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Stills of Yao Chen in Lost, Found
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Actress Zhang Jiani spotted in mega-hit drama
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Actress Ning Chang releases new fashion shots
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Actress Miao Miao covers fashion magazine
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Ludi Lin Joins China Version of ‘Humans’ (Exclusive)
(Variety) “Power Rangers” star, Ludi Lin has joined the main cast of the Chinese-language adaptation of U.K. television series “Humans.” Production is now under way in Shanghai.
The series is a partnership between Endemol Shine China and Chinese production house Croton Media, the U.K.’s Kudos and Sweden’s Matador Film.
Set in 2035, when technology, in particular artificial intelligence has infiltrated and influenced every aspect of daily existence, the series aims to maintain the sinister, and emotional narrative of the original English-language version, while also exploring the rapidly evolving relationship between humanity and technology.
Lin, who also appears in the upcoming “Aquaman” movie, joins a cast that already includes Ray Ma (aka Ma Tianyu) and Stephy Qi (aka Qi Wei). Lin was named in 2016 by Variety as an Asian talent to watch. He previously appeared in hit Chinese film “Monster Hunt” and in Netflix series “Marco Polo.”
The U.K. “Humans,” which has run for three seasons and has been licensed in over 170 territories, was produced by Kudos for Channel 4 and AMC, and was itself adapted from the original Swedish series “Real Humans,” produced by Sveriges Television and Matador. Endemol Shine will handle international rights sales of the Chinese series.
“Humans marks our first scripted formats partnership deal with a local partner in China and having enlisted both U.K. and Chinese writers it’s truly a collaborative venture. Sci-fi drama is an under-represented genre across the (Asia) region and we really believe that this new take will set a new trend and that Endemol Shine China will continue to be the leader in creativity and innovation, making unique offerings to the market,” said William Tan, MD of Endemol Shine China.
Source: Variety By Patrick Frater
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Another Film Yanked From Chinese Cinemas After Poor Opening, Producers Vow Rerelease
(THR) Chinese studio Yi Animation had high hopes for its first feature film release, Kung Food, an adaptation of a popular children's TV series about an adventurous steamed dumpling.
But after the animated film opened to just $420,000 last weekend — after costing $12 million and more than half a decade to develop and produce — the company and its partners resorted to desperate action. On Monday, the film was pulled from cinemas, with the director posting an apology to social media, saying he would make changes to improve the film and attempt to release it again.
Kung Food opened in a crowded weekend, facing off against the debut of Sony's big-budget animated feature Hotel Transylvania 3: Summer Vacation (which has earned $23.1 million to date), as well as Warner Bros' holdover giant shark hit The Meg ($136 million) and Chinese blockbuster The Island ($180 million). Still, the severity of Kung Food's flop surprised many in the Chinese industry, given that the title was marketed and distributed by Beijing Culture, a local studio which has been on a two-year hot streak. The company was one of the lead producers of Dying to Survive ($450 million), China's biggest hit this summer, as well as the 2017 mega-blockbuster Wolf Warrior 2 ($870 million).
"Pulling the film was a mutual decision between the production company and distributor," wrote Sun Haipeng, Kung Food's director, in his apology post. "We only hope that after many years of effort, our film will be seen by more audiences. We will upgrade the film during this period of time, and when it is released again, everybody will see a more complete and better work."
The Kung Food episode echoes the recent, curious case of Asura, the Alibaba-backed fantasy epic now known as China's biggest flop ever. Produced at a cost of over $110 million, Asura opened to a disastrous $7 million in July, prompting producers to pull the film and allege that its release had been sabotaged. A representative for Zhenjian Film, the movie's lead producer, later told local media that changes would be made to the movie and it would eventually be rereleased (no updates have followed).
If either Asura or Kung Food do manage to get released a second time — and do so successfully — the producers will be setting an entirely new precedent for the film business. Classic movies and cult favorites have been rereleased fruitfully in various territories around the world — the best examples include George Lucas's lucrative Star Wars rereleases and James Cameron's 3D update of Titanic, which earned a huge $145 million in China in 2012. But industry insiders would be hard-pressed to come up with a single example of a film has been widely embraced by audiences after flopping, undergoing changes, and trying to open again ("Films are among the most perishable of products — a one shot thing," an analyst told THR in the wake of Asura's meltdown).
Unlike Asura, which features a boldly original story set in a mythical realm based on buddhist mythology, Kung Food was a big-screen take on an established piece of IP. The Kung Food television series, produced by the same Yi Animation in Guangzhou, has been broadcast on 120 Chinese satellite and terrestrial TV channels, including flagships like CCTV Children, Golden Eagle TV, and Kaku Children, as well as on leading online platforms iQiyi, Youku and Tencent Video.
