South Africa-based company Distant Horizon has acquired North American rights to Wilson Yip's Flashpoint. As you are well aware Flashpoint is the third martial-arts film between actor Donnie Yen and director Wilson Yip. We've seen their previous work in Sha po lang and Dragon Tiger Gate.
Distant Horizon has experience introducing Asian movies to the North America market. Anant Singh of DH said, "In the past when we have done this we have been able to get involved in the post-production and help optimize things like music for the North American market". The company does not have its own North American releasing structure so they will seek a third party theatrical distributor. Artisan helped release Tsui Hark's Black Mask and Miramax helped with Legends of Zu.
Admittedly I worry when someone says things like '...help optimize things like music for the North American market'. I'm all for bringing more films from Asia to the North American market, just not at the expense of the integrity of the film. And yes, I personally see nothing to get excited about with their track record. Black Mask and Legends of Zu are not neccessarily benchmarks of HK cinema. Flashpoint is coming, that's what we should focus on.
Flashpoint will release in August in Asia but there are no dates for a North American release yet.
Distant Horizon is a company I'd like to introduce to my foot in their ass. They were mixed up with the MTV version of VOLCANO HIGH, and BLACK MASK from Artisan. This is actually a bunch of really crappy bad news that they got this. Harvey, you're slipping, you're not supposed to let this sort of thing happen.
I wonder how Dragon Dynasty let this one slip through their fingers? You would think they would've picked up the rights after SPL, just like they did with Ong Bak II after The Protector (Tom yum goong).
Uhh, this is a quote and the source from Hollywood Repoter.
http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/hr/content_display/film/news/e3i13cb3772f6ad490a2ea01da74f869e69
"...The Distant Horizon buy comes after the company's success with Yip Wai-shun's "SPL" (released as "Kill Zone" in the U.S.), which also starred Yen. The London- and Los Angeles-based company has a tradition of introducing Asian action cinema to North American audiences, Distant Horizon president Anant Singh said..."
They had the rights for SPL and DD still released the dvd package.