News

by Jean-Marc Thérouanne

The Vesoul International Film Festival of Asian Cinema salutes fraternally the great Iranian director Jafar Panahi, whose film «un simple accident» won the prestigious Palme d’or at the 78th Cannes Film Festival. This well-deserved award crowns a humanist thriller that poses the serious question of the possibility of the pardon of the oppressed towards his executioner to achieve national reconciliation, on condition of repentance of the latter.

Jafar Panahi is a giant of the world cinema, multi-award-winning author of eleven feature films and seven shorts. He was president of the jury at the 10th Fica Vesoul 2004.

“Simple accident” also wins the citizenship award.

With Shu Qi, main actress in « Résurrection » by Bi Gan (Crédit photo J-m Thérouanne)

The Vesoul Iff Asian Cinema also extends its warm congratulations to Chinese director Bi Gan for the Special Prize of the Cannes 2025 jury, awarded to his film «Résurrection». After...

Exclusive: Norwegian distributor Fidalgo has topped up its release slate with two further additions from the Cannes Official Selection.

The company has acquired rights to Sergei Loznitsa’s Two Prosecutors, from Edge Entertainment, which had previously acquired rights for the Nordics from sales company Coproduction Office.

Two Prosecutors debuted in Competition on May 14, scoring a strong 3.1 on Screen’s Cannes jury grid – enough to top the final grid alongside It Was Just An Accident. The film follows an idealistic prosecutor in 1937 Ussr, who discovers a prisoner’s letter that exposes Nkvd corruption.

Fidalgo has also acquired Bi Gan’s Resurrection from Les Film du Losange,...

Exclusive: Norwegian distributor Fidalgo has topped up its release slate with three further additions from the Cannes Official Selection.

The company has acquired rights to Sergei Loznitsa’s Two Prosecutors, from Edge Entertainment, which had previously acquired rights for the Nordics from sales company Coproduction Office.

Two Prosecutors debuted in Competition on May 14, scoring a strong 3.1 on Screen’s Cannes jury grid – enough to top the final grid alongside It Was Just An Accident. The film follows an idealistic prosecutor in 1937 Ussr, who discovers a prisoner’s letter that exposes Nkvd corruption.

Fidalgo has also acquired Bi Gan’s Resurrection from Les Film du Losange,...

Janus Films has acquired all North American rights to Bi Gan’s Chinese fantasy drama Resurrection, winner of this year’s Special Jury prize at the Cannes festival.

Told in six parts, the film takes place in a world where humanity has lost the ability to dream and a woman decides to follow a monstrous creature into the dream world.

Chinese singer and actor Jackson Yee stars with Shu Qi. Bi Gan wrote and directed and the film was produced by China’s Huace Pictures and Dangmai Films with France’s CG Cinema. Losange Films is handling sales.

A statement...

Janus Films has acquired North American rights to Bi Gan’s Resurrection, with the film winning the Special Jury prize at the recently-concluded Cannes Film Festival.

Marking Bi’s third feature, Resurrection stars Jackson Yee, Shu Qi, Mark Chao and Li Gengxi.

The deal was negotiated by Janus Films and Losange Films.

Resurrection unfolds in six parts spanning a century, set in a world where humanity has lost the ability to dream. However, one creature remains entranced by the fading illusions of the dreamworld.

Bi previously directed Kaili Blues and Long Day’s Journey into Night — with the latter premiering in Cannes’ Un Certain Regard section in 2018.

Resurrection was produced by China’s Huace Pictures and Dangmai Films with France’s CG Cinema, and features a score by French band M83.

“Bi Gan’s Resurrection is a kaleidoscopic, time-skipping, genre-mashing odyssey through cinema and dreams that will thrill fans of daring,...

Janus Films has acquired all North American rights to writer/director Bi Gan’s “Resurrection,” which won the Prix Spécial Jury Prize at this year’s Cannes Film Festival.

“Resurrection” was produced by China’s Huace Pictures and Dangmai Films with France’s CG Cinema and features a score by M83. The deal was negotiated by Janus Films and Losange Films.

