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“ONE OF THE YEAR’S BOLDEST AND MOST THRILLING DEBUT FEATURES.” – EYE WEEKLY.COM

Following its critically acclaimed UK theatrical release in January, Yang Ik-june’s award winning Breathless comes to DVD in March 2010 as a two-disc Special Collector’s Edition featuring a host of exclusive extras including interviews with the director and cast members, specially filmed festival footage and Q&As, plus a collector’s booklet featuring sleeve notes personally written by Yang Ik-june and co-star Kim Kkobbi.

The winner of numerous international film awards in 2009, including the Tiger Award at the Rotterdam International Film Festival, the Jury Prize for Best Film and Best Male Performance at Montreal’s Fant-Asia Film Festival and the Best Film award and Critics’ Prize at the Deauville Asian Film Festival, the debut feature from South Korean writer-director and star Yang Ik-june, Breathless is a brutal, uncompromising and profanity-filled look at the cause and effect of domestic violence.

Giving a stunning performance in the film’s lead role, Yang Ik-june stars as Sang-hoon, a deeply troubled man prone to violent outbursts, who freelances as a hired thug at his friend’s debt collecting firm. His private life revolves around his extremely strained relationship with his ex-convict father, who was directly responsible for the tragic breakdown of their family, and a slightly more subdued, but still difficult, connection with his stepsister and her young son.

Seemingly possessed by the pent-up rage caused by the domestic events from his past, Sang-hoon finds an opportunity for salvation when he encounters a similarly emotionally damaged schoolgirl ((Kot-bi Kim), who is as foul-mouthed, headstrong and fearless as he is. The two begin an offbeat and touching friendship, not realising that their lives are already connected in ways that will have a profound effect on both their fates.

As moving as it is shocking in its portrayal of people struggling to live in a world of routine violence and abuse, Breathless was hailed by ReelAsian.com as “one of the most powerful films of the year” and by Screen International as a film that marks director Yang Ik-june as a name to watch.

Breathless (cert. 18) will be released on DVD (£14.99) by Terracotta Distribution on 22nd March 2010.

Special Features include: interview with director Yang Ik-june (20 minutes); interview with actress Kim Kkobbi (10 minutes); behind the scenes at the Rotterdam Film Festival (20 minutes); special Korean Film Industry Preview Screening footage (10 minutes); London Korean Film Festival Q&A at the Barbican Centre; London Press Junket footage; trailers (Korean theatrical, Korean teaser, three UK trailers, French trailer); stills gallery.

Bong Joon-ho (The Host, Memories of Murder) spoke at a preview of Mother about the influences on his latest film, and how his own mother hasn’t talked to him about it since it’s release…

Bong Joon-ho’s latest film Mother (Madeo) previewed at the BFI during November’s London Korean Film Festival, which also held a season of his films. He spoke, through an interpreter, with Tony Rayns after the filming. As well as tales of growing up in Korea, his influences and how he got into movies, he talked in detail about his new film – the tale of a devoted single mother who’s simple-minded son is accused of murder and she sets out to clear him… with unexpected and harrowing results.

Bong said he’d had the idea for the film since 2004. The curious scene which ends the film – of a group of mothers dancing in the aisle of a moving bus – was the first he thought of.

“In Korea it’s a reality that mothers dance together on the bus, but they dance behind curtains so you can’t really see it as you’re going past,” Bong said. When he was younger he was embarrassed by it, but now as an adult he empathises with them: “It’s funny, but also sad at the same time.” So, he decided if he made a film about mothers that dance would have to be its last scene.

He decided to cast veteran actress Kim Hye-ja as the mother. In Korea she’s well-known for her television work, but Mother is only her third movie role.

“She was acting before I was even born and was one of those faces I always saw on TV. She was always really warm and an iconic mother figure, but in my mind I could see the slightly mad, crazy side of her and I always thought they tried to hide that from the audience,” Bong said.

“I wanted to concentrate on that particular aspect of her character and before the story even existed I wanted to work with this actress, so it wasn’t a typical casting process. I very much wanted to focus on her and how her crazy side could be explored.”

Fortunately, Kim also liked the idea and embraced the role: “she enjoyed this process and would suggest ways of taking it further and making it more extreme.”

The rest of the casting was just as subversive. He turned heart-throb Won Bin into the slightly simple and homely son, and made co-actor Jin Ku the sexy best friend. Bong said he “found happiness turning a handsome man into an idiot,” although he was scared about casting Won in the first instance because he already has a huge fan base in Japan and Korea.

“But when I showed him the script he agreed really easily – he’s actually very adventurous. He’s naturally quite strange and awkward and that helped. Although he’s famous for his looks, he [Won] grew up in the deep Korean countryside and knew the locations even better than I did.”

On the other hand he had to work hard to make Jin look sexy: “he isn’t sexy in real life so we had to work on it in the movie,” he joked.

Bong said he’s never entirely sure how his scripts are created – whether it’s the overall idea or a plot which he thinks of first: “I write scripts more out of instinct, then look back and ask ‘why did this character say this, what’s the hidden meaning behind it’. I hate writing scripts – it’s the part of the process that’s most painful.”

However, he’s exacting about the entire process. “I want 100% control of the movie-making process.” That’s why he draws all the storyboards himself one by one, and that’s the way he’s always worked.

He’s also obsessive about getting the look of the film just right. Unlike Hollywood, where a set would be constructed to the director’s specifications, a Korean film budget doesn’t stretch that far, so scouting the right locations is crucial. For Mother, as in his film Memories of Murder, he sent scouts all over the country looking for the right buildings, fields, interiors and streets: “they complained the price of petrol would be more than the cost of the film,” he said. The final result looks like one town and its immediate environs, but was, in fact, 26 different locations.

