China- and Netherlands-based sales firm Fortissimo Films has picked up the international rights to new Chinese sports feature film “Wild Punch.” It will launch the film in territories outside mainland China next week at the Cannes Market.
Co-directed by well-established director Yu Lik-wai and Wang Jing (“The Best Is Yet to Come”), “Wild Punch is a sports and action drama about a top mixed martial arts athlete who has passed the peak of his career and faces competition from his young and gifted trainee. Both with something to prove, the two will have to face each other in the ring.
Yu has directed four feature films, including Cannes competition title “Love Will Tear Us Apart” and Venice title “Plastic City.” He is also well-established as a cinematographer who has worked on films including “Still Life,” “A Touch of Sin,” and “Mountains May Depart” by Jia Zhangke, Lou Ye’s “Love...
Co-directed by well-established director Yu Lik-wai and Wang Jing (“The Best Is Yet to Come”), “Wild Punch is a sports and action drama about a top mixed martial arts athlete who has passed the peak of his career and faces competition from his young and gifted trainee. Both with something to prove, the two will have to face each other in the ring.
Yu has directed four feature films, including Cannes competition title “Love Will Tear Us Apart” and Venice title “Plastic City.” He is also well-established as a cinematographer who has worked on films including “Still Life,” “A Touch of Sin,” and “Mountains May Depart” by Jia Zhangke, Lou Ye’s “Love...
- 5/6/2024
- by Patrick Frater
- Variety Film + TV
The lineup for the 77th Cannes Film Festival has officially been unveiled. As of right now, 19 films will be competing for the prestigious top prize, the Palme d’Or. The festival will be running from May 14 through the closing ceremony on May 25 in the small town on the French Riviera. This year’s jury will be led by Greta Gerwig, fresh off of her success writing and directing “Barbie,” which earned her an Oscar nomination for Best Adapted Screenplay. The remaining members of the jury have yet to be announced.
Having an idea of a filmmaker’s history at the festival can sometimes help give us an insight as to who could be in the best position to take home the Palme. For example, two of this year’s entries come from filmmakers who have previously claimed the Palme. Another five are from directors who have won prizes in official...
Having an idea of a filmmaker’s history at the festival can sometimes help give us an insight as to who could be in the best position to take home the Palme. For example, two of this year’s entries come from filmmakers who have previously claimed the Palme. Another five are from directors who have won prizes in official...
- 4/18/2024
- by Charles Bright
- Gold Derby
Chinese filmmaker Jia Zhangke, who “humanizes China’s modern history – and turns it into poetry,” according to one critic, will be the guest of honor at Visions du Réel. The documentary film festival’s 55th edition runs April 12-21 in Nyon, Switzerland.
Jia, a leading figure in independent Chinese cinema, will present a masterclass exploring his body of work, and a retrospective of his films will run throughout the edition. The tribute is made possible thanks to the collaboration with the Cinémathèque suisse and Ecal, the university of art and design in Lausanne.
“Since the outbreak of Covid-19, I haven’t left China for almost four years,” Jia said. “I feel like embracing the world again, as excited as a child about to go on a long trip for the first time. I am heading to Nyon for cinema that reveals the world as it really is.”
Jia belongs to...
Jia, a leading figure in independent Chinese cinema, will present a masterclass exploring his body of work, and a retrospective of his films will run throughout the edition. The tribute is made possible thanks to the collaboration with the Cinémathèque suisse and Ecal, the university of art and design in Lausanne.
“Since the outbreak of Covid-19, I haven’t left China for almost four years,” Jia said. “I feel like embracing the world again, as excited as a child about to go on a long trip for the first time. I am heading to Nyon for cinema that reveals the world as it really is.”
Jia belongs to...
- 1/18/2024
- by Leo Barraclough
- Variety Film + TV
In the five years since Ash Is Purest White, Jia Zhang-ke has directed one documentary, Swimming Out Till The Sea Turns Blue, but we’ve heard many rumors of another narrative feature in the works. Earlier this year, word arrived of a new project filed with the China Film Administration and now the first substantial details are in.
According to Variety, the Chinese director has been working on We Shall Be All on and off for the past 22 years, with the initial shooting taking place in 2001. Co-written by Jia and Wan Jiahuan, and of course starring Zhao Tao, the rest of the film will be shot later this year. With the sweeping story taking place across the first two decades of the 21st century, the film will capture a “dismantling of dystopia” as we follow “how a Chinese woman lives to herself in silence, celebrating the prosperous Belle Epoque with songs and dance.
According to Variety, the Chinese director has been working on We Shall Be All on and off for the past 22 years, with the initial shooting taking place in 2001. Co-written by Jia and Wan Jiahuan, and of course starring Zhao Tao, the rest of the film will be shot later this year. With the sweeping story taking place across the first two decades of the 21st century, the film will capture a “dismantling of dystopia” as we follow “how a Chinese woman lives to herself in silence, celebrating the prosperous Belle Epoque with songs and dance.
- 6/6/2023
- by Jordan Raup
- The Film Stage
Acclaimed Chinese auteur filmmaker Jia Zhang-ke has set “We Shall Be All” as his next feature directing project. It is his first in the five years since his “Ash Is Purest White,” which premiered in Cannes in 2018.
Describing the project as a “dismantling of dystopia,” Jia says that the new film is set across the first two decades of the 21st century and tells the story of how a Chinese woman lives to herself in silence, celebrating the prosperous Belle Epoque with songs and dance.
Some 22 years in the making, the film’s first elements were shot as far back as 2001. The balance will be filmed later this year. No release schedule has been indicated.
The film is co-written by Jia and Wan Jiahuan, a pairing that previously worked together on Jia’s 2020 documentary film “Swimming Out Till The Sea Turns Blue.”
It will star Zhao Tao, who is both...
Describing the project as a “dismantling of dystopia,” Jia says that the new film is set across the first two decades of the 21st century and tells the story of how a Chinese woman lives to herself in silence, celebrating the prosperous Belle Epoque with songs and dance.
Some 22 years in the making, the film’s first elements were shot as far back as 2001. The balance will be filmed later this year. No release schedule has been indicated.
The film is co-written by Jia and Wan Jiahuan, a pairing that previously worked together on Jia’s 2020 documentary film “Swimming Out Till The Sea Turns Blue.”
It will star Zhao Tao, who is both...
- 6/6/2023
- by Patrick Frater
- Variety Film + TV
The quote that opens Chinese director Liu Jian’s shaggy but amiable new animated feature is instructive. “To live, to err, to fall, to triumph, to recreate life out of life” is a passage from James Joyce’s “A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man,” and indeed, Liu was himself at art college as a young man in the early ’90s, when and where “Art College 1994” is, unsurprisingly, set. The quasi-memoir feel to the movie does have its charm — it’s always a kick to see animation techniques applied not to extravagant flights of fancy but to slices of real, ordinary life — but it’s also its chief flaw. In re-creating life out of life, Liu is quite successful; whether he makes it into drama is another question. Like its characters, “Art College 1994” gives the impression of having just too much time on its hands.
Liu...
Liu...
- 2/25/2023
- by Jessica Kiang
- Variety Film + TV
Sales agency Memento Intl. has unveiled the first clip and poster from Liu Jian’s Berlin competition title “Art College 1994,” which world premieres on Feb. 24.
