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A Phnom Penh-set reworking of Kwon Hyung-jin’s 2010 South Korean drama “Wedding Dress” is the lead title for Malaysia’s Abnormal Studios at this year’s Asian Contents & Film Market in Busan, where the company is selling
the film ahead of its local release.
The new version centers on Dalin, a single mother who designs bridal gowns and whose devotion to her job has opened a gap between her and her 10-year-old daughter Mina. A terminal diagnosis shifts her priorities, and she sets about readying everything she thinks the girl will need for a happy life once she has died.
The Cambodian adaptation is the first feature from Huang Han, whose earlier work has screened at the Berlin, Busan and Pingyao film festivals. It keeps the core of the mother-daughter story while anchoring it in the day-to-day life and emotional textures of the region.
Also on the slate is “The Hungry One,” Venezuelan horror director Alejandro Hidalgo’s upcoming feature. His credits include “No Voltees” (2024); “The Exorcism of God” (2021), which was distributed in more than 150 countries; and his 2013 breakout “The House at the End of Time,” Venezuela’s top-grossing horror film.
The story follows Emily, a white American woman whose Chinese husband takes her to visit his relatives’ ancestral home in Malaysia over the 15-day Hungry Ghost Festival, when the boundary with the underworld is lifted and ghosts wander among the living. A mounting series of eerie encounters puts everything she cares about at risk.
The film is in pre-production, and its producers are working to close the last round of financing.
The company is also handling “Ali & Ben’s Spicy Meats,” an independent cannibal black comedy-horror from Feisal and Iskander Azizuddin. In it, two friends with nothing to lose become hooked on power after hitting on a winning spicy beef jerky recipe made with human flesh.
From Malaysia comes sci-fi fantasy “Mimpi Kita: Castle in the Air,” which pits a simulated world against a dystopian real one as it asks what children owe their parents. The project took part in the It Project section of the NAFF Project Market at Bucheon International Fantastic Film Festival this year.
The wider pan-Asian lineup features “Because of You Ka Kui,” a film celebrating Canto rock frontman Wong Ka Kui which, according to the company, has drawn strong fan support in select territories, and “Next Stop, Somewhere,” a drama led by Hong Kong veteran Anthony Wong. From Cambodia comes fish-out-of-water rom-com “Far Away Close to You,” which plays on the might-have-beens of youthful romance.
Other Southeast Asian titles are “The Ghost of Banana Tree,” adapted from a well-known Cambodian folk horror legend; “Silent Murders,” a crime thriller set in Cambodia’s criminal underworld; “KL Love Story,” an ensemble drama about temptation, loyalty and loneliness in Kuala Lumpur’s after-dark scene; and supernatural horror “Her Deadly Eyes.”
Indonesian audience favorites round things out, among them the horror franchises “The Doll,” “Mata Batin” and “Rumah Kentang,” and the rom-coms “Sunshine Becomes You” and the “Eiffel… I’m in Love” series.
Abnormal Studios, a subsidiary of Westec Media Limited, has been acquiring and releasing films since 2020 and has handled more than 400 titles to date. It now puts out around 100 films a year across Southeast Asia, Australia, New Zealand, Taiwan, Mongolia and Nepal, with recent hits including “How to Make Millions Before Grandma Dies” and “Twilight of the Warriors: Walled In.”