And he wanted these locations to mirror the mother as the central character: “I wanted to find locations that were feminine in feel.” He said it’s not easy to say what counts as a feminine location or setting, but he tried to concentrate on a particular look for the landscape, in particular the shapes of hills, curves and waves.

The core of the film is the relationship between the un-named mother and son – and how far a mother will go to protect her child.

“The film is about the mother becoming the monster,” he explained. “The mother becomes a monster out of love and devotion for her son. As love becomes more extreme, so she becomes a monster. I don’t think for a second that all mothers are monsters, but faced with an extreme situation like murder, not many mothers could say for sure they wouldn’t become monsters. Maybe it’s not the side of our mothers we’d want to see, but it is possible to see if you look directly at the situation.”

“Maybe that’s why my mother won’t talk about the film, even though she saw it five months ago.”

You can see more from the interview on BFI’s LIVE site, click here.

Mother is released in the US by Magnolia Pictures on 12 March, and by Optimum in the UK later in the year, but the release date is yet to be finalised.

…there are some great fight scenes though, particularly in the 20 minute-odd end sequence!

Further ahead, Cine Asia will also be releasing – through their new distribution deal with Weinstein’s US Dragon Dynasty (move over Momentum, that lasted long!) – the Jet Li classic Fist Of Legend, at last! The holy gail of Jet Li’s movies, previously unavailable in the UK outside of the (dreadful!) English dubbed release by Dimension, debuts on Blu-ray and Two-disc DVD on 22 March. Yay!!!

The new tie-up with Dragon Dynasty will also FINALLY see the release of S.P.L. aka Kill Zone – the first and undoubtedly best of the collaborations between director Wilson Yip and star/action choreographer Donnie Yen. This debuts on UK Blu-ray and two-disc DVD on 8 March.

Find out more and book tickets »

Directed by Wilson Yip and featuring the work of many of the creative talents who helped him in bringing ‘Ip Man’, ‘Flashpoint’ and ‘Dragon Tiger Gate’ to the screen, Kill Zone stars Donnie Yen (Ip Man; An Empress And The Warriors), Simon Yam (Ip Man; Triangle), Sammo Hung (Three Kingdoms; Kung Fu Hustle; The Medallion) and Jacky Wu (Invisible Target; Fatal Contact) and combines hard-hitting martial arts action with gritty police thriller conventions.

Finally apprehended by veteran detective Chan Kwok Chung (Yam) after years of ruling the Hong Kong underworld, brutal gangster Wong Po (Hung) manages to escape justice by arranging the execution of the prosecuting attorney and the witnesses who could have sealed his fate and kept him behind bars. As Po walks free, the soon-to-retire Chan is diagnosed with terminal cancer and, with nothing left to lose, persuades his team of detectives to bring down their nemesis no matter what the cost.

However, their plans to operate outside the law are uncovered by Chan’s future replacement, Ma Kwun (Yen), a cop with a fearsome reputation who suddenly finds himself at odds with both the criminals he is trying to catch and the men he needs to trust. But Ma’s ethics are brought into question when Po hires a deadly assassin (Wu) to kill Chan’s men with ruthless efficiency and he is forced to join forces with his predecessor in order to wage bloody war on Po and his henchmen.

Climaxing in a long-awaited, extended screen showdown between martial arts legends Sammo Hung and Donnie Yen and featuring a breathtaking mano-a-mano face-off between Yen and Jacky Wu, Kill Zone is an electrifying and suspenseful thriller guaranteed to keep action fans on the edge of their seats from start to finish.

Kill Zone (cert. tbc) will be released on DVD (£17.99) and Blu-ray (£24.99) by Cine Asia on 8th March 2010.

A stunning reinvention of Bruce Lee’s timeless 1972 classic, ‘Fist of Fury’, Fist Of Legend delivers scene upon scene of intense and magnificently composed martial arts action for what is now considered by many to be the greatest kung fu movie of all time.

In the most electrifying performance of his celebrated career, international superstar Jet Li plays Chen Zhen, the matchless number-one student of China’s preeminent kung fu master, Fok Yun-gap. Upon returning home to Shanghai after a period of study abroad, he discovers that his homeland has been devastated by a brutal Japanese occupation and that his once proud martial arts academy has fallen into disarray following the untimely demise of his beloved Master, allegedly in a challenge match with a member of the Japanese Black Dragon Clan.

Disgusted by the official verdict on his teacher’s death, Chen embarks on a heroic and uncompromising one-man quest to uncover the true killer and restore dignity to his fallen people – a journey that will bring him into deadly confrontation with Japan’s most formidable fighters.

Showcasing exceptional action-choreography from ace martial arts director, Yuen Woo-ping (The Matrix Trilogy and Kill Bill), Fist Of Legend is a brilliant martial arts masterpiece that justifiably has been awarded iconic status by fans and critics worldwide.

Fist Of Legend (cert. tbc) will be released on DVD (£17.99) and Blu-ray (£24.99) by Cine Asia on 22nd March 2010.

Special Features include: audio commentary by Hong Kong Cinema expert Bey Logan; ‘The Man Behind The Legend’ – an exclusive interview with director Gordon Chan; ‘Brothers In Arms’ – an exclusive interview with kung fu impresario Chin Siu-ho; ‘The Way Of The Warrior’ – an exclusive interview with Japanese action legend Kurata Yasuaki; ‘The School Of Hard Knocks’ – a screen fighting seminar at the celebrated Kurata Action School; a look at ‘Fist Of Legend’ with director Brett Ratner and critic Elvis Mitchell; deleted scenes gallery; trailer gallery; DTS HD MA English 5.1 audio (Blu-ray); Dolby Digital Cantonese 2.0 Stereo, Mandarin 2.0 Stereo and English 5.1 audio options (DVD); optional English subtitles.