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Meng Meiqi poses for photo shoot
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Guan Xiaotong poses for photo shoot
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Chen Yuqi poses for photo shoot
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China’s Bona Film Group Sets Up Shop in Guangzhou, Announces Film Trio
Bona president Yu Dong said he hopes to help the greater bay area of Guangdong, Hong Kong and Macau become the third key cultural and creative hub for the Chinese film industry after Beijing and Shanghai.
“Bona is willing to work together with all film professionals in Guangdong hand in hand to build a key hub for Chinese cinema,” Yu said, according to video footage of a press conference held in Guangzhou.
The move was announced Monday, a day before China’s legislative body approved a controversial new national security law in Hong Kong that critics condemn as a sever threat to political and civil liberties in the semi-autonomous territory.
Bona’s new headquarters will be in the Nansha new district, where local authorities say they are keen to attract film industry firms with new subsidies. A post-production facility is being built in neighboring Huangpu district as well.
Yu’s firm also announced trio of new projects that all have ties back to Guangdong. The first is “Chinese Doctor,” an account of medical professionals fighting COVID-19. It is currently in development, with Bona’s creative team conducting in-depth interviews with the Guangzhou medical organization of Zhong Nanshan,the pulmonologist who has become a household name as the public face of China’s fight against coronavirus.
A second project is a “main melody” propaganda film set during the Opium War whose name translates roughly to “Imperial Envoy,” currently in the midst of passing official approvals. It tells the story of “national hero” Lin Zexu, an official of the late Qing dynasty who strongly opposed British opium, notably destroying millions of pounds of it by throwing it into the sea at the coastal town of Humen, which lies between Guangzhou and Hong Kong. His exploits have already been put to celluloid in the 1959 propaganda film “Lin Zexu.”
A third title will tell the story of the “Kashmir Princess” incident of 1955 — an attempt to assassinate then-premiere Zhou Enlai via the bombing of a chartered Air India plane that was supposed to take him from Hong Kong to the Bandung Conference in Jakarta. He was not aboard, but sixteen who were died, while three survived.
Last year was also a very “red,” patriotic one for China as the Communist authorities feted the 75th anniversary of the founding of the People’s Republic. In 2019, Bona Film Group also put out a trio of patriotic titles: firefighter rescue film “The Bravest,” flight disaster film “The Chinese Pilot,” and “Chairman Mao 1949.” The firm also ended up backed four out of China’s top ten grossing films of the year.
Source: Variety by Rebecca Davis
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Tencent in Talks to Buy Warner Music Stake
The Chinese internet giant is discussing an investment of $200 million ahead of an IPO that is slated for next week, according to people familiar with the matter.
Warner Music is also working to line up institutions that, along with Tencent, would serve as anchor investors contributing a total of more than $1 billion toward a fundraising goal of as much as $1.8 billion, the people said. The offering is expected to value Warner Music at $11.7 billion to $13.3 billion and is set to begin trading June 3.
That would make it the biggest IPO of 2020, according to data from Dealogic. It will also serve as an indication to other companies seeking to go public of whether it is safe to do so after the pandemic brought IPOs to a virtual standstill.
Signs of a thaw have been evident in recent weeks as the U.S. stock market has climbed back to levels it traded at in March, helping stoke investor appetite for new listings.
Raising a big chunk of the expected proceeds ahead of time to help bolster demand from other investors in what is still a highly uncertain time is emerging as a common theme.
ZoomInfo Technologies Inc., a software company pitching shares to investors ahead of its IPO next week, secured BlackRock and Fidelity as anchor investors.
Albertsons Cos. got an endorsement ahead of its IPO through an investment from Apollo Global Management Inc., with the buyout firm agreeing recently to buy $1.75 billion in convertible preferred stock. The grocery giant plans to launch a roadshow to market its IPO as early as next month, according to people familiar with the matter.
It is far from business as usual in the market for new issues. Both Warner Music and ZoomInfo’s executive teams are in the middle of virtual roadshows. Instead of crisscrossing the country via airplane to meet with large fund managers and analysts in conference rooms, as is custom, they are sitting behind computer screens trying to convince investors to buy their stock over video.
