RYOO Seung-wan’s CRYING FIST finally coming to DVD in Canada!

I’m just posting this news very quickly and will expand as soon as there is a minute, we are very busy with the departure from Seoul to get back to Canada…

This one has been long in the works, so I’m extremely happy and proud to finally be able to announce that Evokative just bought the Canadian rights to CRYING FIST by RYOO Seung-wan (CITY OF VIOLENCE, ARAHAN, NO BLOOD NO TEARS, DIE BAD, the upcoming DACHIMAWA LEE…)!

The film, which was part of Cannes’s Quinzaine des Réalisateurs in 2005 (where it won the FIPRESCI Prize) and was the opening film of Fantasia that year, blew me away when I first saw it and was on the top of my wish list when Evokative was founded. This powerful boxing drama stars CHOI Min-Sik (OLDBOY, SYMPATHY FOR LADY VENGEANCE, DRUNK ON WOMEN AND POETRY) and RYOO Seung-beom (ARAHAN, NO BLOOD NO TEARS, DIE BAD).

Like all other Evokative titles, CRYING FIST will be released in Canada before even having a US distributor.


I was very lucky to meet RYOO Seung-wan and his wife and producer KANG Hye-jeong not long ago in Pusan. Also pictured, Nicolas Archambault, Fantasia International Film Festival programmer.

Posted in Acquisitions

LE TUEUR commence sa tournée en salles le 14 novembre!

LE TUEUR commence sa tournée des cinémas canadiens à Montréal le 14 novembre avec une copie en version originale française au Ex-Centris et une copie avec sous-titres anglais au AMC Forum!

LE TUEUR sera ensuite à l’affiche à Toronto le 28 novembre, dans une salle qui sera confirmée sous peu.

Posted in Sorties en salles

A first Taiwanese title for Evokative: PARKING

Evokative Films now visits another Asian country on its cinematic tour of the world: Taiwan! PARKING (TING CHE), a black comedy by Mong-Hong Chung, first played in Cannes in the Un Certain Regard section and was seen at Montreal’s World Film Festival this september. It was just recently part of the Tigers and Dragons section of the Vancouver International Film Festival and the A Window on Asian Cinema section of the Pusan International Film Festival. It is also part of the programming of the upcoming Thessaloniki International Film Festival and Stockholm International Film Festival.

Rita Chuang from Good Films was met here in Pusan and sold us the Canadian distribution rights for all media. The film will see a limited theatrical release before being released on DVD next summer.

The film stars Chang Chen (BREATH, SILK, 2046, CROUCHING TIGER, HIDDEN DRAGON, HAPPY TOGETHER), as well as Lu-Mei Kwai (SECRET, THE MOST DISTANT COURSE), Leon Dai (THE PASSAGE), Chapman To (ISABELLA), Jack Kao (A CHANCE TO DIE) and the model Peggy Tseng in her first movie role.

On Mother’s Day in Taipei, Chen-Mo makes a dinner date with his wife, hoping to bring their estranged relationship back together. While buying a cake on his way home, a car double-parks next to his car, preventing his exit. For the entire night, Chen-Mo searches for the owner of the car and encounters a succession of strange events and eccentric characters: an old couple living with their precocious granddaughter who have lost their only son; a one-armed barbershop owner cooking fish-head soup; a mainland Chinese prostitute trying to escape her pimp’s cruel clutches; and a Hong-Kong tailer embroiled in debt and captured by underground loan sharks. With the rich flavors of comedy, melodrama and noir film, PARKING interweaves themes of family, sex and money to create a moving and darkly funny story.

The film already got great reviews from Variety, The Hollywood Reporter, Screen Daily and Twitchfilm. You may see the trailer and a picture gallery on our Facebook page.

Posted in Acquisitions

Sion Sono’s HAZARD finally coming to Canada!

A trip to New York by a Japanese university student seeking “hazard” is now added to the Evokative Films road-map. We are most pleased to announce that Sion Sono’s HAZARD will finally be distributed in Canada. Filmed on location in New York in 2002 and only released in Japan in 2005, the film has not previously been distributed in North America. This anarchic adventure, depicting pre-Guiliani New-York from the eyes of a naive Japanese student, was filmed with a very small budget but stayed with me since I saw it at the Fantasia Festival in 2007, when Sion Sono also came to present EXTE: HAIR EXTENSIONS.

While at the Asian Film Market of the Pusan International Film Festival, I had the pleasure of meeting with Ko Mori and Kana Aida from Elevent Arts and make the deal for a Canadian DVD release of the film. Filmed with the then little-known but now big Japanese star Jo Odagiri (ADRIFT IN TOKYO), HAZARD also stars Jai West (BIG BANG LOVE, JUVENILE A) and Motoki Fukami (CROWS: EPISODE 0).

Shin is a Japanese university student living a boring and meaningless life. One day, he spots a book titled Dangerous Ways to Walk the World, in which he finds a page written about hazards in New-York. Eager to get out, he jets off to New-York to find this inspiration. He quickly does find out the hazards of the city when he is mugged and left with no money or clothes. By chance, he meets Lee and Takeda, two Japanese-American punks who take him in. With Lee and Takeda, Shin’s days in New-York are now full of excitement and danger. When they need a ride, they threaten people and take their cars. When they are hungry, they rob the deli for food. But their trouble-seeking ways eventually gets them chased by the police, which kills a friend and imprisons the other. Shin ultimately goes back to Japan with a new thirst for life.

You may see the film’s Fantasia International Film Festival write-up here and Twitchfilm’s review here. The acquisition news already got covered by Twitchfilm and the Toronto J-Film Pow-wow. You may also see the trailer and a picture gallery on our Facebook page.

Posted in Acquisitions