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Industry News

Well Go USA President Doris Pfardrescher named among Home Media Magazine's "Women In Home Entertainment 2012"

(article excerpt)

by HM Editorial Staff

• DORIS PFARDRESCHER, President and Head of acquisitions, Well Go USA Inc.
Since joining the company in 1994, Pfardrescher has used her expertise for international film to make Well Go known as the top importer of Asian film to North America. Popular titles include the “Ip Man” franchise, Legend of the Fist, The Man From Nowhereand War of the Arrows. With a spirit of partnership among studios, directors, producers and distributors, Pfardrescher has a reputation of being a valued resource in North American theatrical and home media. 

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Industry News

Examiner.com: Well Go USA "has their best year ever"

November 8, 2012

by Jenny Sherman

Plano, Tx film distributor Well Go USA is having their best year ever. Wait, there's a film distributor in Plano? Yes, and a highly respected one at that.

Well Go USA is primarily known for their US distribution of Asian films such as "My Way", "IP Man", "Shaolin", and "Karate-Robo Zaborgar", but they are currently expanding their market to include films from all over the world including "The Courier" starring Jeffrey Dean Morgan and Mickey Rourke.

View slideshow:Well Go USA

Well Go USA has also been one of the sponsors of the Asian Film Festival of Dallas, which is one of the top Asian Film Festivals in the entire country. The festival is held in every year in July at the Magnolia Theater in Uptown Dallas.

This year, however, Well Go USA has acquired the distribution rights to several key films that will only increase their visibility in the market.

For example, Well Go has recently released "The Thieves" in the US, the highest grossing Korean film to date. Originally released in Korea in July, "The Thieves" broke box office records for first day ticket sales, and has already grossed $82 million dollars in Korea alone. They also snatched up the rights to "Tai Chi Zero" which has been their biggest US theatrical release to date at over 30 theaters. "Doomsday Book" will be getting a home media release on December 11 and has become a festival favorite, winning the prestigious Cheval Noir at Fantasia Fest, one of the biggest genre festivals in the world. "Let the Bullets Fly" broke Chinese box office records earlier this year, and remains #4 on the list of highest box office grossing films of all time in China.

And that's another one of the beauties of Well Go. Their relationship with Asian distributors has been cultivated for twenty years, and because of this, foreign films can be released in America only a few short months after their release date overseas. Fans of Asian cinema had to wait years in the past for their favorite titles to get a proper US release. With Well Go, Asian film gets to fans at a much more rapid pace.

The meticulously maintained relationship between Asian distributors and Well Go USA can be attributed to the dedication by Well Go's President and head of acquisitions Doris Pfardrescher. Doris joined the Well Go family in 1994 and her perseverance and dedication to the industry has paid off immensely; the fruits of her labor is enjoyed by audiences across the country. She has done the legwork and created a presence among Asian distributors that is unprecedented. Many US distributors seek out well performing Asian film, but thanks to Doris, Well Go is "nearly alone in this pursuit."

Doris's love for cinema has taken Well Go from Asian film to film from around the world. In 2012, the company has doubled the number of titles from the previous year, and are expanding their warehouse room to store many more titles to come.

Doris was also recently nominated by her peers for Home Media Magazine's annual Women In Entertainment special, a high honor in her industry.

The pride that Well Go USA takes in its library is admirable as well. They have even earned the phrase "The Well Go Treatment" from film critics, due to the extra content in their DVD and blu-ray releases, the care in their cover art, and the treatment of their fans.

The Well Go USA family IS still family. Started by Annie Walker - still the CEO - and her son Dennis and daughter Doris started the company twenty years ago, and while the company continues to grow, the family mindset still remains.

Fans of Asian cinema are grateful to Well Go - and to Doris - for their years of dedication and service to make sure that US fans have access to current content. Congratulations on your well deserved Home Media Magazine nomination, Doris. North Texas thanks you.

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Announcement, Company News

WARRIORS OF THE RAINBOW: DVD Disc Defect Notice

We have learned that some of the DVDs for the International DVD version of WARRIORS OF THE RAINBOW: SEEDIQ BALE (4.5-hour full version) have a playback error on Disk 2 that may cause the disc to stop. This error is only found on Disk 2 of the DVD International version, UPC #81249101325O, Item # WGU01325D. No other versions of SEEDIQ BALE have playback defects

We have corrected the problem and are re-shipping updated versions to all retail and online outlets. As this issue is being corrected at the store level, we would like to ensure that your copy of the DVD has the corrected disk. If you would prefer to send your disk to us for direct replacement, please mail it to the address below. We will replace your Disk 2 with the corrected version and return it to you free of charge.

Well Go USA Entertainment
ATTN: RAINBOW Disk Replacement Program
1601 E. Plano Parkway
Suite 110
Plano, Texas 75074

Our sincerest apologies for this inconvenience. Our goal is to provide an outstanding experience to every viewer, at home and in theatres. We appreciate your purchase, and hope you enjoy WARRIORS OF THE RAINBOW: SEEDIQ BALE.
Category:
Film News

The Front Line: VILLAGE VOICE- January 17, 2012- Review By Ernest Hardy.

