Japanese film and media company Toy-be Entertainment is being renamed and relaunched as Adways Entertainment Co, following a capital alliance with Tokyo-listed mobile and internet advertising agency Adways Group in August.

Adways Entertainment has also announced the first project for its 2008/2009 slate, which is a Japan-Singapore co-production tentatively titled Thunderboys.

Toy-Be's core producers such as founder Taku Ushiyama, Beijing-based film producer Lim Young Chien and Beijing-based Xu Wen will form the backbone of the film production business of the new company.

Thunderboys is a youth sports film set in Singapore revolving around the brand new multi-sport of 'Bossaball'. Singapore's Mediatribe and Shooting Gallery Motion Pictures are co-producing the $1m film. Production is scheduled to start at the end 2008. Award-winning short filmmaker and actor Alaric Tay will be directing as his first feature-length film.

Adways Entertainment also plans to work with pan-Asian filmmakers from outside of Japanincluding those fromSingapore, China, Korea, Taiwan andHong Kong. For 2009, the company is now developing a slate of horror, action films and comedies, many of which will shoot in South-east Asia.

Ushiyamawas also the founder production company Movie-eye. Together with Lim and Xu,he produced Asian co-productions such as Last Love, First Love (Japan-China), About Love (Japan-China-Taiwan), Black Night (Japan-Thailand-Hong Kong) and The Longest Night in Shanghai (Japan-China).

Ushiyama set up Toy-be Entertainmentin 2006. The company produced Japanese feature Yesterdays (2008). Apart from film production, Toy-be is also a mobile telecommunication service provider owning more than 100 mobile websites.

Singapore-based Mediatribe is a new independent production house which has produced social drama Truth Be Told (2007). Shooting Gallery Motion Pictures is the content production arm of Shooting Gallery Asia, a renowned TV commercial and photography studio set up in 1988.

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