The film is a portrait of youth set on the campus of the Chinese Southern Academy of Arts in the early 1990s. Against the backdrop of reforms opening China to the Western world, a group of college students live in full swing as they take their first steps into adulthood, where love and friendships are intertwined with artistic pursuits, ideals and ambitions. Caught between tradition and modernity, they now have to choose who they want to become.
It is the director’s third animation feature after 2010’s “Piercing I” and “Have a Nice Day,” which premiered in competition at the Berlinale in 2017, and quickly built a cult following. “Have a Nice Day” was also honored with the best animated feature award at the Golden Horse Awards in Taiwan.
The film is a portrait of youth set on the campus of the Chinese Southern Academy of Arts in the early 1990s. Against the backdrop of reforms opening China to the Western world, a group of college students live in full swing as they take their first steps into adulthood, where love and friendships are intertwined with artistic pursuits, ideals and ambitions. Caught between tradition and modernity, they now have to choose who they want to become.
It is the director’s third animation feature after 2010’s “Piercing I” and “Have a Nice Day,” which premiered in competition at the Berlinale in 2017, and quickly built a cult following. “Have a Nice Day” was also honored with the best animated feature award at the Golden Horse Awards in Taiwan.
- 2/20/2023
- by Leo Barraclough
- Variety Film + TV
There’s a unique emotional displacement that happens to people who migrated when they were old enough to have forged memories of life in their homeland but still young enough to be remolded by a new environment. As the years mount, and you become someone else somewhere else, that previous existence, now so distant from your current reality, begins to fade into a corner of your subconscious covered in the cobwebs of nostalgia.
But what of the people left behind, for whom you exist only as a frozen memory of somebody that you used to be? And if such a person, who only knew that now-nonexistent version of you, re-entered your life today, who would you be to each other? Former friends turned strangers? Living proof of who you both once were and of the moments lost to time?
In her first foray into film, South Korean–born playwright Celine Song...
But what of the people left behind, for whom you exist only as a frozen memory of somebody that you used to be? And if such a person, who only knew that now-nonexistent version of you, re-entered your life today, who would you be to each other? Former friends turned strangers? Living proof of who you both once were and of the moments lost to time?
In her first foray into film, South Korean–born playwright Celine Song...
- 1/24/2023
- by Carlos Aguilar
- The Wrap
Matthieu Laclau is a French editor who has been working in China since 2008. He studied Film Theory in Paris 3 Sorbonne Nouvelle and received his Master’s degree in 2008. He’s currently living in Taipei. In 2013, he won the Golden Horse Best Editing for ‘A Touch Of Sin’ directed by Jia Zhang-ke and in 2017, the American Chlotrudis Awards Best Editing for ‘Mountains May Depart’ directed by Jia Zhang-ke. Both films were selected in Cannes Film Festival (Competition) and ‘A Touch Of Sin’ won the Best Screenplay.
Since then, he edited ‘Ash Is Purest White’ by Jia Zhang-ke (Cannes Film Festival / Competition), “The Wild Goose Lake” directed by Diao Yinan (Cannes Film Festival / Competition), “Nina Wu” directed by Midi Z (Cannes Film Festival / Un Certain Regard), “The Best Is Yet to Come” directed by Wang Jing (Venice Film Festival / Orrizonti).
We speak with him about the path that led him to edit film in China,...
Since then, he edited ‘Ash Is Purest White’ by Jia Zhang-ke (Cannes Film Festival / Competition), “The Wild Goose Lake” directed by Diao Yinan (Cannes Film Festival / Competition), “Nina Wu” directed by Midi Z (Cannes Film Festival / Un Certain Regard), “The Best Is Yet to Come” directed by Wang Jing (Venice Film Festival / Orrizonti).
We speak with him about the path that led him to edit film in China,...
- 5/12/2022
- by Panos Kotzathanasis
- AsianMoviePulse
Chinese actress Zhao Tao is at the center of a lover’s triangle spanning generations in Jia Zhangke’s romantic epic from 2015. Tao plays Fenyang, an industrious young woman who grows older, wealthier, and somewhat happier thanks to the reconciliation with her prodigal son. The film ends on an ambiguous but exuberant note powered by Pet Shop Boys’ anthemic Go West.
The post Mountains May Depart appeared first on Trailers From Hell.
The post Mountains May Depart appeared first on Trailers From Hell.
- 4/20/2022
- by Charlie Largent
- Trailers from Hell
Sometimes movies escape our attention, for many reasons. We were busy with other things, we were sick when it was released, we lost our Netflix login. Here is another attempt by the Tfh gurus to shine some light on a few films you may have missed.
The Chaser is a 2008 South Korean film that was inspired by a real-life serial killer. Directed by Na Hong-jin, the story centers on a former-cop-turned-pimp. Now, that’s a real career change for you. The pimp becomes alarmed when two of his prostitutes go missing, creating a cash flow situation that probably makes him consider rejoining the force.
The suspect is captured during what can only be described as an automotive meet-cute – he literally crashes into a cop car – but he can’t be held for long due to lack of evidence. His rap sheet includes performing a lobotomy on a family member, which might be excused,...
The Chaser is a 2008 South Korean film that was inspired by a real-life serial killer. Directed by Na Hong-jin, the story centers on a former-cop-turned-pimp. Now, that’s a real career change for you. The pimp becomes alarmed when two of his prostitutes go missing, creating a cash flow situation that probably makes him consider rejoining the force.
The suspect is captured during what can only be described as an automotive meet-cute – he literally crashes into a cop car – but he can’t be held for long due to lack of evidence. His rap sheet includes performing a lobotomy on a family member, which might be excused,...
- 4/17/2022
- by Randy Fuller
- Trailers from Hell
The crime film is not exactly one known for its art-house aesthetics, as the frantic pace, the intense use of music, and the occasionally extreme violence are almost always, the traits that characterize the category. However, occasionally, and even more frequently during the latest years, we have seen a number of films that despite focusing on criminals and the whole concept of crime, implement mostly artistic aesthetics, with the focus being on them as much as on the story and characters, while the pace is most certainly slow. The quality, however, is by no means lower, as the titles we have winnowed here eloquently highlight.
Without further ado, here are 10 (and one more) great samples, in chronological order:
10. Breathless
The circle of violence started by domestic violence is the prominent focus of the film with nearly all of the characters going through such experiences. Sang-hoon’s abuse during his childhood...
Without further ado, here are 10 (and one more) great samples, in chronological order:
10. Breathless
The circle of violence started by domestic violence is the prominent focus of the film with nearly all of the characters going through such experiences. Sang-hoon’s abuse during his childhood...
- 4/3/2022
- by Panos Kotzathanasis
- AsianMoviePulse
The film is split in three parts taking place in 1999, 2014 and 2025. The first one begins in Fenyang on New Years Eve, where two childhood friends, the young capitalist Zhang and the poor coal miner Liangzi, are both in love with Tao, a singer and dance instructor. Eventually, she decides to marry the former and soon after, they welcome their first child, who Zhang names Dollar.
“Mountains May Depart” is screening at Vesoul International Film Festival of Asian Cinema
In the second axis, Liangzi returns to Fenyang after a long absence, with a wife and a daughter. However, he also carries a debilitating sickness due to his work in the mines. He discovers that Tao is currently divorced and Zhang has moved to Shanghai with a new wife, and is now extremely rich.
In 2025, the story takes place in Australia, where Dollar, currently a college student, has lost every connection with his Chinese inheritance and Tao.
