A new trailer has been released for Manhunt 追捕, a remake of the 1979 Japanese film of the same name. The film stars Zhang Hanyu (Operation Mekong) as Du Qiu, an upright prosecutor who has to clear his name after being framed for a crime.
Ge You and Jiang Wen as show masters in the upcoming movie, Gone With the Bullets.
The year is almost a quarter over (I know!), but 2014 is a really exciting year for Chinese film and it would be a waste not to take a look at all the great stuff that’s going to be released soon. This year, as some have noted, will be the year of big director comebacks, from Red Cliff’s John Woo to Zhang Yimou and many others. (Thanks to Mookie for everything about this post, I’m just here to spread the word.)
(Also, you’ll soon realize that Huang Xiao Ming does not rest… I believe he has at least 4 films this year alone, excluding dramas!!)
This list is in no way exhaustive. Continue reading
Why is it that everyone’s mother loves Sun Honglei? The man’s not ancient and his charm transcends the generations. Despite his being typecast as a villain for much his career, it was the subtle humor that he seamlessly injected into those roles that made me a fan. It remains to be seen if he can do it for a full movie, such as with the upcoming romantic comedy, My Fair Gentleman (Previously called Dirt Rich in Shanghai). It has a Pygmalion-like plot where he plays the Eliza Doolittle to Kelly Lin‘s Higgins. I’ve grown to really like Kelly Lin and I think she’d play really well off of Sun Honglei, so I’ve been looking forward to this movie. However, the script really has to be much better than what’s been revealed in the trailer.
Sorry, this list is rather randomly organized. OK, now it’s organized.
Tang Yan of the upcoming Stormriders 2 movie (and the CP3 and Pandamen series), posted up pics of her at the ceremony on her blog, along with goofy self-cam pre-redcarpet. This is the only eye-candy related news I have, sorry.
As much as I like BOBO, this seems more of a romantic comedy done right, mostly due to the talent that’s in it. Sun Honglei is one of my favorite actors of all time, and definitely my favorite Chinese actor. His charisma just makes him enjoyable to watch, always. Taiwanese actress Kelly Lin is gorgeous, and yet not your stereotypical idol actress. Produced by John Woo, Michelle Yeoh and Terrence Chang, the romantic comedy “Dirt Rich In Shanghai” started production about a week ago and is being filmed in Xiamen.
The above posters are for two Chinese movie that set new precedents in China this year. The one the left is Feng Xiaogang’s If You Are The One, which according to Variety, finally took away the title of “highest-grossing movie in China” from Titanic, and brought it back home. The on the right, John Woo’s Red Cliff didn’t do too shabby either, becoming the 43rd highest grossing movie world-wide of 2008, only second to Ponyo on the Cliff (Hayao Miyazaki’s latest) in terms of Asian films.
Both gave thoughts on the future of Chinese cinema. Actually while John Woo talked about presenting Chinese culture with Hollywood production values, Feng Xiaogang, who doesn’t have a career in Hollywood to worry about, was far less diplomatic, and flat out said, “We don’t need a foreign market at all, and in five years, our market will be too big to be overlooked” and then gave lots of statistics for support on how China is gaining on Hollywood.
What do Chow Yun-fat and Johnny Depp both have in common, besides getting to kiss Keira Knightly in a Pirates film? Their characters were both dubbed one of the top 100 movie characters of all time in a poll conducted by British Empire movie magazine.
Just because China is a largely agnostic country doesn’t mean it doesn’t like its winter holidays, and while I doubt China celebrates Thanksgiving, around this time the streets in China are starting to get lined with Christmas decorations and it becomes a busy time for movies. This was actually a very weird year for the Chinese movie industry because of the Olympics, and much of the production activity was halted for China so I’m not sure how these movies would have been affected, but hopefully some of them will surprise me and hopefully some of them will live up to hype. Some of you may be wondering, am I actually on hiatus? I don’t know. I have a few more posts lined up though, so maybe not. :P