The movie, which is told in six parts spanning 100 years, takes place “in a world where humanity has lost the ability to dream, and one creature remains entranced by the fading illusions of the dreamworld,” according to the official synopsis. It stars singer and actor Jackson Yee and actress Shu Qi.

TheWrap’s review of the film called it “dense and delirious,” adding that “his film pastiche plays a bit like ‘Kill Bill’ replacing all narrative structure with dream logic.”

Janus Films commented in a Tuesday statement, “Bi Gan’s ‘Resurrection’ is a kaleidoscopic,...

Janus Films has acquired all North American rights to “Resurrection,” the Special Award winner at the 2025 Cannes Film Festival from visionary Chinese filmmaker Bi Gan.

The film, which premiered in competition at Cannes, marks the third feature from Bi Gan, whose previous credits include “Kaili Blues” and “Long Day’s Journey Into Night.”

Told in six parts spanning a century, “Resurrection’s” framing story takes place in a world where humanity has lost the ability to dream, with one creature remaining entranced by the fading illusions of the dreamworld. The film stars Chinese superstar singer and actor Jackson Yee and veteran actor Shu Qi, known for her collaborations with Hou Hsiao-Hsien.

“Resurrection” was praised by Variety critic Jessica Kiang as “a marvelously maximalist movie of opulent ambition that is actually five or six movies, each at once playful and peculiar and part of an overarchingly melancholy elegy for the dream of...

Bi Gan’s “Resurrection” arrives not as a mere film, but as a vast, sighing edifice of cinematic memory and sensory immersion. It posits a world eerily familiar in its ache for oblivion, a reality where the tumultuous landscape of dreams has been largely excised in favor of an extended, perhaps hollow, consciousness. Within this stark bargain, a solitary figure, a wanderer through forbidden states, charts a course across spectral epochs.

This is less a narrative to be followed than an experiential current to be surrendered to, a grand, melancholic waltz through the very apparatus of cinema and the raw data of sensation itself. The journey beckons into an intricate, sometimes bewildering, exploration of what it means to see, to feel, to remember through the flickering light of projected illusion.

The Long Sleep of Reason, The Brief Fever of Dreams

The foundational premise of “Resurrection” whispers of a profound, perhaps Faustian,...

By the tenth day of Cannes, the movies begin to blend. Under-slept and over-stimulated, imaginations run wild, finding odd and intuitive parallels between wildly disparate propositions as weary attendees misremember which scene came from what film. And though director Bi Gan landed on a late-in-festival premiere for more pragmatic reasons – the wunderkind filmmaker was still shooting just one month ago, before delivering his final version late Wednesday night – his dense and delirious “Resurrection” couldn’t have found a more befitting slot.

Indeed, “Resurrection” condenses that bleary and bewildered experience into one virtuosic package. Viewers can stumble through more than a century of wildly disparate film iconography remixed and retrofitted for Bi Gan’s 160 minute opus, opting to either spot the reference or to simply let the immaculately made spectacle wash over them. Just don’t go in looking to make sense of much of it, as this film pastiche plays...

One of the most audacious young auteurs working today, 35-year-old Chinese director Bi Gan makes movies that don’t pull you in as much as they slowly wash over you. Moody, melancholic and filled with daunting technical feats, especially the director’s signature logistics-defying long takes, his films are beautifully realized meditations on nostalgia and loss in which the cinema is often a character itself.

In his beguiling new feature Resurrection, movies are both subject and object of a story spanning a hundred years of film history, from the silent era to the end of the last century. Reflecting on the seventh art’s past, present and possible future at a moment when many believe it to be in its death throes, Bi Gan has crafted a time-tripping, genre-jumping paean to the big screen in which he revives the films he loves and then buries them a second time over — hoping,...

Few filmmakers with just two features under their belt can amass the passionate, cinephilic following of Bi Gan. His blend of surrealist storytelling, ultra-realist aesthetics, and a trippy play with time transforms rural China into a place of hypnotic beauty. Seven years after Long Day’s Journey Into Night, the wait for his third feature is finally over. Premiering in competition at Cannes, Resurrection sees the writer-director venture onto new ground while also serving what fans have desired. Narratively and stylistically chameleonic, it’s a sci-fi-flavored, century-spanning cinematic collage and profound invitation to dream. Bi Hive, rejoice: this is Palme material.