“Mountains May Depart” is screening at Vesoul International Film Festival of Asian Cinema
In the second axis, Liangzi returns to Fenyang after a long absence, with a wife and a daughter. However, he also carries a debilitating sickness due to his work in the mines. He discovers that Tao is currently divorced and Zhang has moved to Shanghai with a new wife, and is now extremely rich.
In 2025, the story takes place in Australia, where Dollar, currently a college student, has lost every connection with his Chinese inheritance and Tao.
- 2/6/2022
- by Panos Kotzathanasis
- AsianMoviePulse
Each week we highlight the noteworthy titles that have recently hit streaming platforms in the United States. Check out this week’s selections below and past round-ups here.
China Lost and Found: Eight Films by Jia Zhangke
One of the greatest directors to emerge in this young century, Jia Zhangke has captured his native country like few others. The Criterion Channel is now spotlighting his stellar body of work, including the new restoration of his debut Xiao Wu (1997), along with Platform (2000), Unknown Pleasures (2002), The World (2004), Still Life (2006), 24 City (2008), A Touch of Sin (2013), and Mountains May Depart (2015). Also playing is the documentary Jia Zhangke, A Guy from Fenyang from 2014.
Where to Stream: The Criterion Channel
Irma Vep (Olivier Assayas)
In the quarter-century since its debut, Olivier Assayas’ hilarious, mischievous, altogether unclassifiable Irma Vep stands merrily uninterested in many things contemporary movies are meant to be interested in—not ultra-sophisticated narrative gimmickry...
China Lost and Found: Eight Films by Jia Zhangke
One of the greatest directors to emerge in this young century, Jia Zhangke has captured his native country like few others. The Criterion Channel is now spotlighting his stellar body of work, including the new restoration of his debut Xiao Wu (1997), along with Platform (2000), Unknown Pleasures (2002), The World (2004), Still Life (2006), 24 City (2008), A Touch of Sin (2013), and Mountains May Depart (2015). Also playing is the documentary Jia Zhangke, A Guy from Fenyang from 2014.
Where to Stream: The Criterion Channel
Irma Vep (Olivier Assayas)
In the quarter-century since its debut, Olivier Assayas’ hilarious, mischievous, altogether unclassifiable Irma Vep stands merrily uninterested in many things contemporary movies are meant to be interested in—not ultra-sophisticated narrative gimmickry...
- 9/3/2021
- by Jordan Raup
- The Film Stage
Next month’s Criterion Channel selection is here, and as 2021 winds down further cements their status as our single greatest streaming service. Off the top I took note of their eight-film Jia Zhangke retro as well as the streaming premieres of Center Stage and Malni. And, yes, Margaret has been on HBO Max for a while, but we can hope Criterion Channel’s addition—as part of the 63(!)-film “New York Stories”—opens doors to a more deserving home-video treatment.
Aki Kaurismäki’s Finland Trilogy, Bruno Dumont’s Joan of Arc duology, and Criterion’s editions of Irma Vep and Flowers of Shanghai also mark major inclusions—just a few years ago the thought of Hou’s masterpiece streaming in HD was absurd.
I could implore you not to sleep on The Hottest August and Point Blank and Variety and In the Cut or, look, so many Ernst Lubitsch movies,...
Aki Kaurismäki’s Finland Trilogy, Bruno Dumont’s Joan of Arc duology, and Criterion’s editions of Irma Vep and Flowers of Shanghai also mark major inclusions—just a few years ago the thought of Hou’s masterpiece streaming in HD was absurd.
I could implore you not to sleep on The Hottest August and Point Blank and Variety and In the Cut or, look, so many Ernst Lubitsch movies,...
- 8/25/2021
- by Leonard Pearce
- The Film Stage
“Lost in Beijing” director Li Yu and star Fan Bingbing reunite in emotional drama about losses and reconnections after the 2008 Schechuan earthquake
Available in USA, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, UK, and Ireland
on Amazon Prime Video, Vimeo on Demand, Hoopla, Viki and more at BuddhaMountainFilm.com
Synopsis:
At one point in this film, three youngsters lost in the countryside wait at a railway station called “Buddha Mountain” for a train without knowing if any will ever come. Alienated by society and their families, they move together into the home of a retired Peking opera performer. The carefree tenants and rigid landlady expose not only their conflicting lifestyles but also everyone’s painful past. They gradually learn to embrace and find strength in each other despite divisions. On a trip to a remote village, a monk asks for their help to rebuild a temple among ruins from the 2008 Schechuan earthquake. The...
Available in USA, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, UK, and Ireland
on Amazon Prime Video, Vimeo on Demand, Hoopla, Viki and more at BuddhaMountainFilm.com
Synopsis:
At one point in this film, three youngsters lost in the countryside wait at a railway station called “Buddha Mountain” for a train without knowing if any will ever come. Alienated by society and their families, they move together into the home of a retired Peking opera performer. The carefree tenants and rigid landlady expose not only their conflicting lifestyles but also everyone’s painful past. They gradually learn to embrace and find strength in each other despite divisions. On a trip to a remote village, a monk asks for their help to rebuild a temple among ruins from the 2008 Schechuan earthquake. The...
- 8/11/2021
- by Rouven Linnarz
- AsianMoviePulse
Siff Young is jointly organised with the Cannes Marche.
Shanghai International Film Festival (Siff) announced the five directors who have been selected for Siff Young, a new talent support programme jointly organised by the Cannes Marche du Film, during the festival’s opening weekend.
Four of the filmmakers – Han Shuai, Liang Ming, Rao Xiaozhi and Wang Jing – attended the June 12 event in person, which was held as a forum with a live audience at the Crowne Plaza Hotel. The fifth is Hong Kong-based Derek Tsang who was unable to come in person due to pandemic travel restrictions.
The directors were...
Shanghai International Film Festival (Siff) announced the five directors who have been selected for Siff Young, a new talent support programme jointly organised by the Cannes Marche du Film, during the festival’s opening weekend.
Four of the filmmakers – Han Shuai, Liang Ming, Rao Xiaozhi and Wang Jing – attended the June 12 event in person, which was held as a forum with a live audience at the Crowne Plaza Hotel. The fifth is Hong Kong-based Derek Tsang who was unable to come in person due to pandemic travel restrictions.
The directors were...
- 6/14/2021
- by Silvia Wong
- ScreenDaily
Exclusive: One week after we brought you news of his app Erupt, today we can reveal that film and Broadway producer Edward Walson (Blue Jasmine) is launching Curia, a curated film streaming SVOD platform.
The idea behind the platform — which is initially only available in the U.S. — is to offer rotating monthly programming organized into niche sub-genres. Organizers say the service will be a fixture on the film festival circuit — including the upcoming Cannes Film Festival and market — with an appetite for new, exclusive acquisitions, including shorts.
The lineup will include auteur-driven cinema, movie classics and some commercially-minded fare. The first month’s programming in June will include sections such as Lol (comedies), Growing Pains (coming-of-age), Les Provocateurs and LGBTQ Pride.
Movies at launch will include Some Like It Hot, Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, In The Loop, Capote, Birdman Of Alcatraz, Paths Of Glory, A Ciambra, Boyhood, The Selfish Giant,...
The idea behind the platform — which is initially only available in the U.S. — is to offer rotating monthly programming organized into niche sub-genres. Organizers say the service will be a fixture on the film festival circuit — including the upcoming Cannes Film Festival and market — with an appetite for new, exclusive acquisitions, including shorts.