Warner Music, home to recording stars including Cardi B, Ed Sheeran and Madonna, plans to sell 70 million shares—13.7% of its stock—for $23 to $26 apiece. Billionaire Len Blavatnik, through his Access Industries Inc., will retain voting control of the company. The IPO is being led by Morgan Stanley, Credit Suisse Group AG and Goldman Sachs Group Inc., among others.
Warner Music owns labels Elektra Records and Atlantic Records in addition to its flagship Warner Records, as well as the third-largest music publisher, Warner Chappell Music. It has been among the biggest beneficiaries of a resurgent music industry.
Following years of pressure from online piracy and the collapse of compact-disc sales, the record business has been growing for four years thanks to revenue from subscriptions to streaming services like those offered by Spotify Technology SA and Apple Inc. Global recorded-music revenue grew 8.2% last year to $20.2 billion, according to the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry, with streaming accounting for more than half of the total for the first time.
The Warner investment would further reinforce Tencent’s growing presence in the music industry. It swapped stakes with Spotify in 2017 ahead of the music-streaming giant’s listing. Vivendi SA sold a 10% stake in Universal Music Group to Tencent for €3 billion ($3.36 billion) late last year, valuing the world’s largest music company at more than $33 billion. In February, the French media conglomerate teased a public offering of the subsidiary, saying negotiations to sell an additional minority stake at a similar valuation were ongoing and that an IPO is planned for early 2023 at the latest.
Source: Wall Street Journal by Corrie Driebusch and Anne Steele
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Huang Shengyi poses for photo shoot
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Zhang Bichen poses for photo shoot
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Zhang Huiwen poses for photo shoot
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Venice film fest to go on despite COVID-19
The rapid global spread of the virus forced major production companies to halt filming, and top silver-screen festivals to postpone or cancel their 2020 editions - including Venice's historic rival Cannes, usually held in May.
Despite Italy being among the worst-hit countries, with over 33,000 deaths, the director of the Venice Film Festival, Alberto Barbera, is defiant in the face of the disease, insisting the 77th edition of the "Mostra" will go ahead from September 2 to 12.
Italy has been slowly exiting its lockdown and organizers in the canal city are betting on a return to normality in the hard-hit north of the country by the end of the summer.
The first post-coronavirus festival will nonetheless have to adopt new sanitary and social distancing rules.
"It will be a unique edition. We still don't know exactly what we'll be able to do, but in the meantime are selecting the films and drawing up a plan to allow everyone to participate safely," Barbera said on Instagram.
Giorgio Gosetti, head of the renowned parallel Venice Days competition for innovative or original filmmaking, told AFP it was "as if we were starting over again from 1932, when the festival was founded."
"Everyone in the world of cinema... feels that right now the best place to celebrate, to show vitality, is the oldest festival in the world," he said.
Barbera has repeatedly ruled out the suggestion that the prestigious event could be held online, leaving film experts to suggest the number of films shown - generally over 200 - will be noticeably reduced.
Familiar scenes of throngs of paparazzi snapping photographs of A-listers on the red carpet and signing autographs for screaming crowds of fans are also unlikely.
Festival expert Angela Prudenzi told AFP that this year, "all eyes will be on the films, which is a very good thing."
Rivalry with Cannes
What remains unclear is how the canceled Cannes festival could work with Venice's festival.
Thierry Fremaux, Cannes festival's director, has said he and Barbera have discussed the possibility of some type of collaboration, without providing details.
One complication for Venice, which has not yet released its roster of films, is that Cannes is set to unveil its own selection on Wednesday. The 50 to 60 films on the list will not be shown on the Croisette, but will benefit from the "Cannes 2020" label created after the cancellation of the 73rd edition.
Whether some of those films show at Venice instead, or bypass the Mostra entirely to premiere at other festivals, remains unclear.
The Hollywood Reporter reported that Italian director Nanni Moretti's latest film, Tre piani, based on Israeli Eshkol Nevo's novel Three Floors Up, was set for Cannes, but will go to Venice instead.
Big US films that had been expected to premiere at Cannes - including Wes Anderson's The French Dispatch and Pixar's animated feature Soul - have pushed back their releases to later in 2020.
