If you’re a movie lover, chances are you’ve watched some behind the scenes bits of making of videos. Maybe you’ve seen a documentary on a film you like. But have you ever wondered what an indie filmmaker has to go through? Is movie making as glamorous as we think it could be?
Among a raft of new titles announced on Friday, Arrow is reviving a trio of contemporary classic revenge tales for a December 9 re-release of celebrated auteur Park Chan-wook‘s highly-acclaimed gems, The Vengeance Trilogy.
I wonder if we’ll ever one day see a revival of some kind of either of the Sonny Chiba/Etsuko Shihomi Street Fighter franchises. At any rate though, there will always be the classics, and of course, Arrow Video now with its own stake in refurbished reprints with add-ons for the special features in its upcoming Blu-Ray set.
It’s been quite a rollercoaster in the last several years for UK-based Third Window Films. After launching in 2005 with an interest in tapping into Asian cult cinema for better profusion overseas, the company found itself wrestling with theatrical distribution in 2012 and resorted to scaling down to release to DVD and Blu-Ray rollout efforts with the help of Fusion Media Group until parent company Curzon folded it into its Artificial Eye shingle.
That pretty much left Third Window Films blowing in the wind back in January which further left things uncertain along with other distributors of the same size. On Thursday, the humble niche distributor of Japanese titles like Love Exposure, Tetsuo 1 and 2, Tokyo Fist and recently listed hopefuls such as Uchida Eiji’s Love And Other Cults, Sono Sion’s Antiporno, limited edition two-disc animated titles – Osamu Tezuka’s 1001 Nights and Cleopatra, SABU’s 1996 crime comedy, Dagan Runner and Tsukamoto Shinya’s Fires On The Plain have finally found their savior in Arrow Films.
The deal is also a great sweetner for Third Window’s longtime partners at Terracotta Distribution whose banner currently hosues its own variety of titles including Chang’s Death Bell, Johnnie To’s Sparrow, and kung fu classics like The Nine Demons, The Dragon’s Snake Fist and The Shanghai 13.
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Arrow Films is releasing the film theatrically on December 8. The trailer looks something a bit similar from the international pitch from months earlier but still delivers the desired effect. Enjoy, and set the date!
I’m a happy camper. Director Jung Byung-Gil’s The Villainess is set to have its day here in the U.S. in just over a week following an eventful film festival run that garnered swarms of praise on many fronts, and having been unable to attend any events myself, I can only hope I’ll get to share the experience with friends by then.
The wait overseas, however, will be a bit longer as Arrow Films is poised to present the new assassin thriller in U.K. cinemas on September 15. An official trailer was unveiled this week and you can a take a look below to get a whiff of what all the fuss is about.
Exploding onto the screen in a kinetic flurry of hyper-stylised action, The Villainess is a stunning vengeance film that draws its inspiration from western classics including Nikita and Kill Bill.
Sook-hee (Kim Ok-bin, Thirst) is a trained assassin who takes revenge on the men who murdered her father in a breathtaking opening sequence. After losing consciousness she awakes at the National Intelligence Service who recruit her as an agent to undertake confidential missions. Initially refusing, Sook-hee soon realises it is her only method of escape, until she is given a new assignment that suddenly changes everything…þy
Deliriously indulging in the excesses of South Korean action, recalling Park Chan-wook’s Oldboy, The Villainess is a visionary new take on the neo-noir genre and an incredible thrill ride not to be missed.
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