EXCLUSIVE: LHB ✕ An Attitude, an alliance of top Taiwanese producers Lee Lieh, Roger Huang and Justine O, has lined up a trio of international co-productions starring hot Taiwanese talents Ethan Ruan, Hsu Kuang-han and Tseng Jing-hua.
Justine O is at Venice Film Festival with Competition title The Sun Rises On Us All and Critics’ Week selection A Dance In Vain, both of which she produced outside of the alliance.
The upcoming projects include Arrested Memory, starring Ruan whose recent hit The Pig, The Snake And The Pigeon grossed $93m (RMB665m) in China alone, and is directed by Japan’s Sabu whose Chasuke’s Journey and Mr. Long played in Competition at the Berlinale in 2015 and 2017 respectively. The action noir follows a detective who races against time to crack a kidnapping case, while fast losing his own memory. Filming will start in October, entirely in Taiwan.
Hsu from supernatural comedy hit Marry My Dead Body and Taiwan-Japan co-production 18x2 Beyond Youthful Days toplines the cast of Clinch, a kickboxing thriller set against the world of underground casinos and boxing rings in the 1990s. Japanese filmmaker Masaharu Take from sports film 100 Yen Love and Netflix series The Naked Director will direct, with filming scheduled for early 2026 in Japan.
Tseng, best known for Detention and Your Name Engraved Herein, takes the lead in Ancient Tree, an environmental-themed fantasy drama about a man who can communicate with plants and a woman who has the power to induce sleep as they search for humanity’s lost connection with nature. This Taiwan-France co-production has secured funding from the CNC Cinéma du Monde. Filming is due to start in October in the deep forests of Taiwan, with Taiwan’s Singing Chen as director.
Chen, who won the best experience award for The Man Who Couldn’t Leave at Venice Immersive in 2022, returns this year with her latest VR work The Clouds Are Two Thousand Meters Up running in the same competition while her in-development VR project After Being Shattered Into Dust has been selected for the Venice Gap-Financing Market.
LHB ✕ An Attitude is an alliance between veteran actress-turned-producer Lee’s An Attitude, which is behind Jump Ashin!; Huang’s Yi Tiao Long Hu Bao International Entertainment (18x2 Beyond Youthful Days, Shambhala); and Justine O’s Cutting Edge Films, a post-production house that she co-founded with Taiwan-based French editor Matthieu Laclau.
Each of the producers runs their own company independently of the alliance. 2023’s The Pig, The Snake And The Pigeon was the first international project backed by the alliance.
“This alliance represents a cross-generational collaboration that pool resources together to expand Taiwan’s international co-production capacity,” Justine O told Screen.
“We aim to combine artistry with market power. Our three upcoming projects are led by some of Taiwan’s biggest box-office stars who embody the new generation of Taiwan’s acting talent with both critical and commercial power.”
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