AGC International Takes Foreign Rights to Donnie Yen Action Thriller ‘The Father’

Stuart Ford’s AGC International has picked up action thriller “The Father,” starring “Mulan” actor and martial artist Donnie Yen.

The sales and distribution arm of AGC Studios has swooped for international rights to the title, which will be launched to buyers at the Toronto International Film Festival, running in largely virtual form from Sept. 10-20. CAA Media Finance will handle U.S. distribution rights.

Set in South Boston, Yen — who is best known for the “Ip Man” franchise, “Star Wars: Rogue One” and, most recently, “Mulan” — stars as middle-class Hong Kong immigrant John Chung, who is making the best of his family’s new life in America while working as a modest fish broker in the city’s docklands. When his teenage sons stumble upon four kilos of heroin and are hunted down by a local crime ring and corrupt cops, Chung must stop at nothing to protect them.

The cast also includes Alec Baldwin (“Mission Impossible: Fallout”) and Frank Grillo (“The Purge”).

Producers on “The Father” include Arthur Sarkissian (“The Foreigner,” “Rush Hour”), Basil Iwanyk and Erica Lee of Thunder Road (“John Wick,” “Sicario”), John Schramm and Yen. A script from P.G. Cuschieri will be directed by Tommy Wirkola (“Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters”). Principal photography gets underway early in 2021.

CAA represented Yen, Baldwin, Grillo and Wirkola and negotiated the deal with AGC’s VP of legal and business affairs Anant Tamirisa and Thunder Road’s executive VP of business affairs Jonathan Fuhrman. Yen is managed by David Unger at Artist International Group.

Yen recently boarded documentary “Wuhan! Wuhan!” which chronicles a day-and-a-half in the life of the Chinese city where the earliest proven cases of COVID-19 were found. The actor, who recently reiterated his political loyalty to mainland China, will appear in the upcoming theatrical adaptation of popular video game “Sleeping Dogs” as well as “Golden Empire,” a new China-backed crime thriller.