Conclusion: The Legacy of Asia Extreme

During a panel discussion entitled ‘So, what’s Japanese cinema got to do with it?’ at the BFI Southbank cinema in London, on 5 December 2007, panelist Tony Rayns was asked if there is a dominant image or understanding of Japanese cinema in Britain. Rayns answered, describing the climax of ...

Introduction

This book is a study of the Asia Extreme brand, a DVD and theatrical release label created by British film distribution company Metro-Tartan/Tartan Films. Specifically, this book offers a comprehensive history of the marketing and critical reception of this series of films from Japan, South Korea, Thailand and Hong Kong, focusing on releases in the United Kingdom between 2000 and 2005. The strategies and marketing campaigns used by Tartan Films to promote these films to a wide British audience will be examined, as will the critical and journalistic reception of the films. The following analysis seeks to account for the rise in visibility of this cycle of Japanese horror, Hong Kong action and Korean cult film in the UK, and to chart the changing contexts of their reception. In the process, this research identifies the cinematic debates, assumptions and prejudices that inform the British critical reception of ‘cult’ cinema from the Far East....

Savagery and Serenity: Extreme Cinema and the Films of Kim Ki-duk

This chapter focuses on the reputation and reception of the Korean director Kim Ki-duk. Kim was a central figure in Tartan’s Asia Extreme brand, and the frustrated efforts of Tartan’s owner and general manager Hamish McAlpine to get Kim’s notorious The Isle (2000) released in the UK uncut, over the ruling of the BBFC, were themselves used to generate goodwill among fans and increased attention. This chapter considers the very specific construction of the Asia Extreme brand by examining Kim Ki-duk films released by Tartan both with and without Asia Extreme branding. Debates around animal cruelty and censorship are considered. Finally, the response of expert critic Tony Rayns to Kim’s increasing visibility is discussed as an expression of cultural anxiety over the changing status of Korean cinema in the West.

Cinema of Cruelty: The Birth of Asia Extreme and Miike Takashi’s Audition

This chapter covers the case of Takashi Miike’s Audition (1999), the first Japanese horror film released into cinemas by Tartan after the notable impact of Ring, and a formative moment in the development of the nascent Asia Extreme brand. This chapter argues that Audition was associated much more strongly with Orientalist views of Japan by critics, partly as a mechanism used to reject the film’s theme and message. This chapter lays out some of the theoretical groundwork that will inform later analyses, specifically academic debates concerning transgression in cinema and the merits of the visually explicit ‘body horror’ sub-genre. It conducts a detailed analysis of the extensive and innovative marketing campaign for the film, comparing the film’s apparent appeal in the UK to its original marketing in Japan. The film’s critical reception in analysed in detail, as responses ranged from high praise to alarm and derision, with critics divided over issues of exploitation, violence, feminism, and Orientalism. The legacy and continued relevance of Audition is also discussed.

From the Margins to the Mainstream: Asia Extreme in 2004

This chapter examines cult Asian cinema in the UK at the very peak of its critical acclaim and commercial success, and the drastically altered context for Asian film reception will be discussed. This chapter argues that the proliferation and high visibility of a wider range of Asian cinema than critics had ever experienced before has allowed them to finally construct their own canons of quality within national Asian cinema industries and genres. The frames of reference used by British critics to assess meaning and value have changed dramatically. At this point, too, Tartan’s brand had been transformed, achieving mainstream visibility, yet finding itself in danger of expanding to the point of losing authenticity and fracturing into meaninglessness. Nonetheless, 2004 was the peak year for Tartan, and a wide range of their releases and promotional (and self-congratulatory) activities are examined: the acclaimed release of bold new Hong Kong crime thriller Infernal Affairs (2002); the unprecedented success of Oldboy (2003), hot off its award from the Cannes International Film Festival; the critical debate inspired by the uncategorisable cult hit Save the Green Planet! (2003); and finally the scandalous (non-)release of Battle Royale II (2003).

Courting Controversy: Hype, Scandal and Fukasaku Kinji’S Battle Royale

This chapter focuses on the last of Tartan Film’s theatrical releases before the official adoption of the Asia Extreme brand: the scandalous Japanese action film Battle Royale (Kinji Fukasaku, 2000). From initial censorship concerns about the film in its native Japan, Tartan’s publicity department capitalised on Orientalist fears of the East to take advantage of the film’s ‘dangerous’ status and its potential to create outrage. Analysis traces the film’s controversy from the hysterical reaction to the film’s release in Japan, where it was associated with youth violence and triggered a parliamentary debate, to Tartan’s aggressive marketing campaign in the UK, which formed a symbiotic relationship with the film’s sensationalist status in both journalistic and critical press articles. Various factors affecting the film’s British reception will be examined, including the troubling timing of the film’s release, just three days after the 9/11 terrorist attacks in America. This chapter includes a comprehensive timeline of multimedia releases, demonstrating the cultural impact and earning potential of the Battle Royale franchise in Japan and the UK.

Brand Wagon: The Courtship of Multiplex Audiences and the 2003 Asia Extreme Roadshow

This chapter charts a key moment in the consolidation of the Asia Extreme label: the 2003 touring film festival and aggressive marketing campaign to court a wider audience by screening seven films exclusively in multiplex cinemas in the UK. This chapter considers Tartan’s marketing tactics, the critical reception of these films, as well as Tartan’s multiple strategies to consolidate a strong brand identity, which included shrewdly appropriating the pre-Asia Extreme fan culture through its assimilation of the Japanese cult auteur Shinya Tsukamoto. Finally, a fan’s response to the festival is examined, as the overarching analysis begins to address the increasing anxieties of fans and experts at the commodification and mainstreaming of ‘their’ niche passion. The revitalization of the Hong Kong action film is discussed, in relation to Asia Extreme’s appropriation of the genre and the legacy of John Woo’s ‘Heroic Bloodshed’ action films, as well as the controversial reception of A Snake of June (2002).

Chilling Beginnings: Japanese Horror and the British Critical Reception of Nakata Hideo’s Ring

This chapter examines the UK release of the Japanese horror film Ring (Hideo Nakata, 1998). The film was significant in establishing a new audience for (and critical appreciation of) Japanese horror in the UK. British film critics claimed that Ring was representative of a non-graphic, suggestive tradition in horror, typified by the Hollywood films The Sixth Sense (1999) and The Blair Witch Project (1999). Rather than responding to Ring as a foreign or alien text, critics familiarised the film in order to use it rhetorically to present a sense of difference from teen horror films popular at the time, such as Scream (1996). Thus, in the case of Ring, critics aligned themselves with Japanese cinema and placed the film in a specifically British cinematic (and literary) tradition, all in order to ‘Other’ a cycle of Hollywood films they viewed as populist, sanitised and feminised. This chapter includes a summary of the pertinent literature on this specific debate within horror and gothic studies, followed by detailed analysis of critical reviews in order to account for the positive reception and enduring influence of Ring on the later Asia Extreme brand and cycle.