A 20-minute prologue introduces us to the concept of “fantasmers,” the select few who continue to dream in a world where people have abandoned the practice. These deviants are tracked down by a group of hunters, one of whom is played by Shu Qi. In this dialogue-free opening, shot à la silent cinema,...

Exclusive:Chinese director Bi Gan’s fantasy epic Resurrection has sold widely for Les Films du Losange following its world premiere in Cannes’ competition on May 22.

The film has sold to I Wonder in Italy, Plaion Pictures for Germany, Austria and Switzerland, Madfer Films and Filmin in Spain, Leopardo Filmes in Portugal, Weird Wave in Greece, New Horizons in Poland, Green Narae Media in South Korea, Kino Pavasaris in the Baltics and McF in former Yugoslavia. Negotiations are underway in the US, Japan, Latin America and Australia and New Zealand.

The late entry to this year’s competition lineup and one...

Bi Gan’s Resurrection received a mix of scores on Screen International’s Cannes Jury Grid, for an overall average of 2.4.

The science fiction detective film, divided into six chapters and starring Jackson Yee and Shu Qi, earned two four-stars (excellent), from Positif’s Nt Binh and The New Yorker’s Justin Chang, as well as four three-stars (good). However, four two-stars (average), a one (poor) and a zero (bad) from Filfan.com’s Ahmed Shawky saw it end up mid-table on the grid.

Click on the image above for the most up-to-date version of the grid.

The film is...

An already acclaimed filmmaker in his own right after 2015’s Kaili Blues won the Golden Leopard at the Locarno Film Festival and 2018’s Long Day’s Journey Into Night was selected for the Cannes Film Festival – the Un Certain Regard title blew the Croisette away. A seven year journey, we get more Andrei Tarkovsky, Wong Kar-wai and way more cinema references with Resurrection. With production taking place at different junctures over the last years, this stars Jackson Yee and Shu Qi in multi time periods and cinema universes – tells the story of a woman whose consciousness enters an eternal time zone during a medical procedure.…...

Bi Gan was back at the Cannes Film Festival with his new movie Resurrection after his Un Certain Regard entry Long Day’s Journey into Night in 2018.

The world premiere of the Chinese filmmaker’s latest movie received a seven-minute ovation at the Grand Thèâtre Lumière.

Yee Jackson, Shu Qi and Yan Nan star in the pic, which is at least partly set in a world where humanity has lost the ability to dream (and thereby live forever). There are some who rebel against this by living only in a dream world.

In a prologue, one woman — “gifted with the power to perceive these illusions for what they truly are,” according to the Cannes logline — goes into this latter world to pull one of the dreamers out. It leads, as Deadline’s Damon Wise wrote in his review tonight, “vignettes that don’t seem to have any plot or resolution whatsoever,...

Do you remember when we used to watch movies with the undivided attention we give to our dreams? Bi Gan, the Chinese director behind 2018’s “Long Day’s Journey Into Night” sure does. And so, seven years later, his return — or his “Resurrection” — arrives: a marvelously maximalist movie of opulent ambition that is actually five or six movies, each at once playful and peculiar and part of an overarchingly melancholy elegy for the dream of 20th-century cinema and the lives we lived within it.

It is, of course, a paradox to make a film that requires of the viewer the exact spirit of guileless abandon whose disappearance it is built to mourn. But then every moment of “Resurrection” exists on the pivot of a paradox, all of which have their origin in a fundamentally paradoxical premise: a near-future (which is maybe just a curt appraisal of our post-pandemic present) in which...

