’s “Role.” He also acts and directs. Veteran director Kang Je-kyu praised Baek as ”a filmmaker who maintains his values and outspreads his potential in the insufficient independent film environment.”

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Kore-eda Hirokazu will be the star turn at Emerging Japanese Films, a Los Angeles showcase organized by Japan’s Visual Industry Promotion Organization. The event, running Sept. 27 – Oct. 1, 2022, at the Harmony Gold Preview House, consists of four newly-released, dramatic and awards-worthy Japanese feature films and a retrospective night that honors Kore-eda, whose “Shoplifters” won the Palme d’Or at Cannes in 2018. Kore-eda will take part in a live video conversation after the screening of his “Like Father, Like Son,” a child-swap drama film that Steven Spielberg and Dreamworks previously optioned for remake.

A special hand-me-down! For his Trooping the Colour carriage debut, Prince Louis was dressed in the same outfit his dad, Prince William, wore to the event 37 years ago.

Following the sparsely attended media conference for Close at Cannes this morning, journalists packed their way into the press room to hear Broker director Hirokazu Kore-Eda and cast, giving them a standing ovation.

Brent Lang Executive Editor of Film and MediaNeon has teamed with CJ ENM to acquire North American distribution rights to “Broker,” the new film from writer and director Kore-eda Hirokazu. The deal was inked prior to the film’s premiere in Cannes, where “Broker” is slated to premiere in competition.

In the wake of the Cannes Palme d’Or and Oscar winning success of Bong Joon-Ho’s Parasite, NEON is re-teaming with CJ ENM to pick up the North American distribution rights to Broker, from writer-director Kore-eda Hirokazu ahead of the pic’s global premiere at Cannes.