Kano tops Taiwan box office

Released by VieVision Pictures, the $10m film took $700,000 (NT$22m) in Taipei alone and $2.2m (NT$65m) across the country over the four-day weekend. The Wolf Of Wall Street fell to second place in its third week, while Pompeii came in third.

Kano is the feature debut of Chinese-aboriginal filmmaker Umin Boya, who also starred in Wei’s Warriors Of The Rainbow: Seediq Bale. Wei produced through his ARS Film Production banner with Jimmy Huang. Taipei-based Ablaze Image is handling international sales.

Huang was also a producer on the Wei-directed Warriors Of The Rainbow, which was a huge hit in Taiwan in 2011. Wei’s Cape No. 7 also broke box office records, heralding the revival of Taiwan’s domestic film industry in 2008.

Set in the 1930s, when Taiwan was under Japanese rule, Kano tells the story of a multi-ethnic baseball team making it way to Japan’s high school baseball championships. Their coach is played by Masatoshi Nagase, (The Hidden Blade) and the cast also includes Takao Osawa, Maki Sakai and Togo Igawa.