The Foreigner's Melody

The Foreigner's Melody is a 2002 animated romance drama film directed by Jingle Ma and Tatsuya Hironaka and produced by Zhuang Chen, Shinichi Ikeda and Tomonori Ochikoshi. Set in the 1960s, the film chronicles a relationship between a Hong Kong boy and a Japanese girl after they're brought together by a tragic incident. Nicholas Tse and Qin Hailu voice the leads in the Cantonese version whilst Megumi Ogata and Hekiru Shiina voice them in the Japanese version.

The concept for the film was originally created by co-director Tatsuya Hironaka in 1995, before he directed the On the Ropes segment in the 1997 anthology film London Stories. Hironaka presented his script to J.C.Staff, and also found favor from Hong Kong-based STAR TV Filmed Entertainment and Fortune Star Media, who agreed to help finance and distribute the film. Jingle Ma joined the production in 1999, after completing Fly Me to Polaris, as did Zhuang Chen and Sil-Metropole Organization. This was Ma's first film not to be distributed or produced by Golden Harvest.

Japanese band SPEED performed the song Be My Love for the film's Japanese release, whilst Sammi Cheng performed Zhong Shen Mei Li for it's Hong Kong release. The film was released in Hong Kong by Fortune Star Media on September 19, 2002 and in Japan by Movie-Eye Entertainment, Inc. on January 11, 2003. An English-dubbed version featuring the voices of Shawn Ashmore and Kirsten Dunst was released in the United States on November 12, 2004 by Miramax Films. Critical reception was generally positive, with praise towards the animation quality, the direction and chemistry between the two leads. The film grossed a worldwide total of $40 million at the box office.

Plot
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Release
The Foreigner's Melody had it's theatrical premiere in Hong Kong on September 19, 2002, with Fortune Star Media handling the distribution. It was later released in Japan on January 11, 2003 by Movie-Eye Entertainment, Inc.

English releases
In an attempt at making exporting the film to English-speaking countries more easy, Fortune Star created an English dub at Omni Productions in Happy Valley, Hong Kong. This dub was only released in theaters in Singapore and as a language track on the Fortune Star and Metropolitan Export DVD releases in Hong Kong and France, respectively.

Miramax Films, who previously distributed London Stories, purchased the American distribution rights to the film in December 2003. Other companies who attempted to purchase the distribution rights included Sony Pictures, Tartan Films, ADV Films and Fine Line Features. Likely due to the poor quality of the export dub, Miramax opted to produce their own English dub. Miramax's dub was produced at Spliced Bread Productions, Inc. in West Hills, California and at Sound One Corporation in New York, with Jamie Thomason, Bob Buccholz and Dan Edelstein all serving as dialogue directors. A couple of recognizable names lent their voices to the Miramax dub, those being Shawn Ashmore, Kirsten Dunst, Jason Bateman, Charlize Theron, Peter Gallagher and Michael Madsen.

Though the Miramax dub contained many edits, compared to their standards, it was relatively light. Unlike most of their dubs, The Foreigner's Melody suffered no full scenes being cut. Most the changes were alterations in the dialogue, with the screenplay's writer, Michael Feldman, rewriting several pieces of dialogue from the Cantonese and Japanese language versions. James L. Venable also composed new music for the Miramax dub, with some of his score replacing Ricky Ho's score from the original. The Miramax version also has it's own credits song, Bless the Broken Road by Rascal Flatts, replacing the credits songs from either version. Co-director Tatsuya Hironaka had mixed opinions on the Miramax dub; he praised the voice acting, finding it more professional than the export dub, but was critical about the changes to the screenplay and story, saying that it was "nearly unrecognizable" at times, and that he felt that American audiences likely would have understood the original story just fine.

Miramax Films gave the film a wide release in the United States on November 12, 2004. During it's run, the film grossed $14.3 million at the American box office. American critical reviews were also relatively positive and helped to give Tatsuya Hironaka some name recognition in the States.

Home media
Fortune Star Media released the film on DVD in Hong Kong on March 12, 2003. This release contains various bonus features such as a behind-the-scenes featurette, cast interviews, storyboard to film comparisons, and the export dub alongside the Cantonese-language version. Movie-Eye Entertainment, Inc. released the film on DVD in Japan on September 17, 2003, with both the Japanese and Cantonese-language versions included in their release.

Miramax Home Entertainment released the film on DVD and VHS in the United States on April 12, 2005. Miramax's release also contains the Cantonese-language version on a second disc, with the English dub and bonus material relegated to the first disc. Lionsgate Home Entertainment reprinted the DVD release in 2012, followed by another reprint from Paramount Home Entertainment in 2021. Lionsgate and Paramount's reprints only contain the first disc, making their releases dub only.