The lineup will include auteur-driven cinema, movie classics and some commercially-minded fare. The first month’s programming in June will include sections such as Lol (comedies), Growing Pains (coming-of-age), Les Provocateurs and LGBTQ Pride.
Movies at launch will include Some Like It Hot, Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, In The Loop, Capote, Birdman Of Alcatraz, Paths Of Glory, A Ciambra, Boyhood, The Selfish Giant,...
- 5/26/2021
- by Andreas Wiseman
- Deadline Film + TV
When the urgent desire to make something beautiful overrides the desire to tell a particular story — and when you are Zhang Yimou, rebounding from a run-in with the Chinese authorities over your last picture, “One Second” — you might end up with a film like “Cliff Walkers.” A gorgeously snowbound period spy movie insulated beneath layers of contorted plotting just as its cast is swaddled in snow-speckled winter furs and fedoras, the film is a muddle of a plot wrapped around a bland, committee-approved message, but mounted with such magnificence it’s possible not to really mind.
The first switcheroo in its three-card-monte construction happens before we’ve even properly seen our heroes’ faces. Like in a Bond movie prologue, four agents parachute into a snowy forest at night. Unlike in a Bond prologue, the blue moonlight filtering coldly through the trees is of as much interest to Zhao Xiaoding’s...
The first switcheroo in its three-card-monte construction happens before we’ve even properly seen our heroes’ faces. Like in a Bond movie prologue, four agents parachute into a snowy forest at night. Unlike in a Bond prologue, the blue moonlight filtering coldly through the trees is of as much interest to Zhao Xiaoding’s...
- 5/3/2021
- by Jessica Kiang
- Variety Film + TV
Chinese director Jia Zhangke has formally launched his new venture: a filmmaking school in his native Shanxi staffed by some of China’s top industry talent, including helmers Ning Hao and Bi Gan.
Communist party officials presided over an inauguration ceremony for the Shanxi Film Academy that was attended by major firms seeking synergies between the school’s future graduates and their own thirst for new talent and content. The school is affiliated with the existing Communication University of Shanxi, which trains many graduates to enter top media regulatory bodies like the State Administration of Radio and Television.
Official support for the new academy was repeatedly highlighted in both speeches and news coverage of the event. Little can be achieved in China at scale without strong government buy-in.
“The comprehensive thinking and strategic arrangements of the Shanxi Province Party Committee and government for the economic transformation of Shanxi has inspired us,...
Communist party officials presided over an inauguration ceremony for the Shanxi Film Academy that was attended by major firms seeking synergies between the school’s future graduates and their own thirst for new talent and content. The school is affiliated with the existing Communication University of Shanxi, which trains many graduates to enter top media regulatory bodies like the State Administration of Radio and Television.
Official support for the new academy was repeatedly highlighted in both speeches and news coverage of the event. Little can be achieved in China at scale without strong government buy-in.
“The comprehensive thinking and strategic arrangements of the Shanxi Province Party Committee and government for the economic transformation of Shanxi has inspired us,...
- 4/21/2021
- by Rebecca Davis
- Variety Film + TV
Director Kiyoshi Kurosawa and producer Ichiyama Shozo were the other speakers.
At the Tokyo International Film Festival (TIFF) today (November 7), Chinese filmmaker Jia Zhang-ke failed to show up for a scheduled hybrid on-and-offline Asia Lounge talk with Japanese filmmaker Kiyosho Kurosawa, moderated by producer and Tokyo Filmex head Ichiyama Shozo.
The two Japanese cineastes carried on in Jia’s absence, with Shozo, who has served as producer on the Chinese director’s films including Ash Is Purest White, Mountains May Depart and A Touch Of Sin, answering Kurosawa’s and later the online audience’s questions about the Chinese filmmaker’s methods and plans.
At the Tokyo International Film Festival (TIFF) today (November 7), Chinese filmmaker Jia Zhang-ke failed to show up for a scheduled hybrid on-and-offline Asia Lounge talk with Japanese filmmaker Kiyosho Kurosawa, moderated by producer and Tokyo Filmex head Ichiyama Shozo.
The two Japanese cineastes carried on in Jia’s absence, with Shozo, who has served as producer on the Chinese director’s films including Ash Is Purest White, Mountains May Depart and A Touch Of Sin, answering Kurosawa’s and later the online audience’s questions about the Chinese filmmaker’s methods and plans.
- 11/7/2020
- by Jean Noh
- ScreenDaily
A film about an infection and the upset, paranoia, and unease that follows is, well, tailor-made for right now. There is no better time, then, to see director Jin Wang’s The Best Is Yet to Come, a selection at both the 2020 Venice Film Festival and the Toronto International Film Festival. It is a complex study of the illegal blood trade that helped hepatitis B carriers circumvent the discrimination they faced when seeking jobs and applying for school in early-2000s Beijing. While there is not a direct correlation to the Covid-19 pandemic, it is impossible not to make connections between both the story itself and even its creation. As Wang explains in the film’s press notes, “Due to the pandemic, post-production took place online. The editor and I were 1300km apart. Distance sparks reflection.”
The Best Is Yet to Come is the feature directorial debut from Wang, who...
The Best Is Yet to Come is the feature directorial debut from Wang, who...
- 9/10/2020
- by Christopher Schobert
- The Film Stage
First-time director Jing Wang sees the pain that his mentor Jia Zhangke has experienced on the movie set as motivation for his filmmaking journey. The perfection, precision and attention to details that he aspires to in his directorial debut “The Best Is Yet to Come” are the fruits born from being on the set with the Chinese auteur.
Wang, who has worked as assistant director on Jia’s “Ash Is Purest White,” “Mountains May Depart” and “Touch of Sin,” recalls that the director would sometimes get furious on the set over what was seen as something very minor, such as a prop letter without a stamp chop, or a tiny maltreatment of an actor’s costume.
“He blasted on the set, telling the crew that he did not want any irreversible mistakes to stay in this film should this film live and be revisited by people in the future. It...
Wang, who has worked as assistant director on Jia’s “Ash Is Purest White,” “Mountains May Depart” and “Touch of Sin,” recalls that the director would sometimes get furious on the set over what was seen as something very minor, such as a prop letter without a stamp chop, or a tiny maltreatment of an actor’s costume.
“He blasted on the set, telling the crew that he did not want any irreversible mistakes to stay in this film should this film live and be revisited by people in the future. It...
- 9/9/2020
- by Vivienne Chow
- Variety Film + TV
To most cinephiles, the name Yoshihiro Hanno is still often associated with film music. Apart from composing the score for his own movies, such as “Ugly” and “A Woman Wavering in the Rain” Hanno has created the music for Jia Zhangke’s “Mountains May Depart” and Isao Yukisada’s “Five Minutes to Tomorrow”, to name just a few examples. In his new directorial effort “Paradise Next”, he tells the story of three people feeling lost because of guilt, regret and a sense of spiritual loneliness, utilizing the conventions of the road movie for them to explore these issues as well as their connections to each other. The result has quite a few aesthetic merits, but fails to convince with its uneven, at times indecisive storyline.
“Paradise Next” is screening at Japan-Filmfest Hamburg
For a year now Shima (Etsushi Toyokawa) has sought refuge with a crew of gangsters in Taiwan after...
“Paradise Next” is screening at Japan-Filmfest Hamburg
For a year now Shima (Etsushi Toyokawa) has sought refuge with a crew of gangsters in Taiwan after...
