Hong Kong's Peter Chan launches Changin' Pictures

Hong Kong filmmaker Peter Ho-Sun Chan has launched production company Changin’ Pictures with an initial slate of five titles that includes stars Donnie Yen and Zhang Ziyi.

The company will focus on content for streaming services and plans to roll out 20 limited series across various genres in its first four years across the Asia Pacific region.

It aims to sign up leading filmmakers and fresh talent from throughout the region to create drama projects for a pan-Asian audience and aims to work with platforms and co-production partners looking to enter Asia’s growing streaming market.

Chan will unveil its first five series at the Busan International Film Festival in South Korea with Esther Yeung, the chief operating officer of the new company and formerly general manager, head of sales and distribution at Bill Kong’s Edko Films.

The first two projects in the line-up are Korean series, both adapted from popular webtoons. ONE: High School Heroes, produced by Covenant Pictures, is an action series about a bullied high school student who transforms himself into a bully-bashing hero. Heesu In Class 2 is a bittersweet romance between two high school boys, produced by Film K, whose credits include Exit and Escape From Mogadishu.

Hong Kong action star Yen is attached as showrunner to Outright Loser, Hidden Master, marking his first foray into series production. Yen will play an Asian American martial artist discovers that kung fu masters have been imprinting their memories and skills onto strangers’ bodies.

Chinese actress Zhang Ziyi is set to star in The Murderer, a true crime suspense thriller based on a case in 1940s Shanghai. Chan will direct the thriller in which Zhang plays a woman accused of dismembering her husband.

The slate is rounded out by The Eye, a reboot of the hit horror IP and is produced by Banjong Pisanthanakun, the Thai director of Pee Mak, Shutter and The Medium. Set in Southeast Asia, episodes of the horror anthology series will be directed by Baz Poonpiriya (Bad Genius), Parkpoom Wongpoom (Shutter) and Wisit Sasanatieng (Tears of the Black Tiger).

Chan has been championing the global potential of pan-Asian content since the early 2000s and set up Hong Kong-based Applause Pictures, which produced films with talent including Kim Jee-Woon, Park Chan-Wook, Takashi Miike, Hur Jin-Ho, Nonzee Nimibutr, the Pang Brothers, and Fruit Chan.

His films as a director include Comrades, Almost a Love Story, Perhaps Love, The Warlords, Bodyguards And Assassins, Wu Xia, American Dreams in China, Dearest, and Leap.