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Exclusive: Through its first-look film deal at Universal Pictures, 87North has set up Mrs. K, a re-imagining of Yuhang Ho’s 2016 Malaysian-Hong Kong cult hit, at the studio.

Author and humorist Mishna Wolff, best known for her memoir, I’m Down, is set to write the screenplay. Her debut script for the film Werewolves Within, which made its world premiere at the Tribeca Film Festival followed by Berlin, was met with critical acclaim when it was released theatrically by IFC last year.

Mrs. K is a fast-paced, darkly humorous action movie featuring an unlikely heroine. Mrs. K’s peaceful life is disrupted, and family threatened, when trouble brews.

Producers are 87North’s Kelly McCormick and David Leitch. EPs are Paperheart Limited’s Yuhang Ho and Lorna Tee, and Conor Zorn.

Universal EVP of Production Jay Polidoro will oversee the project for the studio. Guy Danella and Max Jacoby will oversee for 87North.

In a discussion with my friend Bastian Meiresonne, we agreed (and by agreed I mean he pointed out some facts and I concurred) on a number of things regarding Asian martial arts films. For starters, the misconception that martial arts films are one of the main products of the movie industry in the area, since, in fact, it has always been a very small percentage. This misconception owes a lot to Shaw Brothers and Golden Harvest studios, since, particularly the latter, was the one that introduced to the West the likes of Bruce Lee, Jackie Chan and Sammo Hung, subsequently making the average cinemagoer to believe that all Asian filmmakers do is produce martial arts films.

However, and although the genre has been dead for years, at least when compared with the number of productions released in the previous decades, some films emerge occasionally here and there, just barely keeping it alive,...

Yuhang Ho was trained as an engineer but went into film-making due to his love for vintage films. He began his career by shooting commercials in the mid 1990’s. In 2000, he co-directed a Malaysian documentary “Semangat Insan: Masters of Tradition” highlighting the need to preserve Malaysia’s traditional art forms. He then made his feature film directorial debut in the 2003 film “Min”.He went to receive international recognition for his film “Rain Dogs”, won the New Talent Award at the Hong Kong Asian Film Festival 2006 and also named best director at the Festival of the Three Continents in 2006.

His 2009 revenge drama “At The End of Daybreak” revived the career of the veteran actress Kara Hui, who was an action star of the Shaw Brothers era. “Daybreak” earned her seven best actress awards. She has since gone on to star in “Wu Xia,” “Rigor Mortis,” and “The Midnight After.”

On the...

Yuhang Ho had a very difficult task in his hands from the beginning: to shoot an action martial arts film where all of his protagonists are (almost) over 50. The result, however, was more than impressive, as he worked over the particular reef by limiting the action and adding many thriller elements.

“Mrs K” will screen at Art Film Fest Kosice, that will be on June 16-24

Mrs K is a housewife, happily married with a gynecologist, and mother to a teenage girl who is also a martial artist. However, underneath the calm, happy and motherly figure resides something else, as Mrs K used to be part of a crime ring. As her former comrades are being killed one by one, a rather unpleasant former police officer visits her house and confronts her about the past. Furthermore, another man, who seems to know her quite well, resurfaces, and along with his henchman,...

The Osaka Asian Film Festival throws open its doors once again this Friday for nine days of new cinema gathered from across Asia. The Opening Gala will include a screening of Yuhang Ho’s Hong Kong action drama Mrs K and a celebration of the film’s lead, Kara Wai. The actress will be present on the night to accept the festival’s Osaka Asian Star award, which honours artists who have played an important role in the Asian film world, and to give a talk on her career and many accomplishments. Kara Wai broke into the film industry in the mid 70’s, quickly developing a reputation for her action-orientated roles in Shaw Brothers films like My Young Auntie and the Jackie Chan-produced The Inspector Wears Skirts series....

[Read the whole post on screenanarchy.com...]...

Taking place within one of Japan's most colorful and vibrant cities, Osaka Asian Film Festival acts as a showcase for the best new cinema from across the region. Now in its 12th year, a wide variety of Asian films will once again be shown in a programme comprised of a Competition, Special Screenings, an Indie Forum and more. Opening the festival on March 3rd is the Japanese Premiere of Malaysia-Hong Kong co-production Mrs K. Director Yuhang Ho reunites with At The End of Daybreak's Kara Wai for an action thriller, co-starring Simon Yam and Taiwanese rock star Wu Bai. Mrs K is a housewife who lives in a quiet suburban neighborhood with her husband Mr K and their daughter Lil’ K. One day, a stranger...

[Read the whole post on screenanarchy.com...]...

The official juries for the 65th Festival del film Locarno have been appointed. The jury for the International Competition will include the American screenwriter, producer and director Roger Avary (Quentin Tarantino’s Pulp Fiction, 1994; The Laws of Attraction, 2002), Seoul filmmaker Sang-soo Im (A Good Lawyer’s Wife, 2003; The Housemaid, 2010), French director, screenwriter and actress Noémie Lvovsky (La vie ne me fait pas peur, Silver Leopard “Youth Cinema” at Locarno in 1999; Camille redouble, 2012; Benoît Jacquot’s Farewell, My Queen, 2012) and London-based Swiss curator and writer Hans Ulrich Obrist, co-director of the Serpentine Gallery in London since 2006.

The jury president will be Thai filmmaker, screenwriter and producer Apichatpong Weerasethakul (Palme d’or at Cannes in 2010 for Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall his Past Lives). Around twenty feature films will screen in competition.

The president of the jury for the ‘Filmmakers of the Present’ Competition will be the director from Chad Mahamat-Saleh Haroun (Saison sèche,...

Beautiful first trailer for the Malaysian drama At the End of Daybreak from director Yuhang Ho that’s currently being screened (like most of this years interesting films) on the Locarno International Film Festival.

Malaysia, now. The 23-year-old Tuck Chai is dating Ying, a schoolgirl who isn’t yet 16. They probably met in an internet chatroom. Their parents know nothing about the illicit relationship…until Ying’s mother and father find birth-control pills in her room. That’s when their worlds start to shatter.

Tuck Chai lives with his mother, a woman who has never got over her husband abandoning her and moving in with her richer sister instead. Tuck Chai’s mother drinks too much, and doesn’t look after herself too well. But she would do anything for Tuck Chai. Anything at all. When Ying’s parents want to report Tuck Chai to the police (he will be...