- 8/26/2020
- by Rouven Linnarz
- AsianMoviePulse
Produced by Jia Zhangke, the film follows an aspiring journalist facing a moral dilemma while investigating a story.
Beijing-based sales agent Rediance has picked up international rights to Wang Jing’s debut feature, The Best Is Yet To Come, which has been selected for the Orizzonti Competition of Venice Film Festival as well as Toronto International Film Festival.
Produced by Jia Zhangke, the film is set in Beijing 17 years ago and tells the story of an aspiring journalist who faces a huge career dilemma while investigating a story about carriers of Hepatitis B.
Wang was born in Taiyuan, capital of Shanxi Province,...
Beijing-based sales agent Rediance has picked up international rights to Wang Jing’s debut feature, The Best Is Yet To Come, which has been selected for the Orizzonti Competition of Venice Film Festival as well as Toronto International Film Festival.
Produced by Jia Zhangke, the film is set in Beijing 17 years ago and tells the story of an aspiring journalist who faces a huge career dilemma while investigating a story about carriers of Hepatitis B.
Wang was born in Taiyuan, capital of Shanxi Province,...
- 8/7/2020
- by 89¦Liz Shackleton¦0¦
- ScreenDaily
This year, the motion picture academy achieved its five-year goal of doubling the number of women among its membership. In all, 819 film professionals were invited to become part of the organization that hands out the Oscars. Compare this intake to the totals of the previous five years: 842 in 2019; a record 928 in 2018; 774 in 2017; 683 in 2016; 322 in 2015; and 271 in 2014.
While Academy Awards nominees are automatically eligible for consideration, the rest of the candidates must go through a fairly cumbersome process. A candidate must meet certain branch specific requirements before even being eligible.
For example, actors must “have a minimum of three theatrical feature film credits, in all of which the roles played were scripted roles, one of which was released in the past five years, and all of which are of a caliber that reflect the high standards of the Academy.” For writers, directors and producers they need have just two of these credits.
While Academy Awards nominees are automatically eligible for consideration, the rest of the candidates must go through a fairly cumbersome process. A candidate must meet certain branch specific requirements before even being eligible.
For example, actors must “have a minimum of three theatrical feature film credits, in all of which the roles played were scripted roles, one of which was released in the past five years, and all of which are of a caliber that reflect the high standards of the Academy.” For writers, directors and producers they need have just two of these credits.
- 7/1/2020
- by Paul Sheehan
- Gold Derby
Director Lu Yang’s “Assassins in Red” is set to debut next lunar new year, a holiday release window that will likely be one of China’s most competitive ever, as 2020 blockbusters pushed back by the coronavirus prepare to jostle with new titles during the country’s biggest movie-going week of the year.
But Lu gently laughs off the question of whether the pressure is already a bit unbearable.
“I trust that our film has its unique elements that will still attract viewers even if it comes out next Chinese New Year in the midst of such strong competition,” he said. Should his competitors pull ahead, so be it, he implied: “The more lively things are and the more audiences go to the cinema, the better it is for the industry as a whole.”
Although production has started up again, the Chinese film industry has been slammed by the longest...
But Lu gently laughs off the question of whether the pressure is already a bit unbearable.
“I trust that our film has its unique elements that will still attract viewers even if it comes out next Chinese New Year in the midst of such strong competition,” he said. Should his competitors pull ahead, so be it, he implied: “The more lively things are and the more audiences go to the cinema, the better it is for the industry as a whole.”
Although production has started up again, the Chinese film industry has been slammed by the longest...
- 6/26/2020
- by Rebecca Davis
- Variety Film + TV
China’s Cmc Pictures will bring a line-up of five titles to the Cannes virtual market this year, including “Assassin in Red,” a major blockbuster set to hit next Chinese New Year.
The firm will be selling global rights outside of China and Southeast Asia to the fantasy drama directed by Lu Yang and executive produced by Ning Hao (“Crazy Alien”).
The film, whose Mandarin title translates to “Assassinate the Novelist,” tells the story of a man who, in order to save his missing daughter, is tasked with killing a writer whose writing creates a parallel world that begins to interact with the real one.
The title reunites “Brotherhood of Blades II” stars Yang Mi (“Tiny Times”) and Lei Jiayin (“The Longest Day in Chang’an”), alongside Golden Horse Award winner Dong Zijiang (of Jia Zhangke’s “Mountains May Depart” and “Ash is Purest White”).
Cmc also brings two of its...
The firm will be selling global rights outside of China and Southeast Asia to the fantasy drama directed by Lu Yang and executive produced by Ning Hao (“Crazy Alien”).
The film, whose Mandarin title translates to “Assassinate the Novelist,” tells the story of a man who, in order to save his missing daughter, is tasked with killing a writer whose writing creates a parallel world that begins to interact with the real one.
The title reunites “Brotherhood of Blades II” stars Yang Mi (“Tiny Times”) and Lei Jiayin (“The Longest Day in Chang’an”), alongside Golden Horse Award winner Dong Zijiang (of Jia Zhangke’s “Mountains May Depart” and “Ash is Purest White”).
Cmc also brings two of its...
- 6/19/2020
- by Rebecca Davis
- Variety Film + TV
Chinese moviegoers can expect to see Dante Lam’s “The Rescue,” Jackie Chan film “Vanguard” and two titles involving helmer Zhang Yimou this year, says a top Chinese distribution executive. He also confirmed National Day releases for two propaganda films — the first concrete information on upcoming theatrical debuts for new titles in months.
China’s cinemas shuttered in late January to stop the spread of the novel coronavirus. A bevy of blockbusters expecting to see record box office returns over the Lunar New Year holiday were pulled at the eleventh hour and have not been given new release dates.
But new information from Fu Ruoqing, chairman of major state-owned distributor Huaxia, says audiences will be able to catch the delayed Chinese New Year films “The Rescue,” Dante’s epic actioner about the Chinese coast guard, and Stanley Tong’s “Vanguard” in the second half of 2020, as well as Zhang’s new spy thriller “Impasse.
China’s cinemas shuttered in late January to stop the spread of the novel coronavirus. A bevy of blockbusters expecting to see record box office returns over the Lunar New Year holiday were pulled at the eleventh hour and have not been given new release dates.
But new information from Fu Ruoqing, chairman of major state-owned distributor Huaxia, says audiences will be able to catch the delayed Chinese New Year films “The Rescue,” Dante’s epic actioner about the Chinese coast guard, and Stanley Tong’s “Vanguard” in the second half of 2020, as well as Zhang’s new spy thriller “Impasse.
- 5/18/2020
- by Rebecca Davis
- Variety Film + TV
Since we don’t know what we are looking forward to, let’s look back at this year’s Berlinale 2020. As they say here in Germany, “Rucksicht is besser”. (“Hindsight is better.”)This year’s Berlinale was especially busy for me as I was invited to give tours and presentations to the emerging talents of the Berlinale Talents; to an Ethiopian delegation of filmmakers, to students of the London Film School and to students of the Birkbeck University of London and to a group called the Second Berlin China Executive Program comprised of young Chinese cineastes living in the diaspora including U.K., Germany, Italy and USA.
Little did we know that when we returned to our respective homes we would be forced into self-isolation. We were all very lucky that the Corona Virus did not affect anyone and for that we thank the 110 Chinese companies and individuals who had...
Little did we know that when we returned to our respective homes we would be forced into self-isolation. We were all very lucky that the Corona Virus did not affect anyone and for that we thank the 110 Chinese companies and individuals who had...
