Japan's Movie-Eye Entertainment has joined forces with Thailand's Five Star Production and Hong Kong's Filmko Entertainment in producing a $2.5m pan-regional horror thatfeatures some of the hottest Asian talents.

Black Night,unveiled today at the Bangkok Film Market, is an omnibus film with threesegments. Each 30-minute story stands on its own but all have one thing incommon - they're based on urban legends.

The three segments are: Next Door by Hong Kong director PatrickLeung (Twins Effect II), starringAnnie Liu and Dylan Kuo; Black Holeby Japanese director Takahiko Akiyama (Hinokio),starring Asaka Seto and Takashi Kashiwabara, and Thailand's Lost Memory by director Thanit Jitnukul(Bang Rajan), starring PichanartSakhakorn and Kajonsak Ratananisai.

The project was initiated byMovie-Eye's founder Taku Ushiyama who co-produced Last Love, First Love with China's Shanghai Film Studio in 2003.

"Pan-Asian production is themost effective way of gaining overseas market access. Each of us here is notonly a production company but also a distributor in our own country which treatsthe film as a local product," says Ushiyama who is producer of Black Night along with co-producers LimYoung Chien, Aphiradee Iamphungphorn and Katherine Lee.

Beyond the above threemarkets, Ushiyama also aims at the international market, given the enormousinterest in Asian horrors as reflected in the English remakes of The Ring and The Grudge. Previous pan-Asian horror omnibus Three and its sequel Three'Extremeswere widely distributed in the West.

Black Night,now in post-production in Bangkok,is scheduled for release in the first week of April in Thailand, followed by Hong Kong, Taiwan, Macau and Singapore in the second week and Japan in June. Golden Village picked up the rights to Singapore at the Bangkok Film Market.