Where to watch
Traditionally held on the Lido, Venice's festival could include new spaces for film viewing this year.
Some have suggested that the Arsenal shipyards, where the city's famed art and architecture bienniales are held, could be turned into cinemas, with a limited, pre-booked number of viewers allowed inside.
Whether the film world's great and good will be seen nipping across the lagoon in speedboats or sipping prosecco at the festival's parties remains to be seen.
But Giona Nazzaro, a programmer who has helped revitalize Film Critics' Week, a Venice sidebar show, told the Manifesto newspaper that the festival going ahead provided a much-needed glimmer of light in dark times.
"That an industry suffering like the film industry is starting up again is a sign of hope," he said.
Source: AFP via Global Times
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Finale of China’s hit idol competition show ‘Youth With You’ season two takes social media by storm around the world
The hashtag #YouthWithYou_Finale topped the trending lists on Twitter and China's Twitter-like Sina Weibo, where it earned 2.2 billion views as of Sunday afternoon. More than 393 various hashtags concerning the show have been trending on Twitter in about 15 countries around the world. Clips from the episode on the show's official channel YouTube have garnered more than 300 million views in total.
The show's dance mentor Lisa, a member of the K-pop girl band Blackpink, posted two messages on Sina Weibo on Sunday and Saturday to express her gratitude and bid farewell to the show's trainees and the three other mentors.
"Congratulations to the debut of THE9. Hope we can see each other on a stage one day. Come on girls. You can do even better," Lisa wrote.
In the last episode, the top 20 trainees were whittled down to nine winners, who then debuted as China's newest girl group: THE9. On Saturday afternoon, Japanese girl group IZONE released a video to cheer on the 20 contestants.
The rankings of the top 10 contestants were constantly updated every 30 minutes during the nearly four-hour show, which made both trainees and their fans quite nervous.
The results were finally revealed with contestant Liu Yuxin winning the lead position along with teammates Yu Shuxin, Xu Jiaqi, Yu Yan, Xie Keyin, An Qi, Zhao Xiaotang, Kong Xueer and Lu Keran.
Many Chinese netizens were happy with Liu's win, but there were still some fans who were disappointed that some excellent and outstanding trainees did not make it into the top nine.
"Jin Zihan was one of my favorite trainees. She is not only pretty but also is a good singer and dancer. It's a shame that she didn't win," Gu Changjuan, a 27-year-old editor living in Beijing, told the Global Times on Sunday.
Victoria's Secret model Alessandra Ambrosio posted on Sina Weibo on Saturday night to express her hope that Liu could win the top position.
"Did Liu Yuxin win Youth With You? I hope so also I hope I wrote this correctly," she wrote.
Liu's boyish look, short hair and short trousers, caused some controversy since long hair and skirts are usually considered the norm for girl band members.
"I think Liu Yuxin winning the center position represents the successful protest of a number of modern girls who do not want to limited by beauty standards. I wanted her to win because I want to become a person like her who is professional, modest and has the confidence to be herself," Echo, a postgraduate student from Peking University, told the Global Times on Sunday.
Shi Wenxue, a cultural critic living in Beijing, told the Global Times on Sunday that beauty is not something that should be limited by a certain framework. Liu's win shows that people have a higher tolerance for diverse looks and temperament.
"I look forward to their performance after their debut. They have room for unlimited possibilities and give people confidence amid the virus crisis," Shi said.
The second season of Youth With You, which premiered on March 12 on Chinese streaming giant iQIYI, seeks to whittle down 109 potential trainees to form a nine-member girl band through audience voting.
Source: Global Times By Chen Xi Published: 2020/5/31 17:03:41
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Fans will go to any lengths to promote their idol
"What drew me was his pretty face, in 2015," says Li, 25, who works for a technology company in Shanghai. "Soon it was his dedication to music that was so appealing to me. He's someone who has found true inner peace by achieving what he has set out to do."
Yee is one of the three members of The Fighting Boys, a popular boy band that has built a huge fan base in China since 2013.
