Worldwide gross sales and financing outfit EST N8 has secured worldwide rights to “Dead End,” a Taiwanese motion crime thriller from director Chan Chun-hao, and has launched the title to world patrons on the Cannes Film Market.
The movie facilities on Lin Sheng-yi, a former baseball star whose profession collapsed underneath a game-fixing scandal. Returning to his hometown years later, he discovers that locals are wagering cash on the precise hour his terminally ailing father will die. With dawn as his deadline, he races to dismantle the syndicate behind the scheme whereas reckoning along with his personal troubled historical past. The story attracts from real-world experiences of underground death-betting circles documented in Taiwan.
Daniel Hong, a double Golden Horse nominee acknowledged for “Miss Shampoo” and the Cannes-selected “Mongrel,” leads the forged. He’s joined by Ng Ki-pin, a Golden Melody Award winner whose latest credit embrace “G Precinct,” and Yao Yi-ti, a Taipei Movie Award winner and Golden Horse nominee recognized for “Dead Talents Society.”
Chan is a Golden Horse Movie Academy graduate whose work “Viatical Settlement” acquired seven Golden Bell Award nominations. His 2025 collection “The Outlaw Doctor” gained Greatest Asian Contents on the World OTT Awards in Busan and swept main classes on the Golden Bell Awards.
“‘Dead End’ is a relentless thriller that marks the arrival of Chan Chun-hao as a major voice in Asian genre cinema. By grounding this story in a shocking real-world subculture, he has created something that feels both incredibly urgent and deeply human. We are eager to leverage this momentum as we head into the Cannes market with our mission to elevate sophisticated Asian stories onto the international stage,” mentioned Sophie Shi, head of studios at EST N8.
“With ‘Dead End,’ I wanted to explore the cost of a second chance when time is literally running out. Having the team at EST N8 champion this film at Cannes is a proud moment, as they truly understand the nuances of bringing bold, contemporary Taiwanese stories to a global stage,” Chan added.
The characteristic is produced by Taipei-based inJECT Movies, whose tasks have acquired backing from Taiwan’s Ministry of Tradition and TAICCA. The deal was negotiated by Shi and Cathy Ni for EST N8, and by producer Vincent Chen for inJECT Movies.
“‘Dead End’ is a story born from the shadows of our society, and we can’t wait for global audiences to experience this journey,” Chen mentioned.
“Dead End” slots into an EST N8 Cannes lineup that features Rezwan Shahriar Sumit’s IFFR Massive Display screen Award-winning “Master”; Awi Suryadi’s “Danur: The Last Chapter,” the conclusion of a landmark Indonesian horror franchise and the nation’s highest-grossing movie of 2026; and Kimo Stamboel’s “Janur Ireng,” a prequel to the 2023 field workplace hit “Sewu Dino.” Additionally on the slate are Tetsuya Mariko’s “Dear Stranger,” starring Hidetoshi Nishijima and Gwei Lun-Mei; the Raindance-selected “The Invisible Half”; and Julie Pacino’s Fantasia-premiered “I Live Here Now.”
EST N8 was shaped by the mixture of EST Studios – based in 2022 by Jaeson Ma and Eric Tu – and N8, the Bangkok-based studio launched in 2023 by Kris Eiamsakulrat and Rachel Y. Wu.
