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.

The Asia Extreme concept elided the differences between different Asian national cinemas in order to create a single, strong, indelible brand image. During a period of rising interest in Japanese horror cinema, South Korean revenge thrillers, films from Thailand and a new kind of Hong Kong action film, Tartan was the main supplier of these films to the UK, shaping how they were understood by audiences and critics. From the release of Nakata Hideo's Ring (1998), in August 2000, to the release of Park Chan-wook's Oldboy (2003), in October 2004, the Asia Extreme cycle of films built momentum and gained increasing attention from critics and audiences. At the peak of the cycle's success, these ‘cult’ Asian films were being seen in multiplex cinemas and small art houses; they were getting full reviews in every national newspaper and film periodical; their directors were in the UK for extensive press junkets and sold-out Q&A screenings. This unprecedented success for a niche-genre foreign-language cinema was due to a carefully orchestrated and long-running branding campaign, which attached a unifying label and an extremely strong brand identity to these films.

METRO-TARTAN AND ASIA EXTREME

Tartan Films was founded in 1984 by ‘iconoclastic entrepreneur’ Hamish McAlpine, film producer Don Boyd and film distributor Alan Kean. In spite of the fact that the company was formed by three partners, Tartan became indelibly associated with its operational head and primary owner, McAlpine, who encouraged people to directly equate him with his company.