The Front Line
Directed by Jang Hun
Well Go USA
Opens January 20

There’s a jolting moment in one of The Front Line’s early battle scenes in which a soldier rises from behind a barricade to throw a grenade, and has his hand shot off by the opposition. Director Jang Hun doesn’t linger on this shock of violence, however. In fact, it takes place in such a frenzy of action that if you blink you might miss it. Such quick, unexpected flashes engross the viewer in this Korean War tale even as the script is filled with conventional war movie tropes and types. Hun, working from a screenplay by Park Sang-hyeon, focuses on the little told (at least on film) story of the brutal and bloody end of the war. When Kang (Shin Ha-kyun), a South Korean lieutenant, is sent to the frontlines to investigate the possibility that soldiers are colluding with the North, he discovers an old friend he thought had died as a POW years before, as well as a relationship between North and South soldiers that is surprisingly layered, complex and humane. But he’s also pulled onto the battlefield where his naïve notions of honor and fair-play put himself and others in danger. Tightly directed and well acted (even though many characters are cut-outs from every war movie you’ve ever seen), The Front Line shoehorns little known history into a familiar format, and it works.

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Film News

Film Review: The Front Line

A finely crafted war film with a strong dramatic thrust.

Jan 19, 2012

-By Maggie Lee

For movie details, please click here.

The Front Line, one of Korea’s biggest blockbusters of 2011, depicts the bitter struggle between North and South to gain foothold of a hill at the tail-end of the 1950s civil war. Jang Hun’s even-handed direction and Park Sang-yeon’s traditional but finely tuned screenplay instills the right measure of humanist anti-war sentiment and personal heroism, turning the fates of a small company of men confined to one hellish location into an exposé of how impersonal military operations literally makes mountains out of molehills.

An overseas audience is likely to find the film a little long, but it won the race against other Korean summer blockbusters, recording some two million admissions in ten days.

Given the large body of war films from Korea, The Front Line does not cover new terrain in either style or content, but Jang’s signature skill at depicting brotherhood and male rivalry finds expression in his mellow, intimate focus on characters’ traumatic pasts and vulnerabilities that avoids the blustering machismo and sentimentalism of such epics as Taegukki. The varied armed conflicts provide visceral spectacle befitting the film’s production scale, but are devised in the service of human drama that advances steadily toward a stirring finale.

In January 1953, Kang Eun-pyo (Shin Ha-kyun), from the C.I.C., a South Korean army division specializing in weeding out communists, is sent to join Alligator Company—a small troop of men assigned to occupy Aerok Hill, a strategic point on the Eastern front. His covert mission is to investigate the mysterious death of their commander and to decipher how South Korean military is implicated in delivering letters from the North to their families in the South.

Kang arrives to find the company in low morale and the captain, Shin Il-young (Lee Je-hoon), a morphine addict. He discovers that officers engage in exchanges of an illicit nature with their enemies. A reunion with college buddy Kim Su-hyeok (Ko Soo) only leads to disclosure of more unpleasant truths. As casualties rise, Kang’s attitude toward the war is radically altered. Just when peace seems imminent, the company is ordered to make a last-ditch scramble for territory 12 hours before the official truce.

The futility of sacrifice is symbolized by the hill, which changed hands for some 30 times in 18 months. The tacit bond between the two sides, reinforced by the frequent reminders that the communists still have and dearly miss families in the South, is juxtaposed with battle scenes where there’s no room for mercy, even toward one’s own comrades. Two scenes in which a North Korean sniper nicknamed “2 Seconds” (Kim Ok-vin) tortures her targets are agonizing to behold, especially since they are preceded by warm encounters between the characters. The rapid-fire editing and sharp, piercing sound effects make the carnage look swift and vicious, compounding horror with an element of surprise.

The final offensive to take Aerok Hill again reflects Jang’s intention to downplay the visual fireworks of war in favor of expressing it as messy, senseless pandemonium. In the light of this, Shin’s motivating speech on why their company is named “Alligator”—like baby alligators that have a low survival rate, they are the last men standing in a war that took 50,000 lives—resonates with tragic irony. It puts the protagonists in the same state of forlorn hope as the Japanese in Letters from Iwo Jima—redefining “heroism” as dignified acceptance of destiny.

The main characters come from a broad spectrum of rank, age and personal histories. Ko Soo is irresistible as Kim the cocky rule-breaker and master of expedience who eventually becomes the story’s moral center through his defiance of unreasonable authorities. Other officers, like Shin whose enemy is his own pain, and the greenhorn private with a choirboy voice start out looking like stock characters, but they do grow in humanity and moral stature through choices they make in crisis.

Production quality is first-rate without being overwrought.
—The Hollywood Reporter