Shingle calls for projects to be headed by country's top names
Wendy Kan, April 21, 2002
Chan's 2-year-old production shingle joins a host of Asian companies expecting to find strength in numbers: Hong Kong's Emperor Media Group, Media Asia and Filmko; South Korea's CJ Entertainment and Sidus; Thailand's Sahamongkol, Tai Entertainment, and Film Bangkok; and Japan's Shochiku and Omega.
Says Wouter Barendrecht, co-chairman of Fortissimo Film Sales, who, among other things, sells Asian arthouse films: "There are a whole bunch of producers out there right now, both in Hong Kong and the region, who understand that regionalization and internationalization are the keys to survival and growth for Asian filmmaking." Barendrecht counts among them, of course, Peter Chan.
Chan is best known for his award-winning "Comrades, Almost a Love Story." He also helmed the DreamWorks-backed "The Love Letter." As a director, he is currently working on a U.S. remake of his popular gender-bender "He's a Woman, She's a Man" and the adaptation of 1999 National Book Award winner "Waiting" by Ha Jin. With Applause, Chan's thinking is simple: As Hong Kong's film markets increasingly shrink, filmmakers must look outward, and not just to the big bright light across the ocean, Hollywood.
"It helps to spread the risks," says Chan, 39, who co-founded Applause with Teddy Chen and Allan Fung. "Each market in Asia isn't big enough to support itself. We know that firsthand since we were the top producers for 20 years. The idea is to make films appealing to all markets." For this to happen, projects for Applause must be headed by a country's top names; newcomers won't be able to attract the necessary domestic audiences.
So in Thai film "Jan Dara," helmed by Nonzee Nimbibutr, Applause helped cast Hong Kong starlet Christy Chung. In supernatural thriller "Three," currently in post-production, each of the directors -- Chan, Nimbibutr and Korea's Kim Jee-Woon ("The Foul King") -- are expected to be the top draw. In Applause's May release, "The Eye," brother directors Oxide and Danny Pang are expected to appeal to audiences in Thailand and Hong Kong, since they have connections to each.
This strategy helps each country introduce their talent to one another, making it easier for the next project to wade into another market. Chan has mainly tapped the resources of Hong Kong and Asia's emerging filmmaking centers, Korea and Thailand.
Applause's "One Fine Spring Day" however, included Japan alongside Korea and Hong Kong. This strategy could work well for Hong Kong, whose movies are no longer the blockbuster attractions they once were in other parts of Asia.
Some critics however, express skepticism about the idea of bringing Asia -- with so many races, cultures and languages -- together.
Chan dismisses them. For one, he says, having to read subtitles in another language isn't as big a problem as people often anticipate with Western audiences: Korean and Thai audiences are used to reading Chinese on the screen.
Hong Kong audiences, in turn, are used to watching Hollywood hits with Chinese subtitles. Thai and Korean films -- like "Iron Ladies" and "My Sassy Girl" -- also are finding audiences in Hong Kong.
Chan insists Applause doesn't have a set formula or criteria to qualify its movies as pan-Asian. Still, ill-defined as it is, this open-minded strategy may just be what the region needs to rejuvenate its lackluster movie markets.