- 5/1/2020
- by Sydney Levine
- Sydney's Buzz
Jia Zhangke on Cinema in the Time of Coronavirus and the Undeniable Truths of Documentary Filmmaking
For more than two and a half decades, the films of Jia Zhangke have given the world a poetic and deeply personal account of the shifting social plains of modern China. From early masterworks The World (2004) and Still Life (2006), to the baroque genre leanings of A Touch of Sin (2013) and–more recently–the far-reaching epics of Mountains May Depart (2015) and Ash is Purest White (2018), his work has organically documented that sea change without ever zooming out too much from the human lives within.
Jia makes a rare return to documentary filmmaking, his first in ten years, with Swimming Out Till The Sea Turns Blue, a movie that sees the director looking back once again. It is an account of the urbanization of his native Chanxi province, although this time told through the memories of four authors (three living and one dead). Swimming Out recently premiered at the Berlin International Film...
Jia makes a rare return to documentary filmmaking, his first in ten years, with Swimming Out Till The Sea Turns Blue, a movie that sees the director looking back once again. It is an account of the urbanization of his native Chanxi province, although this time told through the memories of four authors (three living and one dead). Swimming Out recently premiered at the Berlin International Film...
- 3/16/2020
- by Rory O'Connor
- The Film Stage
The latest Jia Zhangke film to arrive in the United States is technically not a new film, but rather a director’s cut of his 2010 documentary, I Wish I Knew. While the previous cut made it to festivals, it rarely screened elsewhere. One of cinema’s modern masters, his surge in popularity coming from his latest three masterpieces–A Touch of Sin, Mountains May Depart, and Ash is Purest White–has thankfully meant that an underseen work is getting proper U.S. distribution and hopefully a sustainable way to experience it for years to come.
I Wish I Knew is immediately reminiscent of 24 City, his 2008 documentary-narrative hybrid which examined the impact that changing economic factors had on working-class Chinese people. An essential watch for anyone interested in politics, art or people themselves, 24 City had a very specific focus: how the changes towards factories and the economy affect the workers...
I Wish I Knew is immediately reminiscent of 24 City, his 2008 documentary-narrative hybrid which examined the impact that changing economic factors had on working-class Chinese people. An essential watch for anyone interested in politics, art or people themselves, 24 City had a very specific focus: how the changes towards factories and the economy affect the workers...
- 1/23/2020
- by Logan Kenny
- The Film Stage
Jia Zhangke is one of the most daring and prolific Chinese filmmakers currently working today, having burst onto the international scene with his sophomore film “Platform” in 2000, and most recently releasing “Ash Is Purest White” last year. The triptych emotional epic teamed him again with his wife and muse, Zhao Tao. His films “24 City,” “A Touch of Sin,” and “Mountains May Depart” also screened at the Cannes Film Festival to massive acclaim. IndieWire now shares an exclusive trailer for his rare 2010 film “I Wish I Knew” below, which opens at New York City’s Metrograph on January 24.
While Jia has primarily worked in narrative fiction films, he has, throughout his 20-plus-year career, forayed into documentary, and his 2010 nonfiction outing “I Wish I Knew” is a standout. Featuring sequences with Zhao Tao and even Taiwanese filmmaker Hou Hsiao-hsien, “I Wish I Knew” is imbued with Jia’s poetic sensibilities, and...
While Jia has primarily worked in narrative fiction films, he has, throughout his 20-plus-year career, forayed into documentary, and his 2010 nonfiction outing “I Wish I Knew” is a standout. Featuring sequences with Zhao Tao and even Taiwanese filmmaker Hou Hsiao-hsien, “I Wish I Knew” is imbued with Jia’s poetic sensibilities, and...
- 1/16/2020
- by Ryan Lattanzio
- Indiewire
One Second
Will we ever be able to see Zhang Yimou’s One Second, which was yanked out of Berlin 2019 days before its premiere for not receiving approval from China’s censorship board? Most likely, it will end up premiering somewhere, though apparently 2019 was not in the cards. The low-fi drama stars Zhang Yi and Fan Wei, and was lensed by regular Yimou Dp Zhao Xiaoding.
Gist: Co-written by Zou Jingzhi (The Grandmaster), the project is set in the mid-1970s in northwestern China, concerning a movie fan in a remote farmland and a homeless female vagabond.…...
Will we ever be able to see Zhang Yimou’s One Second, which was yanked out of Berlin 2019 days before its premiere for not receiving approval from China’s censorship board? Most likely, it will end up premiering somewhere, though apparently 2019 was not in the cards. The low-fi drama stars Zhang Yi and Fan Wei, and was lensed by regular Yimou Dp Zhao Xiaoding.
Gist: Co-written by Zou Jingzhi (The Grandmaster), the project is set in the mid-1970s in northwestern China, concerning a movie fan in a remote farmland and a homeless female vagabond.…...
- 1/1/2020
- by Nicholas Bell
- IONCINEMA.com
Launched at Cannes in May 2015, “Mountains May Depart” is an ambitious and more commercial project by Chinese director Jia Zhangke. An important and well-regarded member of the “Sixth Generation” of Chinese independent film-makers, Zhangke has consistently narrated with style and heart, friendship, love and family ties in post-Mao society. This movie is indeed a sum and an evolution of the themes that he has been exploring in his previous movies and unravels in a three-dimensional landscape of past, present and future.
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The tripartite narration comprises of three segments, set in 1999, 2014 and 2025. The first and longer part starts at the eve of the new Millennium in Fenyang (the director’s hometown) with a group of merry people dancing to the Pet Shop Boys’ song Go West, a not-so-subtle allusion to the spirit of that precise moment. It’s the break from an uncomfortable past, the dawn of a...
Buy This Title
The tripartite narration comprises of three segments, set in 1999, 2014 and 2025. The first and longer part starts at the eve of the new Millennium in Fenyang (the director’s hometown) with a group of merry people dancing to the Pet Shop Boys’ song Go West, a not-so-subtle allusion to the spirit of that precise moment. It’s the break from an uncomfortable past, the dawn of a...
- 12/31/2019
- by Adriana Rosati
- AsianMoviePulse
The Best is Yet to Come
Jia Zhang-ke made headlines at this year’s Pingyao International Film Festival when he announced a trio of new projects and a collaboration with Momo, a popular social media dating app which sponsors Piff and has developed a new film production arm, Momo Pictures. First up is The Best is Yet to Come, which will be the first feature of Zhang-ke’s protégé Wang Jing, who served as Ad on his last three films.The project will star Bai Kei.…...
Jia Zhang-ke made headlines at this year’s Pingyao International Film Festival when he announced a trio of new projects and a collaboration with Momo, a popular social media dating app which sponsors Piff and has developed a new film production arm, Momo Pictures. First up is The Best is Yet to Come, which will be the first feature of Zhang-ke’s protégé Wang Jing, who served as Ad on his last three films.The project will star Bai Kei.…...
- 12/31/2019
- by Nicholas Bell
- IONCINEMA.com
No one attending the Pingyao International Film Festival can escape learning about Jia Zhangke’s upcoming projects, with the same three trailers for them playing before each and every screening. The arthouse icon-turned-businessman’s presence looms large over the festival he founded in his native Shanxi province.
First off, there is a new collaboration between Jia and Momo, a Chinese social media app that started as a Tinder knockoff and now appears to be pivoting in more wholesome directions, with moves into live-streaming and, now, film production via a new arm called Momo Pictures. The app is one of the main sponsors of the Pingyao festival.