Arguably the worst film in competition in Cannes this year is a strong candidate for the festival’s Best Director prize, and rightfully so. The follow-up to 2018’s Un Certain Regard entry Long Day’s Journey into Night — which asked viewers to don 3D glasses for its spectacular climax, an unbroken, hourlong tracking shot — Resurrection is both breathtaking at times and airless at others. During the first press show the aisles of the screening room resembled scenes from Otto Preminger’s Exodus, and it was hard to tell how many of those who stayed in their seats were even conscious of that fact. It will have its admirers, for sure, and at least 40 minutes of it are pure visual genius, but it’s hard to imagine a more willfully obscure movie that’s been shown here since Wong Kar-wai’s 2046.

Bi Gan is certainly a stylist, and the film luxuriates in that,...

Chinese auteur Bi Gan is back at Cannes with competition title “Resurrection,” a six-part fever dream where a movie monster drifts through China’s 100-year history.

“I structured this monster’s soul into six chapters, mirroring the film’s own architecture,” Bi tells Variety, describing how “Resurrection” unleashes a “movie monster” that showcases a century of cinema history. These six elements — the five senses and the mind — provide the framework for the film’s labyrinthine chapters. The film is his first feature since the landmark 3D experiment “Long Day’s Journey Into Night” stunned festivals in 2018.

In “Resurrection,” starring Jackson Yee, Shu Qi, Mark Chao, Li Gengxi, Huang Jue and Chen Yongzhong, humanity has lost the ability to dream, with only one creature still entranced by fading illusions of the dreamworld. When a woman with the rare power to perceive these illusions appears, she chooses to enter the monster’s dreams,...

Chinese filmmaker Bi Gan, who was previously behind “Kaili Blues” and “Long Day’s Journey Into Night,” has his latest film, “Resurrection,” in competition at the Cannes Film Festival, which is now underway. Thankfully, Les Films du Losange dropped a teaser trailer that has made its way online ahead of the Cannes debut.

The script for “Resurrection” was co-written by Gan and Xiaohui Zhai with a cast that features Jackson Yee, Qi Shu, Mark Chao, Gengxi Li, Jue Huang, Yongzhong Chen, Zhijian Zhang, Chloe Maayan, Nan Yan, and Mucheng Guo.

Continue reading ‘Resurrection’ Teaser Trailer: Bi Gan’s Cannes-Bound Sci-Fi Detective Tale With Music From M83 at The Playlist.

It looks like Cannes was saving our most-anticipated premiere for last: it was just announced last week that Bi Gan’s sci-fi detective tale Resurrection has been added to the main competition. With a score by M83 and cast including Jackson Yee, Shu Qi, Mark Chao, Li Gengxi, Huan Jue, and Chen Yongzhong, the latest film from the Kaili Blues and Long Day’s Journey Into Night director is among the festival’s longest, clocking in at 160 minutes. Ahead of the premiere, a first teaser has now arrived.

Here’s the new synopsis: “In a world where humanity has lost the ability to dream, one creature remains entranced by the fading illusions of the dreamworld. This monster, adrift in reverie, clings to visions no one else can see––until a woman appears. Gifted with the rare power to perceive these illusions for what they truly are, she chooses to enter the monster’s dreams,...

Gold Derby's top news stories for May 8, 2025.

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Stick, Apple TV+'s new Ted Lasso-esque sports comedy series, has sent a trailer down the fairway. Owen Wilson stars as Pryce "Stick" Cahill, a washed-up former pro golfer who sees a shot at redemption by coaching Santi Wheeler (Peter Dager), an immensely talented but raw young athlete.

After weeks of speculation, it’s official: Bi Gan will return to the Cannes Film Festival with his latest film, “Resurrection.” Variety reports that the Chinese filmmaker’s new movie will have its world premiere in competition for the coveted Palme d’Or. And elsewhere, Cannes added three other titles to its lineup, two out of competition and one in the Cannes Premiere section.

Read More: Cannes 2025 Most Anticipated Films: ‘Sentimental Value,’ ‘Eddington,’ ‘Die My Love’

But before discussing those four other movies, let’s talk “Resurrection.” Bi Gan’s first film since 2018’s “Long Day’s Journey Into Night” (which also premiered at Cannes) is a near-future sci-fi detective movie that stars Jackson Yee and Shu Qi, and it’s easily one of 2025’s most anticipated films. Gan co-produces the film with Wan Juan, with Shan Zuolong, Yang Lele, and Charles Gillibert also on board as producers.