Like the TV series, the film version follows the adventures of Super Bao, an innocent and passionate steamed bun, who goes through untold hardships in a battle to save the world from flavorless food. Yi Animation had naturally hoped that affection for the established character would translate into big-screen success.
International film buyers and sellers may remember the project from the 2016 American Film Market in Los Angeles, where Yi Animation erected an enormous inflatable sushi roll character from the film outside of the Loews Hotel in Santa Monica.
Source: The Hollywood Reporter by
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Ray Lui, Louis Fan co-star in Movie The Bravest Escort Group
(China Plus) Hong Kong actor and martial artist Louis Fan's new movie The Bravest Escort Group is out today.
Fan (樊少皇) described his role at a promotional event recently held in Beijing.
"I play the top leader of a group of armed guards. Although I come from a rich family in a town in Guizhou Province, I don't want to live a common man's life. I always feel that I am born to be a brave warrior."
The film revolves around a famous ancient Chinese general Wu Sangui, who tasks his loyal subordinate Ma Bao to escort his family to a safer place, during the fall of the Ming Dynasty and the establishment of the Qing Dynasty around 1644.
Louis Fan's co-star is another Hong Kong veteran actor Ray Lui. Lui portrays Ma Bao.
"During the journey, warriors have not only to protect the family but a lot of valuable treasures. Then I hire Louis Fan and his team to do the job. Although he's from a rich family, he had never been pampered and spoiled but is a reliable guy."
Director Tao Mengxi said he reckons "The Bravest Escort Group" is a tribute to martial arts film, which has a strong identity in Chinese cinema.
Source: China Plus by Xu Fei
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Tan Zhuo poses for fashion magazine
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Actress Wu Jinyan covers fashion magazine
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'Europe Raiders' ('Ou Zhou Gong Lue'): Film Review
(THR) Nearly two decades have passed since Hong Kong director Jingle Ma launched his jet-setting Raiders franchise. But judging by this third installment in the series (which follows the 2006 South Korea-set Seoul Raiders), time has seemingly stood still. Featuring the same leering male protagonist, his photogenic paramour and sidekicks, and a plot revolving around a rogue hacker, the CIA and a computer chip measuring the size of an external hard drive, Europe Raiders parties like it's still circa 1999. Why bother about 21st century emotionally scarred anti-heroes or the threat of global surveillance when you can entertain audiences with beautiful people running around beautiful Italian cities performing beautifully choreographed spy-jinks?
Still, it's intriguing to see Tony Leung Chiu-wai reprising his old role in Europe Raiders, and a puzzle why Wong Kar-wai's Jet Tone Films signed up to co-produce the $26 million film alongside China’s Inlook Media. Though it surged to second place on the Chinese box office charts on its Aug. 17 release with takings of $14.1 million, the film's gross swiftly spiraled down, adding only $5.4 million more over opening weekend. It opens in Leung's hometown Hong Kong on Thursday, followed by Singapore on Aug. 30.
While it's perhaps wide of the mark to expect Ma to incorporate Jason Bourne nuances or Edward Snowden exposés into his comical cinematic universe, it's useful to remember how things have moved on even in the world of espionage-heist action comedies since the director ransacked Hong Kong and Asian markets with Tokyo Raiders in 2000. That was a time when Hong Kong was inundated with "high-tech" crime thrillers like Gen-X Cops and the revival of the cynical "girls with guns" subgenre, while internationally an old-school Bond was still smirking over his conquests in The World Is Not Enough and Charlie's Angels was considered the epitome of Girl Power.
It's obvious that exotic backdrops, lavish wardrobes and scintillating pyrotechnics are no longer enough to launch Europe Raiders with a new generation of viewers. The film's passé premise is further deadened by a weak story and script. Even the bankable Leung has lost the sparkle that ignited the earlier Raiders films many years ago. As shown by his two recent botched stabs at comedy in See You Tomorrow and Monster Hunt 2, the actor’s efforts to reconnect to his 1980s comic roots have been fraught with difficulty.
Unfolding largely in Italy — mostly Milan — Europe Raiders revolves around Lin Zaifeng (Leung), a private eye who, in the prologue of the pic, crashes into a house and fights off thugs to rescue a computer scientist (veteran Hong Kong actor-singer George Lam), known simply as The Wind Listener. When the film proper begins, more than a decade has passed and the scientist is already dead. He has left behind his legacy, the "Hand of God," a computer program which will allow the CIA to wreak havoc around the world.
