EXCLUSIVE: Paris-based sales outfit Lucky Number has picked up international rights to Japanese filmmaker Sabu’s detective comedy Arrested Memory, starring Taiwan’s Ethan Juan and will launch sales for the film in Cannes.
Juan plays a superstar police detective in Taipei who is involved in a crime investigation gone wrong and develops amnesia just as he is transferred to a rural police station. When he is assigned to a case of the kidnapping of the son of an influential Japanese businessman, he must rely on his instincts as he embarks on a fast-paced, outlandish adventure to find the culprit.
Juan starred in The Pig, The Snake And The Pigeon, the second biggest Taiwanese film of all time in mainland China, grossing more than $92m in 2023. Moon Lee, Hsieh Ying Xuan, Shinichi Tsutsumi and Reika Kirishima co-star.
Arrested Memory is produced by Taiwan’s LHB Films and Japan’s Fourier Films.
Sabu is well-known for his vast filmography of action titles that includes Berlin competition titles Chasuke’s Journey in 2015 and Mr. Long in 2017.
”Life is absurd and often cruel. We lose things again and again, they are broken, and eventually many of them disappear,” said Sabu. “But I keep making films in the hope that what remains in the end is love and humour.
Lucky Number co-founder Ola Byszuk said the film is “pure fun and entertainment from Sabu, who has carved out a singular voice in Asian cinema, blending deadpan comedy with kinetic, absurd narratives that turn ordinary characters into unlikely heroes within tightly constructed, unpredictable stories”.
The company heads to Cannes with a robust slate that includes Leila Marrakchi’s Un Certain Regard entry, Strawberries, Christophe Dimitri Reveille’s Special Screenings title Che Guevara: The Last Companions, and Directors’ Fortnight pair, Dominga Sotomayor’s La Perra, and Jorge Thielen Armand’s Death Has No Master.
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