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When you go to a movie called “The Modelizer,” you assume certain things about your protagonist: that he’ll be a smooth-talking, pricelessly well-dressed cad, one who values women too much for certain assets (their looks) and not enough for others (everything else), and that the film will be engineered to give him a comeuppance. All that is true of “The Modelizer.”

What you don’t expect is that the movie, in this case, is going to take all that sexist-swinger-as-master-of-the-universe stuff and put it on one-percent-of-the-one-percent steroids. “The Modelizer” is set in Hong Kong, which the movie keeps reminding us is the most expensive city in the world. The hero, Shawn Koo (Byron Mann), is the scion of an outrageously wealthy Chinese real-estate family; they own one-third of the property in Hong Kong. Shawn, who sees each of his parents once a month and serves as their company’s managing director,...

Opening in theaters and on VOD July 14, Vertical’s “The Modelizer” offers a trailer that sells a romantic comedy that’s part of a new wave of “Hong Kong Films,” which are original features where the subject matter is distinctly Hong Kong but is in English.

Directed by Keoni Waxman and produced, written by and starring Byron Mann (who has seemingly aged about ten minutes since playing Ryu in the 1994 “Street Fighter” movie), the picture is a conventional mix of rom-com tropes (a well-off womanizer must change his ways once he finds someone – played by Rayssa Bratillieri — worth settling down for) and wealth porn, with the obvious hook being that it’s from a locale that isn’t often presented in such a fashion in mainstream Hollywood flicks.

The locale is usually for stranger-in-a-strange-land actioners like Dwayne Johnson’s “Skyscraper” (who co-starred Mann) and Rowann Atkinson’s “Johnny English Reborn...

Exclusive: Vertical has acquired North American rights to Keoni Waxman’s romantic comedy The Modelizer, written by and starring Byron Mann (The Big Short), slating the film for a day-and-date release on July 14th.

Set in Hong Kong’s high octane, ultra-rich fast-lane, The Modelizer follows Shawn Koo (Mann), son of a Chinese tycoon family, and his partner-in-clubbing Narin “Bucky” Sakpiporn (K-pop star Nichkhun), who enjoy a lavish lifestyle of parties, privilege and international model girlfriends. After a string of short-term relationships, Shawn gets a wake-up call, realizing that all the money in the world is not enough to buy the love of a woman. As he begins falling for the charming yet defiant Camila (Rayssa Bratillieri), a Brazilian model unaccustomed to his lifestyle, Shawn must change his tactics and clean up his act if he intends to win her heart.

Also starring Dominika Kachlik, Han Hrzic, Celinde Schoenmaker, Julia Nickson...

Sales roster includes Amp House, Bone Cold, The Brink Of, Burden.

Giulia Prenna is attending Mipcom with the sales arm of her Mind The Gap Productions to kick off talks on a slate of five features led by Keoni Waxman’s rom-com The Modelizer.

The Los Angeles-based producer of 2021 SXSW drama The Fallout with Shailene Woodley launched the sales division during the pandemic and attended Cannes Marché with the new venture for the first time. She will bring the sales slate to the AFM at the start of November.

The Modelizer centres on a wealthy Hong Kong bachelor who only...

Celinde Schoenmaker (Rocketman), Julia Nickson (Rambo First Blood Part II), Rayssa Bratillieri (Malhação Vidas Brasileiras) and Hana Hrzic (Métèque) have joined the cast of the romantic comedy Hong Kong Love Story. They join previous announced cast members Byron Mann (Wu Assassins), Dominika Kachlik (M jak milosc) Nichkhun, and Kenneth Tsang (Die Another Day). Production is set to begin in Hong Kong on December 18.

Based on real events, Hong Kong Love Story follows Mann and Nichkhun as scions of tycoon families as they stumble their way around Hong Kong to find love. Their friendship gets tested when a Polish model played by Kachlik comes into their lives.

On the stage in London’s West End, Schoenmaker played Fantine in Les Misérables as well as Christine in Phantom Of The Opera. She played Elton John’s ex-wife in Rocketman and appeared in the Red Light series which was nominated for best foreign...