Asian sales and production firm Distribution Workshop is using the Busan International Film Festival’s market to re-launch ambitious “Sons of the Neon Night,” a film it first became attached to in 2015. Only this time the Juno Mak-directed project is now in post-production, has a stellar cast and has expanded to become the highest-budget movie ever hatched in Hong Kong.
“Sons of the Neon Night” is pitched as a high-octane yet highly-stylized, police-crime-action-thriller set in a deconstructed and reimagined Hong Kong. It boasts an A-list cast headed by Takeshi Kaneshiro (“House of Flying Daggers”), Tony Leung Ka-fai (“Cold War”), Sean Lau Ching-wan (“Life Without Principle”), Louis Koo (“Warriors of Future”) and Ritchie Jen (“Twilight of the Warriors: Walled In”).
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It also features a score composed by the late Sakamoto Ryuichi (“The Last Emperor”).
With a production budget of over $50 million, the movie is currently in post-production and targeted for release no later than the first half of 2025.
Mak is a leading contemporary artist and singer based in Hong Kong. He achieved recognition as a filmmaker too, with his 2013 debut ‘Rigor Mortis,” which premiered at the Venice film festival. “Son -
s of the Neon Night” was announced soon thereafter, but did not go forward.
The story begins with a gigantic explosion and Michael-Mann-style gun shooting of an unprecedented scale in a snow-struck Causeway Bay, a downtown district on Hong Kong Island. Upon investigation, it was a diversion that was a prelude to a series of wild actions planned by the heir to a global pharmaceutical conglomerate (portrayed by Kaneshiro), which ends up with his own father, the founder of the family conglomerate and possible drug baron, killed in hospital. A mission to declare a war on drugs is declared but has the result of throwing the world – and the underworld – into chaos.
Distribution Workshop is also representing two Taiwan romance drama films: “Penguin Girl,” directed by emerging director Yang Yuyu, and “Unexpected Courage,” inspired by the true story of director Shawn Yu and starring acclaimed singer-actress René Liu and Hsueh Shih-Ling, a best supporting actor award winner at Busan’s Asia Contents Awards. For “Unexpected Courage,” Distribution Workshop will manage sales in China, Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan only.
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