Continue reading Cannes 2025 Adds Four More Titles,...

The Cannes Film Festival has added a handful of films to its official selection just days ahead of the 78th festival, which kicks off on Tuesday. Among the last-minute entries is Eugene Jarecki‘s Julian Assange documentary feature, The Six Billion Dollar Man, which will receive a special screening.

The Six Billion Dollar Man had been set to screen at Sundance this year, but was pulled weeks before the festival with Jarecki saying he needed to incorporate “significant recent and unexpected developments” into the film before releasing it.

Resurrection, a sci-fi detective movie from Chinese director Bi Gan (Long Day’s Journey Into Night), is a late addition to this year’s competition. The film, starring Jackson Yee (Better Days) and Shu Qi (The Assassin), is being shopped at the Cannes market by Les Films du Losange.

Other 11th-hour additions were Martin Bourboulon’s 13 jours, 13 nuits, which will play Out Of Competition,...

Attendees of the 78th Cannes Film Festival are still anxiously awaiting the official schedule rollout (it’s supposed to happen any day now), but they were treated to more films added to the lineup Thursday morning. The latest additions complete the official selections for 2025, with the festival kicking off Tuesday, May 13 with “Leave One Day” by Amélie Bonnin, as previously announced.

There’s been much speculation as to whether or when Chinese filmmaker Bi Gan’s (“Long Day’s Journey Into Night”) “Resurrection” would make the cut. It was long pegged as a shoo-in for Cannes (including on IndieWire’s own wish list), while reports said the sci-fi epic was racing to the finish. Last week, a placeholder for the film on the official Cannes website was leaked online and distributed across the social media platform X.

Thierry Frémaux and his programming team finally added “Resurrection,” which will vie in the...

Finally, they would have been 22. Thierry Frémaux reportedly received Bi Gan‘s third feature film at the last possible moment and the reason it wasn’t announced during the second wave is because the ever-unpredictable Chinese censors ensured an eleventh-hour type of inclusion. “Resurrection,” is part of 2025 Palme d’Or competition line-up – a first time for the Chinese filmmaker. Les Films du Losange (who repped other eleventh hour inclusions in Kristen Stewart’s The Chronology of Water and Nadav Lapid’s Yes) are the sales company backing this project.

Filmed in parts (beginning back in March of last year) the sci-fi detective tale starring Jackson Yee and Shu Qi (she was the muse of and had the honor of working on Hou Hsiao-Hsien’s very last feature The Assassin).…...

The Cannes Film Festival has added a final film to the competition, Bi Gan’s anticipated “Resurrection,” as well as Eugene Jarecki’s Julian Assange documentary “The Six Billion Dollar Man” in Special Screenings and Martin Bourboulon’s “13 Days, 13 Nights” out of competition.

The festival has also added Lise Akoka and Romane Gueret’s “Ma Frere” to Cannes Premiere.

“The Six Billion Dollar Man,” which follows Wikileaks founder Julian Assange, was pulled from Sundance earlier this year due to what Jareki described in a statement as “unexpected developments” in the story. The synopsis for “The Six Billion Dollar Man” reads: “Julian Assange faced a possible 175 years in prison for exposing U.S. war crimes until events took a turn in this landmark case.” Jareki previously won Sundance’s Grand Jury Prize twice, in 2005 for “Why We Fight” and again in 2012 for “The House I Live In.”

“Resurrection” is...

The Cannes Film Festival has added four new titles to its Official Selection.

Bi Gan’s Résurrection joins the Competition lineup.It is a sci-fi detective movie starring Jackson Yee and Shu Qi, with Les Films du Losange handling sales.

Martin Bourboulon’s 13 Days, 13 Nights will play out of competition.Based on the book by Commander Mohamed Bida, it follows theevacuation of the French embassy in 2021 when Afghanistan fell to the Taliban. Roschdy Zem, Lyna Khoudri and Sidse Babett Knudsen star.

Eugene Jarecki’s documentaryThe Six Billion Dollar Manabout Julian Assange will play as a special screening.

