Sundance lines up rights for Asia Extreme
Filed under: Action, Foreign Language, Horror, Thrillers, Deals, Mystery & Suspense, Newsstand, Home Entertainment, Cinematical Indie
In association with the UK's Tartan Films, the Sundance
Channel has picked up exclusive television rights to a nice little pile of films that will air in their Asia Extreme
block at midnight on Sundays, starting in April. The films included in the package are 2/3 of Chan-wook Park's Revenge trilogy (Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance and Oldboy),
Samaritan
Girl, A
Tale of Two Sisters, Memento Mori, H, Phone, and A
Snake of June.Yes, seven of the eight films are Korean (A Snake of June is Japanese) - apparently that's what passes for "Asian" these days. China? Hong Kong? Never heard of them. And yes, the whole "Asia Extreme!" marketing gimmick is idiotic and offensive. But the fact is that it's great these movies are going to be on cable, no matter the context. It will be interesting, however, to see if Sundance still cares about airing these films when the current buzz over Korean film expires - that's when such a block will really be appreciated by fans of Asian cinema.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
3-02-2006 @ 2:46PM
m13b said...
I'm sorry, I fail to see what's so offensive about the "Asia Extreme" label.
Korea happen to "pass" for Asia because it's on the Asian continent... (?) Tartan Film also has films in their "Asia Extreme" collection that are not from Korea, but they're not as buzzworthy as folks like Park Chan-wook.
http://www.tartanvideo.com/ht_asia_extreme.asp
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3-02-2006 @ 2:56PM
Martha Fischer said...
I'm not denying that Korea is Asian, simply suggesting that if something is going to be labeled "Asia Extreme" it ought to be a little broader in scope. I object to the title because it's so absurd - the films are neither that extreme nor representative of the Asian continent as a whole. But, like I said, it'll be nice to be able to sit on my couch and watch them, no matter what they're called.
The films listed in the post are the only ones acquired by Sundance; they didn't take the whole collection.
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3-02-2006 @ 3:14PM
josh said...
Tartan's Asia Extreme line includes many films other than just those listed, and in fact the line has been around quite awhile. Films by directors such as John Woo, Takeshi Miike, Shinya Tsukamoto are included, as well as many other countries.
There are more than 70 films released on the imprint, according to the Tartan web site.
The reason the block of films is called Asia Extreme, I would guess, is that they are licensed from Tartanb Asia Extreme, who does indeed release relatively extreme pictures compared to most foreign film distributors... The Isle, Oldboy, Ichi The Killer, Battle Royale, Hardboiled... these are a bit more edgy than Shaolin Soccer or Amelie. The extreme moniker, while a bit hackneyed, applies.
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