The surge in the number Asian films being remade for western audiences was highlighted at this year's PPP projects market in Pusan.

After announcing the sale of remake rights on Korean hit Marrying The Mafia last month, Korean major Cinema Service opened up unreleased Break Out for remake treatment after receiving strong interest. South African-based mini-conglomerate Distant Horizon announced that it has non-exclusive rights allowing it to set up the picture with a studio.

The increasing interest came in the week that The Ring, Dreamworks SKG's remake of Hideo Nakata's Ringu overtook the original film on Japanese release.

"PPP provides the ideal place to meet key Korean and Asian film professionals and keep up the Korean film remake boom in the States," said Doug Davidson of the Los Angeles-based Vertigo Entertainment, a production company which has already picked up half a dozen Asian titles for remake. These include Thai horror picture, The Eye (set up with Cruise/Wagner) and Korea's My Wife Is A Gangster.

Distant Horizon executives Brian Cox and Tokyo-based Richard Jeffery, said: "After the earlier interest in Hong Kong, we discovered that Japanese films provide lots of genres which have international appeal, from the Samurai stories to Ninjas and ghost stories."

While the traffic of ideas may mostly be from East to West, the week also threw up examples of films going in the opposite direction. David Mamet's 1988 picture Things Change is to be remade in Korean by the Hong Kong-based Columbia TriStar Film Production Asia. PPP talk also suggested that a UK comedy-drama is close to being set up as a Chinese-language picture.

In recent months Distant Horizon has acquired remake rights to China Star's Hong Kong comedy La Brassiere and to Yasuomi Umetsu's Japanese animation Kite, the story of an orphaned schoolgirl who is also a professional assassin. It will be made as a live action picture.

Earlier, it bought remake rights to Kiyoshi Kurosawa's Daiei-backed Pulse (Kairo), which appeared in Cannes two years ago. It is now set up at Dimension where it is to be directed by Wes Craven. Another Nakata film it has been involved in selling remake rights was Don't Look Up (Joyu Rei). This is now set up via Bill Mechanic's Pandemonium at MGM and Paramount. (Separately, Dark Water [Honogurai Mizo No Sokokara], was also optioned by Pandemonium directly from Kadokawa Shoten.)

Distant Horizon this week also bought North American rights to Cinema Service's sci-fi action fantasy Volcano High. It will reposition the picture with new titles and marketing before finding a US distributor. It did not take remake rights. "We tracked the film for a long time and were there the night it premiered in Seoul. The look of the picture is utterly unique. Remaking would serve no purpose," said Jeffery.