Produced by actress-director Zhao Wei, Hear Her 听见她说 is inspired by BBC’s Snatches: Moments from Women’s Lives, and consists of 8 episodes. The series releases 1 episode every Tuesday at 12pm (CN time).
Tencent’s upcoming big-budget acting variety show Attention, Actors 演员请就位 (lit.) has hired directors Li Shaohong (Palace of Desires, Dream of Red Mansions 2010), Chen Kaige (Farewell My Concubine, Legend of the Demon Cat), Guo Jingming (Tiny Times, L.O.R.D) and Zhao Wei (So Young) as judges who will assemble their own team from a group of 58 actors.
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Gorgeous still for upcoming series A Promenade through the Tang Dynasty .
Posters, stills, photoshoots, and random photos that caught my eye this week.
Feng Shaofeng, Huang Xiaoming, Li Yifeng, Deng Chao, Shen Teng, Han Geng, and Zheng Kai selfie at the Asian Film and TV Week. Who’s your favorite?
Director Li Shaohong’s latest historical drama, Poetry of the Song Dynasty 大宋宫词, released its first trailer today. The series stars Liu Tao as Empress Liu E and Vic Chou as the Emperor Zhenzong of Song, and follows their love story and ascent to power.
Liu Tao becomes a figure in the painting Night Revels of Han Xizai
Director Li Shaohong, best known for Palace of Desires and Dream of Red Mansions 2010, has a new female-centric historical drama Poetry of the Song Dynasty 大宋宫词 (previously La Royauté 女君纪) in the works, and has cast Liu Tao (The Advisors Alliance) as empress Liu E. She is depicted as a jealous concubine who swapped the emperor’s son for a commoner’s baby in folk legend Civet Cat Exchanged for Crown Prince 《狸猫换太子》.
“It’s okay if we’re not the leads, we have better photos than everyone who is.”
After the previously scheduled Chinese Paladin 5 flopped, Jiang Jinfu and Victoria Song quickly shifted to Legend of Cocoon Town, a Rotunda series co-starring only the cutest Yang Yang. The series is directed by Li Shaohong (Dream of the Red Chambers, Da Ming Palace).
Other than Victoria Song, fellow SM’er Choi Siwon is also collaborating with Rotunda in another series, The Millionaire Heirs with Kan Qingzi and Yu Xiaotong . Yep, after years of playing the pouty second female lead to Li Qin and Li Sheng, Kan Qingzi is finally get her first major lead! Meanwhile, poor Yang Yang is probably still stuck with the second lead. A few more stills below the cut, although they’re generally not very good.
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Drama news
“They were born like the flowers of summer, but the flowers never last to see the end of summer.”
Part innocent incestuous childhood love, part mafia and police intrigue, Summer flowers never last 花开半夏 brings together two top companies run by women – Mango Films (Fall in Love) of host-producer-Angela’s-mom Li Xiang and Rosat (New Dream of Red Chamber) of producer Li Xiaowan and director Li Shaohong. The series, based on the book of the same name, currently airs two episodes per day on Saturdays and Sundays on Hunan TV.
Two orphans raised together, Ruhua (Li Qin) and Rufeng (Lin Shen) have depended on each other and their adopted grandmother for all their lives. As the two slowly realize they’ve developed feelings for each other, they’re also faced with the trials of life. When Rufeng becomes caught in the mafia while trying to save their grandmother, their lives turn upside down.
Zhang Jiani plays the daughter of the mafia boss who falls for Rufeng, while Yang Yang plays a fellow piano student at Ruhua’s college who befriends her despite differences in their social status. Kan Qingzi likes Yang Yang, while Ma Xiaocan plays the daughter of the detective seeking to solve the mafia case, and she likes Lin Shen.
More of the soft posters below the cut, and darker ones here.
Li Qin (Young Xue Baochai), Jiang Mengjie (Lin Daiyu), and Yang Yang (Older Jia Baoyu) in InStyle
Even though there have been many trailers already for The New Dream of the Red Chamber, the previous ones tried to only convey an moody ambiance. This new trailer actually had dialogue, and shows off the beautiful camerawork and sets. The total costs of production for the 50-episode series reached 118 million yuan (for comparison, even the elaborate sets of The Message cost around 50 million yuan), but the producer, sounding much more confident than in previous reports, said that the costs should be definitely recoverable.
Vid thanks to fountainpark723.
As if they haven’t thrown enough money into this project (50,000 yuan per episode, for 50 episodes) the production behind Li Shaohong’s upcoming Dream of the Red Chamber prepared a water and lights ballet version of the drama that was performed October 3-5 to coincide with the mid-autumn moon festival, in Silver Pickax Lake in Changfeng Park, Shanghai. It featured bursts of lights, water and fire surrounding the actors as they danced above the lake. The show will be performed again for the Shanghai World Expo 2010.
Clip of the part where Baoyu realizes he got tricked into marrying the girl that he doesn’t love. If someone does find the whole thing, please tell me!