Ong Bak, the Thai martial arts extravaganza that launched Tony Jaa as a global superstar and world class action athlete is rocketing off retailer shelves, with 40,000 units shipped in the first week of release.

The double disc has proved to be a resolute success for Melbourne's Madman/ AV Channel, who released the DVD on its Eastern Eye label after a year long awareness campaign that commenced with closing night festival screenings, a national theatrical campaign helmed by Madman Cinema grossing $550,000,and an unprecedented marketing/media campaign across paid advertising, direct, on-line & viral marketing and widespread publicity coverage generating enormous awareness at an estimated value of $250,000.

Ong Bak is proving a serious proposition in both the rental and retail sectors, debuting at number 8 on Video Ezy's rental chart , behind a line up of $1,000,000 + theatrical releases, and hitting number 6 on the GFK chart of September 6 (behind huge Hollywood titles such as Sahara, Hitch and Troy).

Eastern Eye is a label dedicated to bringing the vanguard feature films of the new Asian cinema frontier to Australia. The latest action, horror and drama based features from Thailand, Korea, Japan, Hong Kong, China and other Asian territories comprise the label, which has made serious inroads into the Australian marketplace since it was launched in February 2004.

AV Channel Director of Sales and Marketing Rebecca Shand said the runaway success of Ong Bak would reinforce Eastern Eye as the premiere Asian Cinema label in Australia and further enhance the profile of the Asian cinema genre in this country.

"These exceptional sales results for Ong Bak confirm our long standing belief in the film's breakout potential ; there can be no doubt that non traditional Asian cinema fans are buying Ong Bak in their droves ; this can only mean great ongoing awareness for Eastern Eye as a label going forward. The campaign behind Ong Bak has also proven that an independent distributor such as AV Channel can leverage considerable value and unit numbers with the right marketing mix, packaging and individual retailer initiatives. Ong Bak has all the makings of an strong ongoing catalogue seller ; we expect sales to be strong over the course of its life, not just in this initial sales phase"

The AV Channel will release 'Born to Fight' , a action film produced by the creators of Ong Bak on November 16, through the Eastern Eye label delivering yet another hard hitting contender on the ever growing Asian cinema category.