Word: asianized
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...Asian films also attract local audiences, and the Weinsteins have watched the film market in Asia become the world's fastest growing. Ten years ago, North American box office tallies outpaced international earnings. "That's now absolutely shifted," explains TWC co-president Michael Cole, who will shuttle between Hollywood and the fund office in Hong Kong...
...Harvey Weinstein describes the Asia gambit as having sprung up not from money troubles, but from a penchant for Asian cinema spurred by a close relationship with chopsocky fan Quentin Tarantino. Name an Asian hit in the West and the Weinsteins are probably in some way responsible. Iron Monkey, Farewell My Concubine, Princess Mononoke, and half of the eight highest grossing American showings of Asian pics, including Hero and the original Shall We Dance?, were all released under Harvey's guidance...
...Weinstein team sees fit, the $285 million fund will be distributed among development, production, and acquisition of films made in Asia, by Asian filmmakers, or about Asian subjects. They estimate that they'll produce 21 theatrical releases and another 10 straight-to-DVD films over six years. If local distributors pick up the films, the Weinstein Company will reap some of those profits, which they'll use to pay back investors. TWC will have first pick of what Asian pictures they'll distribute back in the U.S., and they'll buy those films with the fund...
...fund will not simply project Asian products on Western screens, it will bring to Asian films what Weinstein calls a "Western sensibility." So far the slate includes a live-action film of the fable Mulan; a martial arts team-up of Jackie Chan and Jet Li; and a remake of the 1954 classic, The Seven Samurai, which transplants Kurosawa's besieged Japanese village to the outskirts of Bangkok and recasts the Japanese fighters as mercenary soldiers, three of whom speak English...
...Weinstein habit of retelling of Asian stories through what they call "Western storytelling techniques" has seen backlash. TWC bought Shaolin Soccer - the highest grossing film in China's history - only to recut, dub, and delay its release. Fans of the original raged online. Chen Kaige's The Promise wasn't even that lucky. The Weinsteins ordered months of re-cutting, only to drop it completely and hand back the rights. "If you do this and that for different audiences," warns Hong Kong producer Nansun Shi, "you lose the whole raison d'etre of your cultural mark. There's a certain...