National Day Film Round-Up

Abominable is the first animated film available with Chinese dubs across all theaters in the U.S.

The themes of this National Day week-long break are unsurprisingly patriotism and surprisingly Mount Everest. Here’s the slate of films trying to beat Ne Zha and The Wandering Earth‘s record-breaking numbers this year. All four are available in limited theaters in the U.S. and Canada (and probably New Zealand and Australia).

Abominable, the love letter to Chinese scenery that’s the first film from Pearl Studio, a venture between DreamWorks Animation, China Media Capital, and the Shanghai Media Group. I’ve seen it in English and definitely recommend it. The main characters are very shippable in an Asian drama way, and the imagery is super imaginative.

Note that if you’re in the U.S., you can watch the film with Chinese dubs in theaters by using the Theater Ears app.
Voice actors: Chloe Bennet, Albert Tsai, Tenzing Norgay Trainor in English; Zhang Zifeng, Arthur Chen Feiyu, Wan Qian, Cai Qin in Chinese

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The Winners of the 46th Golden Horse Awards

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I bumped the list of nominations because the ceremony is today, and edited in the winners. This was a shocker because a certain film got shut out, winning none of its nominations. (Hint: it’s one of the above – both heavy favorites for the best picture award)

The whole thing was a lot more boring than last year, probably because the jury did not pick very big films, and completely had shut out Red Cliff 2 from nominations.

Although interestingly – this year was the first year purely Chinese films were allowed to compete. Before they had to be partially invested in by Taiwanese producers. And in a sign of better cross-strait relations China’s CCTV in tur broadcasted the awards.

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