Welcome to Global Breakouts, Deadline’s new strand in which, each fortnight, we shine a spotlight on the TV shows and films killing it in their local territories. The industry is as globalized as it’s ever been, but breakout hits are appearing in pockets of the world all the time and it can be hard to keep track. So we’re going to do the hard work for you.
This week we visit French director Xavier Gens’s Thailand-set fight-fest Farang, which has shown independent French action movies can hold their own in cinemas and find international buyers. Released against a real-life background of fury towards the police following the killing of a French teenager during a traffic stop in June, the film has shown there remains an appetite for genre movie in the country.
Name: Farang
Country: France
Distributor: Studiocanal
Networks: Canal+, France Télévisions
Where to watch: Due for digital release in multiple territories in early 2024, including IFC in the U.S.
For fans of: Gangs of London, The Raid, Ong-Bak: Muay Thai Warrior
France and Thailand-set action movie Farang combines the talents of French director Xavier Gens and UK action designer Jude Poyer, who first met on the set of Sky Atlantic and AMC crime thriller series Gangs of London.
Actor and former kickbox champion Nassim Lyès plays Sam, a prisoner forced on the run when his past violently catches up with him while on day-release, in the first of a series of spectacular fight scenes.
Cut to five years later, and Sam has found safe haven in a Thai resort, where he diligently provides for his pregnant wife and young daughter, working as a hotel porter by day and Thai boxing fighter by night.
This idyll is shattered when he comes into the orbit of local crime boss Narong, played by Olivier Gourmet, who won Best Actor at Cannes in 2002 for The Son. When a drug drop goes wrong, Narong’s thugs come after Sam’s family, setting him off on a violent odyssey across Thailand in search of revenge.
Xavier Gens
Farang marks a departure for Gens, who had previously focused on the horror genre as well as comedy, with credits including Lionsgate and Grindstone’s Romania-set exorcism horror The Crucifixion, sci-fi-horror Cold Skin and French-language buddy comedy Budapest.
“I rebooted my cinema. If Farang is a story about a second chance, it’s also my story because I’m reinventing myself with this film,” he says.
Inspiration for the film grew out of Gens experiences working on Gangs of London, at the same time as producing Algeria-set Cannes 2019 film Un Certain Regard picture Papicha by his wife Mounia Meddour.
“On one hand, I was working on a very arty auteur film. On the other, I was working on an action film, with the very specific methodology of Gareth Evans,” says Gens, referring the Gangs of London creator, who is also known for cult fight films such as The Raid.
Gangs of London had left Gens wanting to make “a truly, big mainstream French action movie, that was badass and loved for that and could hold its own again international productions.”
He also wanted the protagonist to be of Algerian origin “without his origins being the subject of the film.” Lyés was born and raised in France but has Algerian roots.
Gen’s ambitions chimed with those of producer Dimitri Stephanides at French sales and production company WTFilms, who lead-produced Farang alongside Vincent Roget at Paris-based Same Player.
Genre specific
Having built up WTFilms into one of the premiere sales companies for international indie genre fare, Stephanides and his partner Gregory Chambet have also been pushing into genre feature production in recent years.
“The idea was to make a French fight film without frontiers, something truly international, with hardcore and brutal fight scenes similar to those in Gareth Evan’s The Raid and Gangs of London, which we love,” he says.
“It was important to have action designer Jude Poyer on board; we wanted the fight scenes to look as credible as possible. It was also one of the reasons why we cast Nassim; we needed an actor who really knows how to fight. Nassim with his kick-fighting past was perfect for that.”
Stephanides also saw Farang as an opportunity to move into the French action movie space left empty by Luc Besson, whose near-mothballed studio EuropaCorp has not produced a mainstream action film since 2019 assassins thriller Anna.
“We’re trying to pick up the torch and to show that these kinds of films can also be made outside of the platforms. We have nothing against the platforms and we’re happy they exist, but we believe these sorts of films can also find their place in the cinema,” he says, acknowledging that WTFilms is not the only one with that ambition in France.
Stephanides secured Studiocanal for international sales and French distribution, with Canal+ coming on board for the pay-TV window and France Télévisions picking up the free-to-air rights, via its head of cinema and international Manuel Alduy, who had previously supported Gens 2007 feature Frontière(s).
The film released theatrically in France on June 28 to strong reviews, particularly from local sites focused on genre films and action movies, with one describing protagonist Sam as the French John Wick, while another proclaimed the film “an excellent French-style The Raid.”
It has drawn 200,000 admissions as of today (July 25), to give a rough gross of $1.5M.
On the face of it, this may not seem like a stellar performance but Stephanides says that both he and Studiocanal are pleased with the result, especially given the fact that the release coincided with a period of rioting in France, following the shooting dead of teenage Nahel Merzouk by a policeman on June 27.
“It’s important to note that it came out on the Wednesday (June 28) and two days later most the cinemas in the outer-city suburbs were shut,” he says. “It would have undoubtedly performed better without the riots.”
Stephanides adds that the ballpark for this sort of independent action film in France up until now has been around 250,000 admissions. “If you take a better-known actor and reduce the violence, you can maybe push it to around 300,000,” he suggests, adding there is a similar ceiling for indie horror.
“There are films like Silent Hill, which achieved 815,000 admissions a decade ago, but today with the arrival of the platforms, that would be impossible. Economically, you need to figure on a ceiling of around 300,000 entries, unless you have a phenomenon like Smile, which takes off and goes beyond a million spectators.”
Against this backdrop, Farang still makes economic sense.
Beyond its TV deals and local performance, the film has been a success on the international sales front, with key deals, including a multi-territory sale to IFC for North America, Australia and New Zealand as well as to Japan (Klockworx), Latin America (Gussi), Germany (Studiocanal), Benelux (Dutch FilmWorks) and Korea (Challen Film).
Stephanides hints that WTFilms and Gens are now mulling a fresh collaboration building on lessons learned from Farang. “The film is certificate 12 in France, but we’re wondering whether it would it make sense to tone the violence down to reach a wider audience,” he says.
Beyond this, the bottom line is that Farang has proved an independent French action is viable.
“We’ve shown there is local theatrical demand and international appetite for these sorts of films,” says Stephanides. “The next step is to figure out how to improve this result, that’s the challenge, because this is the type of film we would like to make more of.”
International buyers would do well to watch this space.