2.26.2010 - News

Restored treasure "Confucius" on screen during International Film Festival

Screenings of director Fei Mu's lost classic, "Confucius", in its initial phase of restoration last year met with overwhelming response. The film in its second phase of restoration will be unveiled in the 34th Hong Kong International Film Festival (HKIFF) together with other works of the great director, including the masterpiece "Spring in a Small Town". As a contribution to the HKIFF, the Hong Kong Film Archive (HKFA) has organised a retrospective "Fei Mu, Film Poet" to showcase the work of one of the greatest filmmakers of Chinese cinema. (Original article, NYTimes)

CRI: "Little Big Soldier" Makes Over 100 Million Yuan at Box Office

Review: 'Little Big Soldier' Innovative for Chan

Chan's new movie also shows that it's possible to be creative within the often-soulless genre of the big-budget Chinese epic that has come to dominate the local industry.

CRI: "Mulan" Nominated in Hong Kong Film Awards

No mere copy: A Woman, A Gun And A Noodle Shop

Sometimes the punchlines were culturally specific and were delivered very quickly. They do not translate well and result in hard-to-catch subtitles. The quick fire comedic exchange between Wang's staff for instance, left non-Chinese speakers puzzled as the subtitles zoomed by. 

Dante Lam's Fire of Conscience opens Apr.1

Leon Lai plays a hot, violent detective, Richie Ren/Jen a gentle anti-drug cop

(HunanTV)

Jacky Cheung

Crossing Hennessy will be opening film at this year's HKIFF. 

Amphetamine from Taiwan will be the closing film.

(Sina) (HunanTV)

CRI: 'Hennessy' to Open HK Int'l Film Festival

Connie Chan and mother, Gung Fan-Hung (Sina)

Gung Fan-Hung (c) with Lydia Shum, Nancy Sit, Connie Chan

Connie Chan's adoptive mother and mentor Gung Fan-Hung died after suffering chest pains while attending Connie Chan's concert at Hong Kong Coliseum on the evening of Feb.24. She was 98 years old. In 1953, Gung and her husband Chan Fai-Lung opened the Hong Kong Cantonese Opera Academy and nurtured talent such as Ng Kwan-Lai. (Sina)

Connie Chan performed last night despite her grief. She was greeted with warm applause by fans.

Earlier, Connie told the media, 'Mommy, since childhood, taught me everyone should play their part and perform their duties.'

(Sina)

Connie Chan held a brief press conference and said she would announce funeral plans after completing work.

(Sina) (2)

New Swordsman from Yuen Wo-Ping featuring Daniel Wu, Zhou Xun, Li Bingbing, Huang Xiaoming? (Xinhua)

Zhou Xun and Huang Xiaoming are also rumored to be leaving Huayi Brothers when their contracts expire to join Peter Lam's Media Asia. (Xinhua)

HK singer Gigi Leung's family disapprove of her beau

Cherie Chung

Cherie Chung shot new photo adverts for a collagen center promoting the 'secret of youth' (!)

(Sina) (15)(Sina) (Xinhua)

Jennifer Tse Ting-Ting's new slimming advert

(Sina)

2.15.2010 - News

Growing pains of China's animation movie

Chop Socky Chooks: Volume One

Screen Daily: A Woman, A Gun And A Noodle Shop (A Simple Noodle Story)

Playing more like a slapstick version of the Coen brothers’ classic Blood Simple than a remake, Zhang Yimou’s latest moves the action back a few hundred years and switches location to the spectacularYellow Earth landscapes of Northern China.
Variety: A Woman, a Gun and a Noodle Shop

For the record, pic's international version is four minutes shorter than that released in China and Hong Kong.
Chinese remake of Coen brothers classic screens in Berlin

Screen Daily: Au Revoir Taipei

Asian-American director Arvin Chen’s boy-meets-girl romance coasts along on sheer goofy sweetness. A brightly-coloured Before Sunrise in Taiwanese screwball sauce with just a pinch ofUmbrellas Of Cherbourg thrown in, it does little except charm, seduce and mildly amuse. But it does so with enough grace and storytelling skill to keep most audiences hooked though to the end, even though the sugar-rush wears off pretty soon after leaving the cinema.

Variety: Monga (Taiwan)

It's the kind of larger-spanned movie that Taiwan should be attempting if the island's industry is ever to get back on its feet again. Niu's gamble looks to be repaid -- at least locally -- with "Monga" strong-arming a brawny $1.6 million in its first week since bowing Feb. 5.

Variety: The Actresses (South Korea)

Six movie stars -- playing themselves -- gather for a Vogue photo shoot in a Seoul studio in "The Actresses," a talky but involving fakumentary that continually plays with the thin dividing line between reality and fiction. Hardly the catfight it's expected to be, this cheekiest outing yet from writer-director E J-yong is a funny, sometimes surprisingly touching exploration of the role of actresses in South Korea's still socially proscribed film world, though considerable knowledge of local showbiz and the thesps themselves is necessary to get the most from the movie. Asia-friendly fests should extend invites to these broads.

Variety: I'm In Trouble (South Korea)

Korean Academy of Film Arts alum So Sang-min makes a promising feature debut with "I'm in Trouble!," a charmingly modest talking-eating-drinking movie -- carved from the same rockface as helmers like Hong Sang-soo, Emmanuel Mouret and Woody Allen -- in which a bunch of likable, indecisive losers endlessly repeat the same emotional mistakes.

Taipei Times: You might as well live

Based on a novel by one of Japan’s most acclaimed fiction writers of the 20th century, ‘Villon’s Wife’ possesses a cinematic presence rarely achieved by literary adaptations

All's Well Ends Well Too 2010

Ronald Cheng, Raymond Wong, Louis Koo, Sandra Ng

Raymond Wong

Sandra Ng

Ronald Cheng, Louis Koo
(Xinhua)

Jacky Cheung

Jacky Cheung promoting his new CD Private Corner on a TV program

(Xinhua)

Chrissie Chau

Chrissie Chau will celebrate Valentine's Day with boyfriend Avis
(Sina)

Liza Wang, Law Kar-Ying

(Sina)

AngelaBaby

James Parry, AngelaBaby (Sina)

Donnie Yen (Sina)

Rainie Yang (Sina)

Faye Wong - CCTV Spring Gala Festival

(Sina) (36)

CRI: Faye Wong, Tigers Are Highlights of CCTV Spring Festival Gala

Donnie Yen: I'm good in bedroom kungfu

Sandra Ng has no time to go online

Jackie Chan backs Vivian Hsu's Jap comeback

Zhang Ziyi - Chinese art of reveling in another's pain

Taipei Times: Pop Stop

With so many in Taiwan’s celebrity firmament embroiled in scandals over the past few years, 2010 may turn out to be the year when some turn to religion to change their evil ways. But don’t count on it.

Shannon Lee at Hollywood Madame Tussauds

(Sina)