Jia will executive produce Momo’s first foray into features, a Beijing-based production called “The Best Is Yet to Come.” A co-production between his Fabula Entertainment and Momo Pictures, it will be the first full-length work by newcomer Wang Jing, a Beijing Film Academy...
First off, there is a new collaboration between Jia and Momo, a Chinese social media app that started as a Tinder knockoff and now appears to be pivoting in more wholesome directions, with moves into live-streaming and, now, film production via a new arm called Momo Pictures. The app is one of the main sponsors of the Pingyao festival.
Jia will executive produce Momo’s first foray into features, a Beijing-based production called “The Best Is Yet to Come.” A co-production between his Fabula Entertainment and Momo Pictures, it will be the first full-length work by newcomer Wang Jing, a Beijing Film Academy...
- 10/16/2019
- by Rebecca Davis
- Variety Film + TV
Paris-based mk2 films, which is in Venice with three films including Robert Guédiguian’s competition entry “Gloria Mundi,” is bowing sales on a raft of prestige documentaries, notably Jia Zhang-ke’s “So Close to My Land” and Jacques Loeuille’s “Birds of America.”
“So Close to My Land” marks the sixth collaboration between mk2 and the Chinese auteur, whose latest film, “Ash Is Purest White,” competed at Cannes in 2018. Jia also competed at Cannes with “Mountains May Depart” in 2015 and “A Touch of Sin,” which won the best screenplay award in 2013.
“So Close to My Land” is the third and final installment in a trilogy focusing on different artistic disciplines in China, after “Dong” (2006), about an acclaimed painter, and “Useless” (2007), about the fashion and clothing industry. Jia’s 2010 film “I Wish I Knew” played at Cannes’ Un Certain Regard, while “Useless” and “Dong” opened at Venice and won prizes.
An...
“So Close to My Land” marks the sixth collaboration between mk2 and the Chinese auteur, whose latest film, “Ash Is Purest White,” competed at Cannes in 2018. Jia also competed at Cannes with “Mountains May Depart” in 2015 and “A Touch of Sin,” which won the best screenplay award in 2013.
“So Close to My Land” is the third and final installment in a trilogy focusing on different artistic disciplines in China, after “Dong” (2006), about an acclaimed painter, and “Useless” (2007), about the fashion and clothing industry. Jia’s 2010 film “I Wish I Knew” played at Cannes’ Un Certain Regard, while “Useless” and “Dong” opened at Venice and won prizes.
An...
- 8/29/2019
- by Elsa Keslassy
- Variety Film + TV
Film-triptychs have been a source of masterpieces for Asian cinema for many decades, with works like Wong Kar-Wai’s “Chungking Express“, Hou Hsiao-Hsien’s “Three Times” and more recently Jia Zhangke’s “Mountains May Depart”. Taiwanese Wi Ding Ho makes his own effort at the triptych by implementing an additional cinematic trick: reverse chronological order.
The story begins with a death, while a Taiwanese rendition of Ritchie Valens’s “Oh Donna” is playing in the background, before it turns to its first segment. The setting is at Taipei in 2056, but the events unfolding could be of any decade: The protagonist, 60-years-old Zhang Dong Ling barges into a ballroom dance session only to attack the man dancing with his wife, which is soon revealed to have been estranged from him for many years. A violent scene in the hospital and a more tender one with his daughter conclude this segment, while...
The story begins with a death, while a Taiwanese rendition of Ritchie Valens’s “Oh Donna” is playing in the background, before it turns to its first segment. The setting is at Taipei in 2056, but the events unfolding could be of any decade: The protagonist, 60-years-old Zhang Dong Ling barges into a ballroom dance session only to attack the man dancing with his wife, which is soon revealed to have been estranged from him for many years. A violent scene in the hospital and a more tender one with his daughter conclude this segment, while...
- 8/11/2019
- by Panos Kotzathanasis
- AsianMoviePulse
Ash Is Purest White, the acclaimed romantic crime drama from Jia Zhangke (Mountains May Depart), hits Blu-ray, DVD, and digital July 16 via Cohen Film Collection.
The tale centers on Qiao (Zhao Tao) who is in love with a local mobster named Bin (Liao Fan). During a fight, Qiao fires a gun to protect Bin and [...]
The post Epic Romantic Drama ‘Ash Is Purest White’ Lands Blu-Ray And DVD Release In July appeared first on Hollywood Outbreak.
The tale centers on Qiao (Zhao Tao) who is in love with a local mobster named Bin (Liao Fan). During a fight, Qiao fires a gun to protect Bin and [...]
The post Epic Romantic Drama ‘Ash Is Purest White’ Lands Blu-Ray And DVD Release In July appeared first on Hollywood Outbreak.
- 6/20/2019
- by Hollywood Outbreak
- HollywoodOutbreak.com
Sales company Fortissimo Films has picked up international rights to three of the movies that will unspool in competition over the next ten days at the Shanghai International Film Festival. All are world premieres.
Top feature director Zhang Yang makes an appearance with “The Sound of Dali,” a documentary that examines the natural beauty surrounding Dali in Yunnan Province.
Noted actress, Qin Hailu makes her directorial debut with “The Return.” The film is a drama about an old soldier living in Taiwan who would like to return to mainland China. But doing so would mean leaving behind his companion from the Red Envelope Club singers. The film stars Chang Feng, Ge Lei, and Lei Kesheng. It is set for a theatrical release in China through distribution Companies Hehe Pictures, White Horse Film, and Pie Film Distribution on Sept. 12, 2019.
“Vortex” is a Chinese crime action film produced by Cao Baoping (director...
Top feature director Zhang Yang makes an appearance with “The Sound of Dali,” a documentary that examines the natural beauty surrounding Dali in Yunnan Province.
Noted actress, Qin Hailu makes her directorial debut with “The Return.” The film is a drama about an old soldier living in Taiwan who would like to return to mainland China. But doing so would mean leaving behind his companion from the Red Envelope Club singers. The film stars Chang Feng, Ge Lei, and Lei Kesheng. It is set for a theatrical release in China through distribution Companies Hehe Pictures, White Horse Film, and Pie Film Distribution on Sept. 12, 2019.
“Vortex” is a Chinese crime action film produced by Cao Baoping (director...
- 6/13/2019
- by Patrick Frater
- Variety Film + TV
Not to be confused with Eugene O’Neill’s play or any of its subsequent screen adaptations, Chinese box office phenomenon “Long Day’s Journey Into Night” is a mesmerizing hallucination of a film, a journey through one man’s memories for a truth that may not exist. Tang Wei and Huang Jue play a doomed romantic pair in Bi Gan’s languid thriller, which owes a tremendous debt to the likes of Tarkovsky, Malick and Wong Kar-wai even as it forges its own indelible, impressionistic path.
Huang (“The Hidden Sword”) plays Luo Hongwu, a man returning to his hometown of Kaili after the death of his father. Besieged by memories of his past — including a relationship with gangster’s moll Wan Qiwen, who disappeared many years ago on the eve of them running away together — Luo revisits old acquaintances and reflects on the impact of the people he has lost.
Huang (“The Hidden Sword”) plays Luo Hongwu, a man returning to his hometown of Kaili after the death of his father. Besieged by memories of his past — including a relationship with gangster’s moll Wan Qiwen, who disappeared many years ago on the eve of them running away together — Luo revisits old acquaintances and reflects on the impact of the people he has lost.
