Notizie

Award-winning Chinese sci-fi novel “Folding Beijing” moved closer to production as a movie, following support by mainland China studio Wanda Film.

The film, titled “Folding City” is to be produced by Josh Kim, Chris Lee and Yin Hongbo (aka Homber Yin). Edward Gunawan and Katherine Lee join as co-producers.

Kim is the Korean-American director who previously made a splash with adolescent drama “How to Win at Checkers (Every Time)”. The film was selected as Thailand’s Oscar contender in 2015. Kim is currently in production as co-director of HBO series “Forbidden.” Lee is a former Hollywood studio executive with producing credits including “How to Win at Checkers (Every Time)” and “S.W.A.T.,” and executive producing credits including “Valkyrie,” “Superman Returns.”

For many years sci-fi was shunned by Chinese film industry regulators and specific subject matter, such as time travel, was explicitly forbidden. But attitudes have changed since the blockbuster success of “Wandering...

Love him or hate him, Jiang Wen is a director you cannot ignore. In 2018, he completes his Republican Era gangster trilogy, which started in 2010 with “Let the Bullets Fly” and also includes 2014’s “Gone with the Bullets”, with the Eddie Peng starring “Hidden Man”

Synopsis

On the cusp of the Second Sino-Japanese War, a spy returns to China set on revenge, but finds himself plunged into a high-stakes game of intrigue, love, and scheming. Young Li Tianren escapes to America after his master is killed by the power-hungry Zhu Qianlong and his Japanese sidekick Nemoto. 15 years later, the boy, now called Bruce, returns to Beijing as a spy for the Americans but has bloody revenge on his mind.

Loosely based on Zhang Beihei’s wuxia novel “Xia Yin”, “Hidden Man” stars Taiwanese heartthrob Eddie Peng as Bruce, Liao Fan as Zhu Qianlong as well as Jiang Wen himself. The film...

Hidden Man is the third of actor-director Jiang Wen's comic action films set in the 1930s, after the spectacularly good (and spectacularity lucrative) Let the Bullets Fly (2010) and the wonderfully ambitious if wildly uneven Gone with the Bullets (2014). The new picture, set in 1937 “Peiping”—the era’s name for Beijing—on the cusp of Japan declaring war on a hobbled and splintered China, is on the surface a simple tale of revenge. The dashing American-educated doctor Li Tianran (Eddie Pang) returns to his country to kill the two men who, when he was a child, shot to death and set on fire his adoptive father and martial arts master, his step-sister and, so the killers thought, Tianran too. Sent abroad for his safety, Tianran has been training himself not just as a gynecologist but for vengeance as well, having been enlisted by a vague Sino-American espionage contingent—the Chinese part,...

If the delicacy of the English title, “Hidden Man,” makes you think that Chinese actor-director Jiang Wen (last seen by Western audiences in “Rogue One”) might have come over uncharacteristically restrained for the final installment of his action trilogy after 2010’s “Let the Bullets Fly” and 2014’s “Gone with the Bullets,” the seriocomic, gory beheadings and eviscerations that happen in the film’s first few minutes should disavow you. And if not that, perhaps the small boy running from the scene while burning alive? The sheer excess of this exuberant but also exhausting period blockbuster is much more accurately conveyed by its grandiose Chinese title, which roughly translates to “Evil Does Not Prevail Against Righteousness.” If it were “Evil Does Not Prevail Against Righteousness But It Takes a Very Long Time Not to Prevail,” it would be perfect.

The aforementioned burning boy survives the gory attack that opens the film...

We first discovered Jiang Wen in Zhang Yimou’s Red Sorghum (1988), and so it was with a certain delight when Tiff announced that Yimou’s Shadow and Wen’s Hidden Man would make their preem entries in Toronto. The Sixth Generation filmmaker pulls double duty once again with this sixth future which receive a Gala Presentation at the fest and will surely appease fans of his previous two entries in 2010’s Let the Bullets Fly (review) and Gone with the Bullets (2014).…...

All of the top five titles of all time in China are now local Chinese-language films.

Dying To Survive performed a hat trick as the weekly champion in the period of July 16-22, but lost the weekend to new opener Skyscraper.

The social comedy drama, starring Xu Zheng, hung onto the top spot overall in its third week, adding $61.7m for $412.6m after 18 days. It has moved one notch up to become the fifth highest grossing film of all time in China, surpassing Furious 8. Now all the top five films are local Chinese-language films, with Furious 8 in sixth place.

The...

The comedy drama held off challengers including ‘Hidden Man’.

Dying To Survive continued to thrive at the Chinese box office in the period of Jul 9-15, as new opener Hidden Man failed to take it down from the top.

Dying To Survive maintained an astounding momentum in its second week and added $159.7m for $350.2m after 11 days. It has fast become the third highest grossing film of 2018, after Operation Red Sea and Detective Chinatown 2. It has also outpaced Monster Hunt and Fast And Furious 7 to become the sixth highest grossing film of all time in the territory.

But it...

The comedy drama held off challengers including ‘Hidden Man’.

Dying To Survive continued to thrive at the Chinese box office in the period of Jul 9-15, as new opener Hidden Man failed to take it down from the top.

Dying To Survive maintained an astounding momentum in its second week and added $159.7m for $350.2m after 11 days. It has fast become the third highest grossing film of 2018, after Operation Red Sea and Detective Chinatown 2. It has also outpaced Monster Hunt and Fast And Furious 7 to become the sixth highest grossing film of all time in the territory.

But it...

