Count_Zero

Anyone else heard about this?

From Variety:

"This came in Monday. The lawyers have spoken and Tartan USA has been closed.
NOTICE OF PUBLIC FORECLOSURE SALE On May 19, 2008, at 10:00 a.m. at Greenberg Glusker, LLP, 1900 Ave. of the Stars, Ste. 2100, Los Angeles, CA 90067, Palisades Media Asset Fund, LLC will conduct a public foreclosure sale of all assets of Tartan Films USA Inc. and Tartan Video USA, Inc., including their film library (101 titles) and all accounts, chattel paper, instruments, documents, general intangibles, inventory, goods (including equipment, furniture and fixtures), investment property, deposit accounts, bank accounts, deposits, cash, letter of credit rights, and all other property.Sale is subject to prior liens. For more information, please contact Palisades Pictures at 212-265-2323.

There are two possibilities here:
1) Tartan USA has gone out of business, plain and simple.
2) There are things afoot. I'm curious to know who bought the assets this morning, most importantly the 101 titles (not so interested in the fate of the furniture). Tartan has been having some trouble recently, and had postponed their 2008 titles first to May and then to some point in the future.

If you weren't keeping score, Tartan was the US distributor for OLDBOY, ELECTION, ELECTION 2 (aka TRIAD ELECTION), SYMPATHY FOR MR. VENGEANCE and a bunch of other titles. Almost 101 of them, in fact."


http://www.varietyasiaonline.com/kai.../TARTAN-CLOSED

EdTheRipper

Damn. I kind of figured something was up when none of their titles were making it out.

Peep

I don't know how much they are asking for it, but they have a great library of films.

Sad news.

tylergfoster

Here come a million double-dips of Oldboy.

Sad.

chris_sc77

Damnit I swear I knew this would happen. They did a great job with their titles but unfortunately nobody came to the theatrical releases of their films and their DVD's were packaged very nicely with the slipcovers and all and Im sure they didnt sell as well as they would have hoped. I will greatly miss them.

Jigen75

They had some good titles, but way to many crappy J Horror ones.

Doctor Zoidberg

That's a shame. They were putting out some great stuff. Hopefully they'll be released here under another company.

WillDLeeEsq

That's terrible news. I have all their releases of Chan-wook Park's films. I was waiting for them to put out I'm a Cyborg.

Count_Zero

I was really looking forward to their announced Blu-ray releases of A Tale of Two Sisters and Lady Vengeance. Bummer...

RichC2

Bummer, quality movies that I assumed weren't selling that great.

Hopefully Tartan in the UK will keep their Blurays region free.

Brian T

This had to be key to their demise, at least in part. I'd add "too many derivative K-horror titles" to that as well. Just too many movies wherein once you get the "big twist" repeat viewings aren't quite the same (TWO SISTERS excepted). Even a few Hong Kong ones. I often wonder if the same thing might happen to companies that specialize almost exclusively in old-school martial arts movies. Perhaps the audience in North America is a little larger for that stuff, but it must be hard to turn a profit on some of it, especially when people have been parallel-importing it for years because they don't care to wait or aren't overly interested in value-added content. I've got two or three Tartan releases, but saw most of the other 98 via more affordable imports a long time ago, and in far too many cases was glad that I spent maybe half the average retail price of Tartan's releases (which were actually priced rather reasonably). These films all have their moments, but far too many couldn't seriously be considered "keepers," despite the classy packaging. Perhaps some folks could smell that without actually having to see them at all?

RichC2

Yeah, asian horror has been miserable these last few years.

When I meant quality movies, I did mean Oldboy, Tale of Two Sisters, etc; I forgot how much crap came out as well.

I'm also curious how well the Dragon Dynasty label is doing.

Brian T

Ya gotta wonder . . .

Having a bigger, more diverse parent company probably helps, but for how long?


.

Jigen75

The Tartan packaging was really nice. And their covers were well done. I think one of the problems would be they put out too much stuff and only a little bit was actually good. Theres just only so many Asian DVDs that people can afford to buy. People bought Old Boy but rented the average stuff. And I'm sure the license for Old Boy was very expensive so even though its popular there might not be much profit. I think quality over quantity is key these days.

And you can already see Dragon Dynasty slowing down. I think in another year they may end up done as well. I just hope they get The Killer out first before that happens.

Brian T

It's telling that a lot of Tartan's titles were not special editions on their home turf, aside from certain key Korean titles (among Asian industries, Koreans seem to do the most "special editions", but in a market where DVD sales flatlined long ago!). I think in Asia, the attitude towards cinema is that it's a disposable, "here-and-now" diversion with video releases often being unprofitable because the need to build "libraries" just isn't as strong in places like Hong Kong, China, Korea and Japan.

Likewise, there's only so many DVDs in general that people can afford to buy, let alone store and watch! At a time when many DVD "collectors"--surely the prime demographic for companies like these--have already reached saturation point with collections larger than the time they'll comfortably find to watch them, this sting will probably be felt by many more niche distributors in the next year or two, even after (or if) they switch over to Blu-Ray.


That would be nice. It should be interesting to see what happens to a lot of these niche companies (Media Blasters/Shriek Show/Tokyo Shock, Blue Underground, etc). A lot of their content just won't sell at current Blu-Ray prices, nor could a lot of collector's justify the expenditure, but at the same time, these companies might not survive long enough to see a consistent $10-$15 price point (perhaps even lower) at which they'd need to sell such hit-or-miss genre product, especially when the DVD editions are already better than anyone should rightfully expect for a lot of it.

This Tartan situation could be an omen.

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Matthew Ackerly

Hopefully, this doesnt lead to the domino effect and every other cult label's collapse.

pro-bassoonist

The effect actually began with No Shame and nearly affected Blue Underground as well.

Pro-B

Peep

Can you provide a pointer for what's going on at Blue Underground? They are a favorite of mine. I just bought a handful of their new releases.

asianxcore

Bummer

I have a handful of Tartan releases and loved the fantastic job they did with all their releases. Looks like I'll have to start picking up Tartan stuff overseas now.

Agree with everyone who mentioned they put out too many titles that were similar (J-Horror, etc.).

The last release I bought from them was earlier this year. I picked up "Sheitan" (Vincent Cassel) and enjoyed it for the odd movie it was

Sean O'Hara

And yet Roan, Alpha, Goodtimes, etc. survive.

I'd say the problem with No Shame and Tartan is that they were too specialized -- the market for Italian and Asian cinema isn't big enough to support companies that deal in nothing else. Anchor Bay is just as much a specialty publisher, but their catalogue is diverse so they aren't tapping the same segment of the market with each release.

Gerry P.

What a drag. Snatch them up while you can.

I'll be getting:

Battle in Heaven
The Death of Mr. Lazarescu
Election
The Hidden Blade
Japon
The Page Turner
The Perfect Crime
Red Road
A Snake of June
A Tale of Two Sisters
Tetsuo: The Iron Man
Triad Election

darthdelegate

So what's the bargain that's being posted here?

Gerry P.

This is why you shouldn't drink and post.

dx23

saoirse

Um... sorry if I have no idea, but does this affect Asia Extreme? Is the whole Tartan thing done?

If so, DAMN! I have many great Asian films through the Asia Extreme part.