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Soul (working title) Taiwan Dir: Chung Mong-hong


director and best supporting actress prizes at the Golden Horse Awards in 2010. Chung’s new project, Soul (working title), is a Hitchcockian thriller about a man whose body is possessed by another soul following a spate of mysterious killings. The story starts with a chef being sent to live in his


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father’s home in the mountains after being diagnosed with schizophrenia. A few days later a series of bloody murders take place, with the chef ’s sister, brother-in-law and two police officers found dead. “I wanted to explore the ambiguity between a normal


mind and a psychotic mind,” Chong says. “What is the state of insanity and who is actually the abnormal one?” Chung says the project has been developed over a long


period of time, and that he started writing the story even before making his successful The Fourth Portrait. And unlike his first two films — which are dramas with black comedy or thriller elements — Soul is intended to be a pure thriller. “If the narrative style is similar to that of Hitchcock’s films, I will be very pleased,” the director says. Visually, Soul is likely to have the precise and beautiful


cinematography and bleak atmosphere which has drawn acclaim for Chung’s previous work. With a completed script, Soul is at the financing stage.


The $1.2m project has so far received $200,000 from the Taiwanese government’s Subsidy for Film Production and another $300,000 from private Taiwanese investors. For potential cast, Chung is considering stars such as


Ethan Juan, Mark Chao and mainland actor Qin Hao, who starred in Lou Ye’s Spring Fever.


Sen-lun Yu SOUL


Budget $1.2m Finance raised to date $500,000 Contact Sung Ming-chung, 3NG Film/Cream Film Production, song@creamfilm.com.tw


n 14 Screen International at Filmart/HAF/HKIFF March 21, 2011 WE DON’T NEEDASUMMER VACATION!


Budget $2m Finance raised to date $5oo,000 Contact Yukie Kito/Naoya Narita, Arcimboldo, kitoyukie@gmail.com


hung Mong-hong’s second feature, The Fourth Portrait, established him as a director able to tackle stories of inner darkness, and picked up the best


We Don’tNeed A


announced Hollywood remake. Shusuke Kaneko, who directed both supernatural


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mystery films, has had one of the most varied careers in modern Japanese film-making, from his early days at Nikkatsu studios making adult-oriented titles, to big budget Gamera and Godzilla movies, to independent-minded dramas. He shifts gears again with HAF entry We Don’t Need A Summer Vacation!, a more personal project produced by Yukie Kitom, whose credits include Tokyo Sonata. The coming-of-age story follows a female high school


student who shoots a film starring a boy for whom she has long had feelings. But she gets more than she bargained when he falls for her friend, the lead actress. “It’s a universal story about the passion you have when


you’re young,” says Kito. “It’s not dark and self-absorbed like some youth romances.” Kito first expressed her desire to work with Kaneko while he was filming in Los Angeles in 1993. “We reconnected at the Asian Film Awards in 2009 when Tokyo Sonata won,” she says. We Don’t Need A Summer Vacation! took shape as


Kaneko met countless independent film-makers while touring the world with Death Note. The impetus was also autobiographical. “I made my first film on 8mm when I was a freshman at high school,” Kaneko explains. “I wanted to return to that starting point and show the joy of making films with your friends in a romantic comedy which audiences can enjoy.” Kito is looking for an international sales agent and co-financiers at HAF.


Jason Gray TOTHE ENDOF LOVE


Budget $3.6m Finance raised to date $2.52m Contact Stephen Lam, Sil-Metropole Organization, stephen@silmetropole. com; Steven Lo, Kudos Films, steven@kudos-films.com


Summer Vacation! Japan Dir: Shusuke Kaneko


he Death Note films were one of Japan’s most successful franchises of the past decade, travelling around the world and being picked up for a recently


To The End Of Love Hong Kong Dir: Stanley Kwan Kam-peng


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enowned for lush period dramas with tragic heroines such as Center Stage and Everlasting Regret, Hong Kong director Stanley Kwan Kan-peng is now working


on a love story set in a futuristic, almost apocalyptic setting. Based on the 2009 novella Tade Guo by Chinese writer


Han Han, the film revolves around a love triangle between an alienated motorbike-riding hero and two women. The time and location of the story are not specified, though the characters drift through a hazy, polluted atmosphere — not unlike some cities in modern-day China. But while Han Han’s work often touches on social issues


in China, Kwan’s film will focus on the love story rather than politics. The polluted skies will provide an environmental subtext, not tied to any particular country, as well as an abstract, surreal setting. “Like most of my films, I’ll focus on the characters and relationships between them, though we’ll also remind the audience we should be concerned about the planet,” Kwan explains. Kwan adds that he had been tracking Han Han — who is


also China’s most popular blogger — for several years. At the same time, producer Willie Chan, the former manager of Jackie Chan, was looking for a project to star actor-singer Juno Mak. Kwan felt the main character in Tade Guo would be perfect for Mak: “He’s one of those guys who wants to do something big but doesn’t know how to work it out — like many of the so-called ‘post-Eighties’ generation in China”. He optioned the rights to the novel last December and


started work on the adaptation. The English title is taken from Leonard Cohen’s song Dance Me To The End Of Love. The producers of the film — Chan’s Kudos Films and


Sil-Metropole Organization — have raised more than half the $3.6m budget and are looking for the rest of the funds at HAF. Winnie Tsang’s Golden Scene is handling international sales.


Liz Shackleton


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