Lin says she spends on average 20,000 yuan ($2,800) a year on what she calls "cloud-raising her son". In her college years almost half the money she had was spent on him, she says. She snapped up every single magazine she was aware of that featured Yee on its cover. She has seen every film he has had the remotest involvement with and has invited friends to watch them with her, and she has splashed out on any product he endorses.
Lin's routine every day for her star clan includes organizing online support event and promotion. In November 2016, to celebrate their hero's 16th birthday, the clan bought a video advertisement in Times Square, New York, and flew a hot air balloon over the River Thames in London. This outpouring of love provoked ridicule from skeptics on Weibo, who pointed out that Americans would have no idea who he was, and that this over-the-top presentation of him was more likely to repel anyone who might otherwise have been interested in him.
"This culture of chasing stars anyhow and anywhere, now branded 'support', originated in Japan and South Korea," says Guo Xin, a marketing professor at Beijing Technology and Business University. "It came with the rise of the entertainment industry in the two countries and had its roots in cheer squads in sport. It flourished as idols and the companies behind them sought to gain followers, spawning the current fan economy."
The popularity of an idol now correlates directly with his or her fans' psychological satisfaction, Guo says. Spurred by their pivotal role in propelling the subject of their admiration to ever greater stardom, each fan becomes a cog in the engine powering the industry, and everyone in the clan becomes a defender against anything that may tarnish their idol's image. The battle is never about the star himself or herself, but the fan, Guo says.
"At first the uninitiated, called chi gua qun zhong, or peanut gallery, had a wait-and-see attitude to all this stuff. Then, as they observed how these fans were carrying on, they became a little perplexed, and finally, once the clans succeeded in gaining more and more followers, were turned off by it."
The clans will go to almost any length to draw attention to their idols, be it advertising on subway trains, renting large LED screens in urban spaces, performing aerial antics over a city using a helicopter of other aircraft, and organizing VIP luxury cruises.
in 2016, to celebrate the 17th birthday of Wang Junkai, a member of the band the TFboys, fans organized what was billed as a sea, land and air party for him said to have cost more than 1 million yuan. One of the events, a light display on external walls of the National Aquatics Center in Beijing, popularly known as the Water Cube, garnered 42,776,438 retweets on Weibo from fans and gained an entry in Guinness World Records.
Lin says that everything "clan girls" do in aid of their idol is organized to the nth degree because it needs to please big investors in the entertainment industry, they having the ultimate say over the idol's resources and exposure.
China's domestic pop cultural market began to flourish in 1980 after the country adopted reform and opening-up policies. Hong Kong and Taiwan singers and film stars represented by Chow Yun-Fat and Leslie Cheung, popular novel writers such as Jin Yong, sports champions such as the Chinese women's volleyball team, and rock stars such as Cui Jian were pioneers in the world of fandom. Written material, pictures, audio and video of this first-generation of idols was cemented with the help of print media as well as cassette recorders and television.
However, until 2010 the collective power of fandom was very limited, its activities restricted mainly to gossip, saving every penny for the next concert, seeking autographs or swooning over posters plastered on bedroom walls. Then, over the coming years, "the love supply chain" and "unity is strength" ethos that characterize present-day fandom slowly emerged.
In a talk show on iQIYI Video, the composer and music producer Gao Xiaosong delved into the psychology of clan girls in the Korean-style support culture.
Unlike Westerners, Chinese and East Asian fans prefer their idols to have a whiter-than-white, clean-cut image that almost demands they be protected. The presumption is that there are many bad people out there who want to attack the idol, and that even the star's agent does not really have his or her best interests at heart. "No one is good enough for my baby, only me," the thinking goes, Gao says.
Just how important clan girls have become to assuring the success of their proteges is borne out in Weibo financial figures. Last year the microblog's owners said revenue from super topics in the first quarter was $58 million, 24 percent more than in the corresponding period in 2018.
However, those in the vanguard of fan culture and anyone behind the scenes pulling strings are not having everything their own way. For example, many people who rely on unbiased reviews on Weibo and other social media sites to determine whether they want to follow a certain actor or singer have become disgruntled by piles of glowing tributes they say have obviously been planted in an organized attempt by fans to drive their idols higher up on rankings lists and thus give them more prominence. This has led to slanging matches online as those who have become wise to the ruse have demanded that the offenders' posts be moved.
