CONTENTS PANDA Invade Cannes Market with THE GREAT BATTLE, BELIEVER

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CONTENTS PANDA Invade Cannes Market with THE GREAT BATTLE, BELIEVER

May 14, 2018

Writer by Pierce Conran
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Korean Sales Outfit Presents Diverse New Film Lineup on the Croisette

Korean sales outfit CONTENTS PANDA, which participated in the official selection of the Cannes Film Festival over the past two years with TRAIN TO BUSAN (2016) and The Villainess (2017), have brought a diverse lineup to the Marché this year, led by LEE Hae-young’s crime thriller Believer, which bows in Korea this month and has already begun to secure foreign sales.

A remake of Johnnie To’s Chinese crime title Drug War, Believer features CHO Jin-woong (The Handmaiden, 2016) as a detective who teams up with a drug pusher played by RYU Jun-yeol (A Taxi Driver, 2017) to take down the biggest drug syndicate in Korea. Director LEE’s previous films include Like A Virgin (2006) and The Silenced (2015). Believer also features the last performance of beloved actor KIM Joo-hyuk (Confidential Assignment, 2017), who perished in a car crash last year. The film will be released in Korea just after Cannes on May 22 and will then hit screens in the US on June 8, courtesy of their new North American distributor Well Go USA.

Believer is one of several CONTENTS PANDA titles receiving market screenings in Cannes this year, along with MIN Kyu-dong’s trial drama Herstory, CHO Kyu-jang’s thriller The Witness and the animation Underdog by OH Sung-yoon and LEE Chun-baek.

Featuring KIM Hee-ae (C'est Si Bon, 2015) and KIM Hae-sook (The Thieves, 2012), Herstory focuses on the Shimonoseki Trials of the 1990s which involved comfort women demanding restitution from the Japanese government owing to the wartime sexual slavery they were subjected to. The film is the latest from Director MIN, known for All about My Wife (2012) and The Treacherous (2015).

Following the romantic drama Mood of the Day (2015), Director CHO is back with The Witness, which features LEE Sung-min, who will be in Cannes this week for the official selection title The Spy Gone North (2017), as a salaryman who witnesses a murder in his apartment complex but is seen by the perpetrator.

After the animated hit Leafie, a Hen into the Wild (2011), Director OH has teamed up with LEE Chun-baek for Underdog, the tale of a great journey undertaken by a group of abandoned dogs.

CONTENTS PANDA’s biggest title this year looks to be their period siege epic The Great Battle, the latest film from KIM Kwang-sik, director of gangster romcom My Dear Desperado (2010) and media thriller Tabloid Truth (2014). The title features ZO In-sung of The King (2017) as a general who tries to fight off an enormous siege by the Tang Dynasty with limited forces at the Ansi Fortress in the year 645, during the Goguryeo Era.

The company is also representing YOO Young-sun’s latest horror film The Wrath, which is a remake of the classic Korean horror Woman’s Wail (1986) and features SEO Young-hee of Bedevilled (2010) and Madonna (2015) as a woman trying to untangle the mystery surrounding deaths in her new family during the Joseon Era.

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