Warner Bros. in China has boarded the upcoming “Hidden Man,” by cult director Jiang Wen.

Jiang has had a career that lurched from being banned for his “Devils on the Doorstep” directorial effort, through to today being one of China’s most celebrated actor-directors. He recently starred in “Rogue One: A Star Wars Story.”

The film is produced by Gravity Pictures, one of the production and distribution companies within Li Ruigang’s China Media Capital group. Warner’s investment comes through Flagship Entertainment, the Beijing and Hong Kong joint venture between Warner and Cmc. It is currently unclear what rights the studio obtains in exchange for its investment.

The film is pitched as the third element in a loose trilogy that stared with “Let The Bullets Fly” and continued with “Gone With The Bullets.” Both mix up old time gangsters, decadent high life, and power grabs, throwing up political analogies...

Warner Bros. has boarded Chinese actor-director Jiang Wen's forthcoming tentpole Hidden Man as a co-producer, The Hollywood Reporter has learned.

The film, set for release sometime this summer, is Jiang's first Chinese project since 2014's Gone With the Bullets, which earned $81 million. Jiang is a legend of the Chinese industry — early work included a starring role in Zhang Yimou's classic Red Sorghum and Cannes Grand Prix winner Devils on the Doorstep — but he became a familiar face to filmgoers worldwide thanks to his prominent role in Lucasfilm's Rogue One: A Star Wars Story as Baze Malbus.

It's ...

Warner Bros. has boarded Chinese actor-director Jiang Wen's forthcoming tentpole Hidden Man as a co-producer, The Hollywood Reporter has learned.

The film, set for release sometime this summer, is Jiang's first Chinese project since 2014's Gone With the Bullets, which earned $81 million. Jiang is a legend of the Chinese industry — early work included a starring role in Zhang Yimou's classic Red Sorghum and Cannes Grand Prix winner Devils on the Doorstep — but he became a familiar face to filmgoers worldwide thanks to his prominent role in Lucasfilm's Rogue One: A Star Wars Story as Baze Malbus.

It's ...

With only a few weeks to go until the Berlin Film Festival unspools, much of the competition lineup still remains a mystery. However, today has added some clarity with several titles unveiled. Among them, Iranian filmmaker Jafar Panahi’s latest effort. The director, who is under house arrest and a 20-year filmmaking ban, nevertheless manages to get a movie out every couple of years. His last, Closed Curtain, stirred up controversy in Iran when it won the screenwriting prize in Berlin in 2013. This latest film, Taxi, stars the director, although other details were not immediately available.

Also in the mix is the world premiere, out of competition, of Bill Condon’s Mr. Holmes, starring Ian McKellen, Laura Linney, Milo Parker, Hiroyuki Sanada and Hattie Morahan. McKellen plays the titular detective as he nears the end of his days and revisits an unsolved case which forced him into retirement.

Werner Herzog...

Queen of the Desert, starring Nicole Kidman and Robert Pattinson, added to Berlinale competition line-up; Mr. Holmes, starring Ian McKellen as an aged Sherlock, to play out of competition.

The 65th Berlin International Film Festival (Feb 5-15) has added a further eight titles to its Competition programme, ahead of the complete line-up next week.

The films, which originate from across Europe, Asia, the Us and the Middle East, include the world premiere of Queen of the Desert, Werner Herzog’s biopic based on the life of British explorer Gertrude Bell.

Nicole Kidman plays the 19th century explorer, known as the female Lawrence of Arabia, and her co-stars include James Franco, Damian Lewis and Robert Pattinson (as Te Lawrence).

Berlinale 2015: new Competition films

Body

Poland

By Malgorzata Szumowska (Stranger, Elles, In the Name of)

With Janusz Gajos, Maja Ostaszewska, Justyna Suwala

World premiere

Cha và con và (Big Father, Small Father and Other Stories)

Vietnam / France / Germany...

Sebastian Schipper, Werner Herzog, Benoit Jacquot and Further Titles Added to the Selection

Another eight films have been selected for the Competition Programme of the 65th Berlin International Film Festival.

The productions are from the following countries: Belgium, France, Germany, Hong Kong/China, Iran, the People’s Republic of China, Poland, the USA, the United Kingdom and Vietnam.

Body

Poland

By Malgorzata Szumowska (Stranger, Elles, In the Name of)

With Janusz Gajos, Maja Ostaszewska, Justyna Suwala

World premiere

Cha và con và (Big Father, Small Father and Other Stories)

Vietnam / France / Germany / Netherlands

By Di Phan Dang (Bi, Don’t Be Afraid)

With Do Thi Hai Yen, Le Cong Hoang, Truong The Vinh

World premiere

Journal d’une femme de chambre (Diary of a Chambermaid)

France / Belgium

By Benoit Jacquot (Farewell, My Queen; Three Hearts)

With Léa Seydoux, Vincent Lindon, Clotilde Mollet, Hervé Pierre, Vincent Lacoste

World premiere

Mr. Holmes

United Kingdom

By Bill Condon (The Fifth Estate)

With...

Columbia Pictures and Sony Pictures Releasing International have come aboard to co-produce and distribute, respectively, Gone With the Bullets, a period action movie from Jiang Wen, the filmmaker behind the 2010 hit Let the Bullets Fly. Gone, which is being shot in 3D, is a sequel to Fly and is the second film in what is being called the "Bullets Trilogy." Fly was an international hit, grossing more than $140 million worldwide. Sony will release the movie internationally in December 2014, with Gone becoming a local language co-production. According to Columbia, Gone is based on a true story

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