- 4/18/2019
- by Todd Gilchrist
- The Wrap
China is a vast, complicated nation that has undergone dramatic changes in recent decades, and filmmaker Jia Zhangke has captured that process in intimate terms. One of the country’s most revered directors, Jia has probed the nuances of Chinese identity with sophisticated character studies for more than 20 years. His more recent projects, including the Cannes-winning anthology work “A Touch of Sin” and “Mountains May Depart,” have taken on a more dramatic scale. That includes his latest effort, “Ash is Purest White,” in which the director’s wife Zhao Tao plays a woman imprisoned after she protects her mobster husband (Lia Fan). Released several years later, she tracks the man down, discovering a vastly different China in the process.
Like much of Jia’s work, the slow-burn drama is a haunting and perceptive look at the country’s ongoing evolution. While in New York to promote the movie, which is currently in limited release,...
Like much of Jia’s work, the slow-burn drama is a haunting and perceptive look at the country’s ongoing evolution. While in New York to promote the movie, which is currently in limited release,...
- 3/19/2019
- by Eric Kohn
- Indiewire
Jia Zhangke’s new feature Ash Is Purest White, opening in the Us this Friday, March 15, marks the Chinese director’s ninth collaboration with actress Zhao Tao. It’s now been twenty years since the pair first began working together, on Jia’s landmark feature Platform (2000); in the interim they’ve forged what is arguably the most fruitful artistic partnership in contemporary cinema. When I wrote the following article for Fireflies #3 in early 2016, Jia’s most recent feature Mountains May Depart (2015) seemed like a culmination of his and Zhao’s work up to that point—and it was. But now we have Ash Is Purest White, which takes the years-spanning premise of its predecessor even further, and, because of the film’s meta-textual relationship to Jia’s own corpus, feels like a truly summative work. Ash Is Purest White is indeed a grand tour through the pair’s filmography, following Zhao’s resilient heroine Qiao,...
- 3/13/2019
- MUBI
In Jia Zhangke’s subtly majestic drama Ash Is Purest White the director's regular muse, Zhao Tao, must reckon with China's rapid change over the last seventeen years. Revealing an ambitious, sprawling tale with sidelong storytelling that focuses on the grace notes of a much bigger picture, it is an elegant evolution of the Chinese auteur’s version of a neo-melodrama, as was showcased in his last film, Mountains May Depart. Like that film, Ash Is Purest White follows Zhao’s character across three eras of contemporary China as her life is turned upside down, the country evolves in the background, and those once close to her become irrevocably different. Continuing a formal approach begun in the earlier picture, each section in Ash Is Purest White is shot a bit different than the others, including format, aspect ratio, and decoupage, and each self-reflexively calls back to and revises different films from Jia’s own career.
- 3/13/2019
- MUBI
One Second
Following his well-received martial arts action comeback Shadow (2018), Zhang Yimou heads back to low-key period drama with his next project One Second. Produced by Huanxi Media, the film is headlined by Zhang Yi. While Yimou received considerable critical backlash for his 2016 Matt Damon led Hollywood epic The Great Wall, he is still best remembered for his action epics, such as the Jet Li headlined Hero (2002) and 2004’s House of Flying Daggers. However, Yimou remains one of China’s most formidable filmmakers, a Golden Bear winner and two-time Golden Lion winner, Yimou’s early works yielded considerable accolades.…...
Following his well-received martial arts action comeback Shadow (2018), Zhang Yimou heads back to low-key period drama with his next project One Second. Produced by Huanxi Media, the film is headlined by Zhang Yi. While Yimou received considerable critical backlash for his 2016 Matt Damon led Hollywood epic The Great Wall, he is still best remembered for his action epics, such as the Jet Li headlined Hero (2002) and 2004’s House of Flying Daggers. However, Yimou remains one of China’s most formidable filmmakers, a Golden Bear winner and two-time Golden Lion winner, Yimou’s early works yielded considerable accolades.…...
- 1/1/2019
- by Nicholas Bell
- IONCINEMA.com
Murtada Elfadl reporting on the New York Film Festival which begins Friday
Have you seen Jia Zhangke’s previous film Mountains May Depart (2015)? Did you whoop with joy when his wife and collaborator Zhao Tao danced to the Pet Shop Boys’ Go West in the memorable opening sequence? Well you are in for another treat from this duo. Tao dances again, and to another delightful well known song that we won’t spoil here. More than that, Ash is Purest White is the showcase for her immense talent that we were hoping for...
Have you seen Jia Zhangke’s previous film Mountains May Depart (2015)? Did you whoop with joy when his wife and collaborator Zhao Tao danced to the Pet Shop Boys’ Go West in the memorable opening sequence? Well you are in for another treat from this duo. Tao dances again, and to another delightful well known song that we won’t spoil here. More than that, Ash is Purest White is the showcase for her immense talent that we were hoping for...
- 9/27/2018
- by Murtada Elfadl
- FilmExperience
Taiwanese film Cities of Last Things goes from the future back into the past to retrace the existence of a man through his relationships with several women at different stages of his life. Though the tripartite, time-hopping structure isn’t exactly new — fellow Taiwanese director Hou Hsiao-hsien’s Three Times and Chinese filmmaker Jia Zhangke’s Mountains May Depart come to mind as obvious touchstones — what is different here is that the story is told in fully reverse chronological order, so themes such as memories, nostalgia and the root or source of certain decisions or behavior can all ...
- 9/13/2018
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
Taiwanese film Cities of Last Things goes from the future back into the past to retrace the existence of a man through his relationships with several women at different stages of his life. Though the tripartite, time-hopping structure isn’t exactly new — fellow Taiwanese director Hou Hsiao-hsien’s Three Times and Chinese filmmaker Jia Zhangke’s Mountains May Depart come to mind as obvious touchstones — what is different here is that the story is told in fully reverse chronological order, so themes such as memories, nostalgia and the root or source of certain decisions or behavior can all ...
- 9/13/2018
- The Hollywood Reporter - Film + TV
Jia Zhangke embarks once again on a triptych that highlights the changes China has experienced in the 21st century, through a long drama revolving around a gangster’s girlfriend and her life during three different decades.
“Ash Is Purest White” is screening at Toronto International Film Festival
The story begins in Shanxi, a dying coal town, where Qiao, a modern, feisty local beauty spends her time with her boyfriend, Guo Bin, a local gang boss and taking care of her father, who insists on fighting for the coal workers’ rights, although in an embarrassing fashion. Qiao is not Bin’s woman, as she carries herself as an equal among gangsters. When a group of young thugs starts making noise in the town, the clash with Bin’s gang is inevitable, and in the film’s most violent scene, Qiao ends up saving her boyfriend by shooting a gun, in a...
“Ash Is Purest White” is screening at Toronto International Film Festival
The story begins in Shanxi, a dying coal town, where Qiao, a modern, feisty local beauty spends her time with her boyfriend, Guo Bin, a local gang boss and taking care of her father, who insists on fighting for the coal workers’ rights, although in an embarrassing fashion. Qiao is not Bin’s woman, as she carries herself as an equal among gangsters. When a group of young thugs starts making noise in the town, the clash with Bin’s gang is inevitable, and in the film’s most violent scene, Qiao ends up saving her boyfriend by shooting a gun, in a...
- 9/8/2018
- by Panos Kotzathanasis
- AsianMoviePulse
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