Gareth Evans, one of the directors who became one of the talks of Toronto with his Indonesian action movie The Raid, has signed with Management 360.
TORONTO REVIEW: The Raid
Evans wrote and directed Raid, which kicked off the Midnight Madness portion of the Toronto International Film Festival and became such a sensation that it ended up winning festival’s Midnight Madness audience award.
The interesting thing about Evans is that he’s not even Asian, but married a woman of Indonesian-Japanese descent, moved to Indonesia, and found himself working in TV and film there.
STORY: Toronto 2011: Hot Indonesian Action Movie ‘The Raid’ Sells Out the World (Exclusive)
His first feature was Merantau, a 2009 action movie which focused on the Indonesian fighting style of silat. With Raid, he upped the ante buy introducing gunplay on top of the mana-a-mano action.
Raid tells the story of a SWAT team that becomes trapped in a tenement run by a ruthless mobster, armed with two highly violent martial arts killers and an army of machete-swinging, machine gun-toting dealers and thugs.
STORY: Toronto 2011: ‘The Raid’ Starts Midnight Madness on a Butt-Kicking Note
Sony Pictures Worldwide Acquisitions at Cannes picked up the movie for domestic distribution and was pre-sold at other countries, but the makers of the movie, XYZ Films, was able to sell out the rest of the world on the strength of that wildy raucous and cheery premiere.
It was after the premiere that agencies and management companies descended on Evans, trying to sign him. He is still without an agency.