And...

Netflix has set Taiwanese drama series “Forget You Not,” directed by multi-hyphenate talent Rene Liu, who steps behind the camera after establishing herself as one of Taiwan’s premier actress-singers.

The drama features an ensemble cast featuring Golden Horse Award-winning actress Hsieh Ying-xuan, veteran actor Chin Han, Tracy Chou and Esther Liu (“At the Moment”). The series also benefits from special appearances by Wallace Huo (“Light the Night”), Wang Po-chieh (“Eye of the Storm”) and Chen Yi-wen.

Set against the backdrop of a bustling metropolis, “Forget You Not” delves into the powerful role of memory within family dynamics. The narrative centers on Cheng Le-le (Hsieh), a stand-up comedian moonlighting as a convenience store employee who struggles to balance her career ambitions with her marriage. While harboring dreams of a brighter future, she navigates complex relationships with her husband Chang Kai (Huo) and her father Cheng Kuang-chi (Chin Han). These challenges...

Horror has been top of the shopping list for many buyers at this year’s Filmart, which has been more focussed in terms of attendees but no less busy as visitors filled the market hall.

“I can sense that has been smaller than the last few years, although it is still very busy,” said Joy Kim, manager of international sales at South Korean film production and distribution company Showbox.

“We’ve seen buyers with an increased interest in genre movies such as horror, which is cost-efficient in many aspects compared to larger-scale, blockbusters.”

More than 750 exhibitors from over 30 countries and...

Chinese animated feature Ne Zha 2 has flown past $900m (RMB6.48bn) at the local box office to become the country’s biggest film of all time.

After opening on January 29, the first day of Chinese New Year, the fantasy adventure feature took only eight days to reach $823.45m (RMB6bn) on February 6.

It has toppled previous record holders including 2021 epic The Battle At Lake Changjin ($802m/RMB5.77bn), 2017’s Wolf Warriors 2 ($790.8m/RMB5.69bn) and 2021’s Hi, Mom ($751.8m/RMB5.4bn).

The film is still holding strong after the week-long Chinese New Year holidays and is set to reach...

This is an excerpt of a piece published in Issue 6 of Notebook magazine as part of a broader exploration of the cinema of youth. The magazine is available via direct subscription or in select stores around the world.The Heartbreak KidIllustrations by Emi Ueoka.The leanest, loveliest ending. In a movie filled with good lines—“There’s no insincerity in those potatoes. There’s no deceit in the cauliflower”—Elaine May’s The Heartbreak Kid, written by Neil Simon, finishes honestly, undisguised and plain. Charles Grodin, who plays Lenny Cantrow, a sports equipment salesman stewing with self-starter anxieties and consequently sabotaging his life (and love life) and the lives of others, is sitting on a couch at his own wedding reception, having a conversation with a ten-year-old guest. In a room full of adults, champagne, the future, Lenny’s choice to seek refuge is unadorned and innocent, even if our anti-hero is far from innocent,...

Netflix is ramping up its Chinese-language entertainment with five drama series set for 2025, toplined by Shu Qi, Lee Sinje and Alice Ko and directed by Rene Liu, Li Nien-hsiu and Chien Chi-feng.

The five series – four Taiwanese productions and one licensed title from mainland China – span romantic comedy, revenge and period drama and feature local stories from rising voices to industry icons.

Starring Alice Ko (Copycat Killer) and Jasper Liu (Twogether), I Am Married…But! is a romantic comedy series that offers an unconventional look at marriage through a woman who is trapped in a cycle of wanting to leave...

With Bong Joon-ho, Na Hong-jin, Pak Chan-wook, Takashi Miike, Park Hoon-jung having new movies in 2025, the year is already shaping up to be a great one, perhaps even signaling some sort of come-back for Korean cinema. At the same time, the directorial debut of Shu Qi, the return of Bi Gan and Edwin, and a number of rather interesting anime movies have us all excited here in Amp. Without further ado, here is a countdown of 35 films that are easily described as much anticipated, in random order.

