Korean sales outfit Showbox Mediaplex has picked up Kim Tae-kyun’s vampire action thriller Higanjima for worldwide sales excluding Korea and Japan.

Higanjima is a Japan-Korea co-production between Japan’s Micott & Basara and South Korea’s Kraze Pictures, which also recently co-produced Boat with Japan’s IMJ Entertainment.

Tetsuya Oishi (Death Note) wrote the screenplay based on Koji Matsumoto’s hit manga in which two brothers and their friends battle against vampires on the eerie islandof Higanjima.

The VFX horror action film stars Hideo Ishiguro (Gokusen) as a teenager who is lured to the island in search of his lost brother – played by Dai Watanabe (Crows Zero), who has actually become a legendary vampire hunter after the death of his fiancée there.

The Japanese-language film is directed by Kim Tae-kyun, whose previous hits include teenage martial arts film Volcano High and former Korean Oscar best foreign-language film category submission Crossing.

Higanjima world premiered in the Pusan International Film Festival’s Midnight Passion showcase earlier this month, and Showbox is planning a market debut screening at the upcoming American Film Market (AFM).

Warner Bros will release the film in Japan on Jan 9, 2010, while Korean distribution is yet to be announced.

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