These antics have also pitted fan groups against one another, each side feeding negative material onto the internet about the other's idol to tarnish their image.
Clan culture even came up at the Third Session of the 13th National People's Congress last week. Song Wenxin, an NPC deputy and vice-president of Taishan Cultural Industry Secondary School in Tai'an, Shandong province, gave a speech in which she talked of the star clan culture, suggesting that what she said was "the entertainment industry's unhealthy atmosphere" should be cleaned up by promoting "positive energy icons" who would take responsibility for imbuing minors with "mainstream values".
Source: By Zhang Lei | China Daily | Updated: 2020-05-30 09:54
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Angelababy poses for photo shoot
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Li Qin poses for photo shoot
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Stills from The Rebel
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Preorders for 4th Zhang Yixing album exceed 1.5m copies
With six songs, the new album consists of two chapters, representing a combination of traditional Chinese and Western styles of music. The musical instruments used for the songs are a fusion of old and new. Zhang has demonstrated his ability to sing and rap, and also to interpret his songs in different languages, such as Chinese and English.
Also known by his stage name, Lay, Zhang, who was born in Changsha, Hunan province, listened to a diverse range of musical genres since he was young. He gave his debut on-screen performance at age 6, appearing in the TV drama, We the People. The self-taught singer-songwriter later took part in a number of TV music talent shows before launching his musical career in 2008 after winning a global casting audition for the South Korean entertainment company, SM Entertainment. He rose to fame as a member of the K-pop boy band EXO in 2012.
Since 2015, he has shifted his focus to the Chinese market and has become a pop star with a career that has extended to film, TV dramas and reality shows, which has greatly widened his fan base. His Sina Weibo account has over 40 million followers.
Source: chinadaily.com.cn | Updated: 2020-06-01 10:14
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Li Meng poses for photo shoot
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Zhang Ruonan poses for photo shoot
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Ni Ni poses for photo shoot
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TV series ‘The Romance of Tiger and Rose’ tackles gender inequality by flipping the script on Chinese period dramas
The 24-episode drama that premiered on May 18 on Tencent Video tells the story of a screenwriter who ends up falling into the very ancient Chinese period drama she is writing a script for. There she finds herself in the role of a supporting character named Chen Qianqian, who is supposed to be poisoned by the male protagonist Han Shuo in the third episode. In order to survive, she works to alter the plot and, after getting involved in a series of hilarious stories, ends up becoming the show's lead female character.
Although the series is a low-budget online drama, it has managed to earn itself a 7.4/10 score on Chinese review site Douban and 897 million views on Tencent Video as of Tuesday, according to Chinese ticketing platform Maoyan.
Many Chinese netizens have found themselves entranced by the drama's interesting premise, the romance that develops between Chen and Han as well as the humorous characters.
In the country where Chen lives, women are the backbone of society while men are in a lower position; while the country from which Han comes is consistent with that in ancient China, where the idea that men are superior to women was prevalent. In Han's country, women are not allowed to work after getting married but must stay home to raise their children, which leads to low marriage and birth rates in his country.
Wu Yu, a 27-year-old white-collar worker in Beijing and a fan of the drama, told the Global Times on Tuesday that although the drama's settings and props are very simple and a bit shabby, the acting and the unique premise have made her very keen about the show.
However, some viewers also think the drama is just trying to use social issues to attract attention.
"Although The Romance of Tiger and Rose responds to current hot spots in society, it has not grasped their importance," Shi Wenxue, a film critic living in Beijing, told the Global Times on Tuesday. He added that while the drama seems to advocate women's rights by flipping gender roles, what it really should be pushing is the concept of gender equality.
Wu echoed Shi's view by saying that "We should not always define ourselves as either men or women, but to think of ourselves as a person, what do we want to do? I think it is totally fine and understandable if a man prefers to raise children at home."
Source: Global Times; By Chen Xi Published: 2020/6/2 17:53:41
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Chinese film ‘Spring Tide’ explores difficult mother-daughter relationship in China
(Global Times) Many hot topics on Chinese social media platforms in recent months have been related to women's issues: sexual assault of underage girls; whether women in China should be allowed to freeze their eggs by law; does a woman lose her independence if the children she gives birth to use her husband's surname.