But when the mugging spy chiefs try to launch the Hand of God, the system breaks down and the crucial computer chip is discovered missing. This, it turns out, is the handiwork of Sophie (played by Chinese supermodel and actress Du Juan, American Dreams in China), a hacker working undercover at the agency who happens to be The Wind Listener's daughter. Desperate to wrestle control back, the agency tries but fails to get the semi-retired Lin on board to recover the chip. It's only when the Americans turn to Wang Chaoying (Tiffany Tang, Bounty Hunters) that Lin suavely steps up to the bat, ready to fire up some onscreen chemistry with his girlfriend-turned-rival.
The Italian runaround begins with Lin and Wang trying to track Sophie down with the help of their underlings and the hacker’s younger brother Rocky (Kris Wu, Journey to the West: the Demon Strikes Back). The whole charade is simply a backdrop to the Mr. and Mrs. Smith-like sparring between Lin and Wang, with Lin’s condescending superiority over his ditzy partner never in question. Their first meeting involves Lin asking Wang to smile and flash her cleavage as he watches her from a surveillance camera — a meet-cute which sets the tone of Europe Raiders, all the way down to Wang’s being the only one not in the know about the spectacular con unfolding around her.
The big reveal cancels most of the tension and drama that goes before. But then again, Europe Raiders seems less focused on logic than on pleasurable sensations, as Ma (who also serves as his own DP), his designers and his action choreographer Han Guanhua concoct a relentless dream of fights and crashes. They have certainly succeeded in raiding the vaults of Hong Kong cinema for its most entertaining bits, even if they have sadly overlooked the fact that the world has moved on from vintage.
Production companies: Jet Tone Films, Inlook Media
Cast: Tony Leung Chiu-wai, Tiffany Tang, Kris Wu, Du Juan, George Lam
Director: Jingle Ma
Screenwriters: Xiao Peng
Producer: Jackie Pang
Executive producers: Jackie Pang, Chen Xiangrong, Lee Kwok-hing
Director of photography: Jingle Ma
Costume designer: Yee Chung-man, Doris Ng, Crystal Pa
Music: Peter Kam
Editing: Cheung Ka-fai
Sales: Jet Tone Films
In Mandarin/Cantonese, English and Italian
100 minutes
Source: The Hollywood Reporter by
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China Box Office: ‘Ant-Man and the Wasp’ Heading for $21 Million Opening Day
(Variety) “Ant-Man and the Wasp” reeled in $21.5 million (RMB147 million) on Friday, according to data from China Box Office at 10 p.m. local time. It comfortably dominated holdover titles, including “The Island” and “The Meg,” and a rash of newcomers, to claim a 66% box office share.
To date, the film has grossed $209 million in North America and $257 million in international markets, for a global haul of $466 million. That leaves it behind the previous installment in the franchise, which earned $180 million in its domestic release and $339 million from international territories, for a lifetime total of $519 million.
Disney needs decent performances in China and Japan, where it releases on Aug. 31, to overtake those milestones. Last time out, “Ant-Man” earned $105 million in China and $9.67 million in Japan.
Going in to Friday, the Chinese comedy “The Island” had earned $159 million in the Middle Kingdom. “The Meg,” a Chinese-U.S. co-production, had bitten into $115 million. Both now look set to lose ground rapidly. The Friday data indicated that Donnie Yen’s martial arts drama “Big Brother” would take second place. Next week, “Mission: Impossible – Fallout” is expected to open on top, powered by a marketing campaign devised by Alibaba, China’s e-commerce giant and a “Fallout” investor.
Source: Variety By Patrick Frater
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Street shots of Zhang Zifeng
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Liu Yun releases new photos
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Liu Yifei celebrates birthday
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'Crazy Rich Asians' draws immigrant parents to the movies
Younger Asian-Americans have been flocking with their parents to see the first movie in 25 years with an all-Asian cast.
For many older, first-generation Asian immigrants, going to the movies doesn't rank high among hobbies and interests. The crowds, the language barrier and ticket prices are often turnoffs.
But the appeal of "Crazy Rich Asians," the story of a culture clash that erupts when an Asian-American woman from New York meets her boyfriend's family in Singapore, has bridged a real-life generation gap.
Earning more than $40 million since its Aug. 15 release, the film already has a sequel in development.
An adaptation of Kevin Kwan's bestselling novel, the rom-com is poised to hit the $100 million mark due to its popularity and a lack of strong competition in the next month, comScore senior media analyst Paul Dergarabedian said.
