Youku's Heyi Film Unites with Top Korean Studios
BUSAN - Oct. 4, 2014 China’s leading video site Youku Tudou Inc. (NYSE: YOKU) has just held a party “China Meets Korea” at the 19th Busan International Film Festival.
Allen Zhu Huilong, Senior Vice President of Youku told THE CHINESE FILM MARKET that Youku has the exclusive distribution rights of all CJ Entertainment’s films in China from 2013 to 2015. Youku has also bought 50 films from LOTTE and Showbox. Some of the films have been screening on Youku and are very well-received, for example: SECRETLY GREATLY and ARCHITECTURE 101. China’s film distribution market is now under major restructuring.
BIFF Festival Director Lee Yong-kwan joined Victor Koo, Chairman and CEO of Youku Tudou Inc., to announce a new collaborative project MN9: Asia’s Master and Newcomers Project.
MN9 means 4+4+1: 4 experienced filmmakers and 4 new talents selected by Youku and BIFF will each direct a micro movie; and the masters will select 1 micro movie to realize a feature film for theatrical release. These films will be funded by Youku and can access various resources of this online platform.
In the past years, Youku Original has premiered umbrella films like BEAUTIFUL 2012 and BEAUTIFUL 2014 at the Hong Kong International Film Festival, involving directors like Ann Hui, Tsai Ming-liang, Kim Tae-yong, Kang Je-gyu and Christopher Doyle.
Youku Original also made serious efforts to discover new talents via a series of “Support Young Filmmakers” projects. One of the most successful case being OLD BOYS, a micro film funded and co-developed by Youku later turned into a feature and got a local B.O. of 33 million USD.
This August, Youku announced to establish a film branch: Heyi Film, with Lee Yong-kwan as an independent director.
Lee said this evening that the MN9 project would have his support and expect to be the best of its kind in Asia. He also thank Koo for this epoch-making cooperation opportunity.
Koo stated that K-pop and Korean variety shows have been quite popular in China, but due to the quota system, not so many Koreans films are accessible in Mainland China. Thanks to the co-production treaty signed this July between two countries, there will be a rise of Chinese-Korean co-prods, MN9 is Youku’s attempt to spot new creative talents in both countries.
Kim Ki-duk and Park Chan-wook are expected to lead the MN9 project.
There is a Heyi Film & Youku Tudou Award at the Asian Project Market 2014: a project chosen from the official APM line-up will be granted 30,000 USD.