The discussion expanded to exploring mother-daughter relationship after Chinese film Spring Tide was released online on May 17.
Stories for women
The film centers around a single mother in her 40s named Guo Jianbo, who struggles to deal with the emotional demands of her mother and daughter.
Coming from three different generations, each woman has her own pain and difficulties to cope with as they seek ways to escape from reality. They may come across as friendly, righteous or simple to strangers, but back with their family, they become picky, silent or sophisticated and often come into conflict with each other from time to time.
The three women's stories are an epitome of Chinese society, Yang Lina, the film director, told Chinese news site thepaper.cn, noting that the film is the first time that a Chinese film has told a thorough and complete story of women from three different generations.
Many who have watched the film remarked that they could see themselves and their parents' generation in the characters.
Jun Yixiao, a 30-something journalist working in Beijing, told the Global Times that she totally understood Guo's silent approach when facing her mother. Guo is also a journalist.
"They [the old generation] do not listen. They are as nice as possible to friends, colleague and strangers and endure everything while outside, but vent all their disappointment and grievance on their family and scold their family for not appreciating her enough," Jun said.
She said she also experienced a period in the childhood when she had to be the coordinator when the adults quarreled like Guo's daughter in the film does.
In the film, Guo's daughter Wanting has a good friend named Yingzi, whose family is poor but full of love.
"I can understand Wanting's longing for such a simple and happy family relationship when she sees Yingzi dancing and singing with her parents," Jun said.
Guo's father is notably absent in the film, which is not a surprise for a work from Yang.
"There is a tendency toward materialism in Asian culture, which is sad. As a female director, I feel responsible for creating for women. So in my movies, men are usually absent. This may make some males unhappy, but it does not matter as I am too busy digging for female stories to care about men's feelings," Yang told thepaper.cn.
Interestingly enough, the absent father is actually the root of Guo and her mother's conflict, according to Shi Wenxue, a Beijing-based film critic.
Guo's father died two decades ago. In Guo's memories, he was a perfect and caring father. However, Guo's mother accused her father of sexual assault. The film did not clarify whether the accusation was true, but the report did destroy Guo's father's career and life at a time when personal ethics were vital to people's reputation and career.
As to the whereabouts of the father of Guo's daughter, this is not made clear either. Guo's mother has taken care of her granddaughter since she was born, so the little girl has gradually become estranged from Guo.
The mothers and daughters in the movies are all trapped in cages they have created for themselves, while the conflict between them are rooted in difficulties tied to self identity, Shi told the Global Times.
Heated discussions
The movie has triggered heated discussions about mother-daughter relationships on Chinese social media platforms.
Some movie viewers said they were touched by the movie and its realistic depiction of mother-daughter relationships, while some others complained they could not understand the film.
"Those who could not understand the movie probably come from very happy families. From this perspective, it is good that they do not understand," one netizen commented on China's Twitter-like Sina Weibo.
As family relationships have become a global topic, it is the proper time for Chinese filmmakers to start paying attention to this topic, Yang noted.
At the end of the film, Guo's mother falls into coma after a huge conflict with Guo. In the hospital, Guo has a roughly seven-minute-long monologue in which she confesses her resentment toward her mother and her helplessness in trying to love her daughter.
To some extent, the monologue reinforces that a lack of effective communication was the biggest issue between Guo and her mother, according to Shi.
In the film, Yingzi is from an ethnic minority and does not speak fluent Putonghua (Standard Chinese). Guo's daughter volunteers to play and help Yingzi improve her Chinese after another student refuses to be desk mates with her.
The last scenes of the film see the two running happily hand in hand toward a beautiful lake. Wanting laughs happily as she plays by the lake under the early spring sun.
Jun said she sees the scenes as an indication that Wanting has finally stepped out of struggling with her family relationships to embrace the world more openly rather than refusing to communicate like her mother and grandmother.
"It is also echoing the name of the movie - Spring Tide. The tide in the spring brings about the hope of rebirth," Jun said.
Source: Global Times By Leng Shumei Published: 2020/6/2 17:48:40
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