"The over-performance of 'Crazy Rich Asians' shows the power of a great movie with universal themes to draw all audiences and also to break down preconceived notions of what can constitute a box office hit," Dergarabedian said.
Broken down by ethnicity, Asians made up nearly 40 percent of the film's audience during its opening weekend, Warner Bros said. By comparison, Asian/Pacific Islanders comprised just 10 percent of the audience in the opening days of last year's "Spider-Man: Homecoming," according to an analysis done by comScore/Screen Engine's PostTrak.
The jump can be partly credited to enthusiastic Asian-Americans who wanted their parents to be part of what the film's star, Constance Wu, has called a "movement."
Lie Shia Ong-Sintzel, 36, of Seattle talked her parents into coming along the second time she saw the movie. It was the first time in five years the couple — Chinese immigrants from Indonesia — had been to the cinema.
"They don't really go to movies in the theater. I usually have to drag them," Ong-Sintzel said. "I felt like this was a big occasion — a movie with an all-Asian cast."
Looking at her parents, she cried because everything from the acting to the food seemed to resonate more. She wasn't the only one.
"I looked over again, my dad was wiping tears from his eyes," Ong-Sintzel said.
In Temple City, California, Catherine Fanchiang, 27, who is Chinese-American, went to see the film a third time to keep her parents company.
Fanchiang's mother, Kao Han Fan, also wanted to see the movie because she recognized Michelle Yeoh, who plays a wary matriarch. But it was Wu's character who touched the 64-year-old the most.
Fan said she liked how the story depicted an "ABC," (American-born Chinese) who showed Asian cultural values such as putting family first.
"When you grow up in an Asian family ... it will be in your mind when you do something, you will always think about other people," Fan said. "You are not really, really selfish, thinking about yourself."
Fanchiang enjoyed watching her parents see an American film with Asians that wasn't a period piece.
"It was just a regular movie that just happens to have Asian people in it. It's not like we're ninjas or we're good at fighting. It's Asians existing in the modern world," Fanchiang said.
The stars and director Jon M. Chu have said they wanted the film to showcase Asians who weren't stereotypes or little-used side-players.
In the case of Alice Sue and her daughter, Audrey Sue-Matsumoto, the 67-year-old mother saw the movie first. She went a second time Thursday in the San Francisco Bay Area suburb of Daly City with her daughter. Sue, who is Chinese, doesn't go to the movies much but knew she had to see this one.
"It's talking about Asian culture. It's real Asians mixed with American-born Asians," Sue said. "And I want to support the Asian movies."
Sue-Matsumoto, 35, said there probably wasn't a more fitting film for the two to see together.
"It was good to watch it with my mom because I feel like it was very relatable in our situation," Sue-Matsumoto said. "She's an immigrant, and I'm American-born. That movie has that generational distinction."
For Mark Gadia, 36, of Chula Vista, California, the movie led to him learning more about his parents' courtship in the Philippines. His parents related to Wu and Henry Golding's star-crossed couple because of how his mother was treated by her future in-laws.
"She apparently wasn't good enough for my dad. It took this movie to make this revelation of how they met," Gadia said.
He did not expect to come away having enjoyed seeing the film alongside his parents as much as he did.
"As sappy as this sounds, it's something I'll always remember," Gadia said. "It's kind of sad it took 25 years, but I'm glad I had the opportunity to have this experience as an adult."
Source: China Plus
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Photos of Angelababy from 2012 in Tai Chi 0
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Posters from Zhang Yimou’s Shadow
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Zhang Tianai covers fashion magazine
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Jiang Mengjie poses for fashion magazine
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Kris Wu scoops award at iHeartRadio MMVAs in Toronto
(China Daily) Chinese-Canadian hip-hop artist Kris Wu made his iHeartRadio MMVAs debut in Toronto, Canada, on Aug 26 where he not only performed his hits, including Like That and Deserve, but also took home one of the biggest awards of the night, Fan Fave New Artist, after weeks of voting by fans online.
"I've got a lot to say," said Wu, according to 2018 iHeartRadio MMVAs official website. "First of all, I do it for my fans. It's an honor. This is actually my first award in North America, so I feel blessed and thankful. This one for sure goes out to all my fans. Without them I would not be here. Shout out to my fans in Canada!"
Last October, the 28-year-old Wu released his hit, Deserve, a Travis Scott collaboration, and became the first Chinese artist to reach No 1 on the US iTunes chart. More recently, in June, he became the first Chinese artist to hit the Billboard Hot 100 when his song Like That went to No 73.
Source: By Chen Nan | chinadaily.com.cn
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