1. All Before You by Annemarie Jacir (Palestine)

Yusuf spends his days moving between his farming village, Al Basma, and his work in the city of Jerusalem, enthusiastically working to find his place in the changing, modern world. Young and restless, he’s more interested in getting away from the confines of village life than becoming involved in its problems. Yusuf’s story is...

A new film festival titled Chinese Cinema Today is set to launch in Japan, featuring 15 Chinese films including four Japanese premieres. The program, running Nov. 22-Dec. 12 at Tokyo’s Cinelibre Ikebukuro before moving to Osaka (Dec. 13-26), spotlights both commercial hits and festival favorites from mainland China’s growing film industry.

The festival is structured in four distinct sections. Director in Deep Focus presents a special spotlight on artist and filmmaker Qiu Jiongjiong, screening three of his works: “Madame,” “Mr. Zhang Believes” and “A New Old Play.” This marks the first special screening of Qiu’s works in Japan.

The Chinese Now Hits section features recent commercial successes, including the thriller “Hidden Blade,” directed by Cheng Er and starring Tony Leung and Wang Yibo. The film marks Cheng’s return after a seven-year hiatus. Also featured are “Like a Rolling Stone,” starring Berlin Film Festival best actress winner Yong Mei,...

New York-based Obluda Films has boarded the long-in-production sci-fi detective film “Resurrection,” being directed by mainland Chinese auteur Bi Gan.

Obluda will join as co-producer and co-financier of the picture that counts mainland pop star-turned-leading actor Jackson Yee and Taiwan’s Shu Qi, as the lead cast. Another New York-based indie producer Jonathan Daniel Brown, of Party Crasher Films, will also join the partnership for the upcoming film.

After completing part of its shooting schedule, “Resurrection” is set to resume filming in the fourth quarter of this year. Paris-based Les Films du Losange recently came on board for international sales and distribution.

“Resurrection” tells the story of a woman whose consciousness enters an eternal time zone during a medical procedure. Trapped in a dreamscape, she encounters an android corpse and attempts to awaken it by recounting stories. As the android traverses these stories, its senses begin to awaken, driving a surreal journey of self-discovery.

You know you've made it as an action star when you successfully headline your own franchise. Arnold Schwarzenegger is a major reason why The Terminator became a sci-fi staple, Wesley Snipes helped propel the comic book movie back into relevance with Blade, and Keanu Reeves gave his career a jumpstart with John Wick. In the case of Jason Statham, he owes his action-star bonafides to The Transporter franchise. The trilogy stars Statham as Frank Martin, a courier for the criminal underworld. He lives by three simple rules: never change a deal, no names, and never open the package. This simple code gets rather complicated in the first Transporter, when Frank learns that his latest package is actually a girl named Lai (Shu Qi). The success of The Transporter led to two more films, but Statham eventually wound up departing the franchise. What was the reason for this departure? The answer lies in a lopsided contract.

Action icon Jason Statham reprises one of his most beloved roles, but not quite as youd expect (or no doubt hope). The Beekeeper star returns as The Transporter Frank Martin in a new ad campaign for Volkswagen Commercial Vehicles, with The Stath slipping back into one of Martins suits to show-off the new Transporter. The ad declares that The Transporter is back before revealing Statham back in character and standing with the vehicle which, of course, shares a name with the action stars former franchise.

We are thrilled to have Jason Statham as the face of our new campaign, Sandra Waidelich, Head of Sales & Marketing Experience at Volkswagen Commercial Vehicles said of the actor's involvement. More ads with Statham as Frank Martin are expected to follow, meaning we could see the action icon partake in some Transporter-esque chases while behind the wheel of Vwcv vehicle. You can check out the...

Acclaimed actress Shu Qi has completed filming her directorial debut feature Girl, a Taiwanese drama executive produced by veteran Yeh Jufeng.

Taiwan-born Shu does not appear in the film but has written the script, based on an original story that she has worked on at length. The plot and the cast remain under wraps. Cinematographer Yu Jin-ping, whose credits include Oscar-nominated Better Days and Fish Memories, serves as DoP. A release is scheduled for 2025.

