Luc Besson Lost Tom Yum Goong Distributing Right

pic from Screen at Cannes

Cannes – Despite many earlier announcements, the long-awaited Tom Yum Goong failed to be screened at Cannes, as the film was still in the editing room during the festival. In its place, the production studio showed the film’s 20-minute-long clip featuring a breathtaking fight scene in which Tony Jaa tackled 30 villains simultaneously. Other trailers that debut in Cannes included Bandit Thongdee’s supernatural action flick, The Mercury Man (Ai-Lek-Lhai) and Manop Udomdej’s serpentine action-fantasy film, Boa.

However, the most surprising news about Tom Yum Goong was not the screening delay but the unexpected change of its international distributors. EuropaCorp of the French director and producer Luc Besson had secured the right to distribute this first version of Thai action film in Europe, North America, Australia, and New Zealand before Cannes Film Festival. But, at Cannes, we learned that TF1, another French distributing firm, would distribute Tom Yum Goong in France, while Britain ’s Contender Film Group secured the distributing right for the rest of Europe. Asian distributors varied for each country.

Golden Network Asia, the Hong Kong-based distributor of all Sahamongkol Films, suggested me to inquire directly into the Sahamongkol Film. Unfortunately, most of them had returned to Thailand and the last remaining representative was missing in action at the time of writing.