The film is backed by Cmc Entertainment, Wow momentum, J.Q. Pictures and Aranya Pictures. It is produced by Yeh’s Taiwan-based Mandarin Vision, which also handles international sales outside mainland China.

Taiwanese top actress Shu Qi has finished production on her directorial debut feature, Girl, which is scheduled for a 2025 release.

She is known for starring in Hou Hsiao-hsien’s Millennium Mumbo, Three Times and The Assassin, as well as Feng Xiaogang’s If You Are The One.

She has also won two Golden Horse Awards and three Hong Kong Film Awards for her acting roles.

She was invited to become a member of the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences in 2024. She served as a jury member at Berlinale in 2008, Cannes in 2009 and Venice in 2023.

Girl is financed by Cmc Entertainment, Wow Momentum, J.Q. Pictures and Aranya Pictures, and produced by Mandarin Vision.

The film is executed produced by veteran producer Yeh Jufeng, who also worked together with Shu Qi on the 2017 comedy The Village of No Return.

“I am so happy that the filming is wrapped,” Shu Qi said.

Taiwan-born actor Shu Qi has completed production of her feature film directing debut, “Girl.”

While plot and cast details of the new film remain under wraps, “Girl” is Shu Qi’s original story that she wrote and directed after a prolonged development period. Shu Qi does not appear in the film.

The picture is financed by Taiwan’s Cmc Entertainment, Wow momentum, J.Q. Pictures and Aranya Pictures, and produced by Mandarin Vision. The film is executive produced by Yeh Jufeng, a Midas-like producer behind “A Sun,” “The Great Buddha+” and the Shu Qi-starring “The Village of No Return.”

The film is expected to be completed at an unspecified date in 2025. Mandarin Vision also serves as the film’s international sales agent, outside mainland China.

“I am so happy that the filming is wrapped. I look forward to sharing this film with audiences everywhere,” Shu Qi said in a prepared statement.

Taiwanese actress Shu Qi has wrapped production on her directorial debut — a project previously kept under wraps. Production company Mandarin Vision released a teaser image for the new film, titled Girl, along with a shot of Shu behind the camera during a recent location shoot.

Described as an original story written and directed by Shu, the film is scheduled for release in Asia sometime in 2025, according to the producers. It’s unclear whether Shu will also perform in Girl. Mandarin Vision declined to share additional information about the project.

Shu Qi on set for ‘Girl.

A fashion icon and favorite of both arthouse and commercial filmmakers across the Chinese-speaking world, Shu made her breakthrough in Taiwanese master Hou Hsiao-hsien’s 2001 feature Millennium Mambo. Later successes have included Feng Xiaogang’s If You Are the One (2008), Journey to the West: Conquering the Demons (2013) from Stephen Chow, Gone with the Bullets (2014) by Jiang Wen,...

With his astounding debut Kaili Blues (2015) and the equally impressive 3D odyssey Long Day’s Journey Into Night (2018), Chinese director Bi Gan emerged as one of the most promising new voices in cinema this last decade. Now he’s in the middle of production on his third feature, the sci-fi detective tale Resurrection, wrapping the second part of shooting and set to resume the final portion at the end of the year.

Led by Jackson Yee and Shu Qi, here’s the synopsis from Variety: “Resurrection tells the story of a woman whose consciousness falls into the “eternal time zone” during a surgical procedure. Trapped in many dreams, she finds an android corpse and tries to wake it up by telling it stories. The android then wanders through her stories and its senses gradually awaken.”

With cinematography from Dong Jingsong and costume designer Huang Wen-Ying (The Assassin) on board, this is...

Paris-based sales and distribution company Les Films du Losange has boarded “Resurrection,” a sci-fi detective movie directed by Chinese director Bi Gan, whose 2018 film “Long Day’s Journey Into Night” played at Cannes.

Headlined by Chinese-language stars Jackson Yee (“Better Days”) and Shu Qi (“The Assassin”), the movie recently wrapped the second part of its shooting schedule. It is expected to resume filming in the fourth quarter of this year.

“Resurrection” tells the story of a woman whose consciousness falls into the “eternal time zone” during a surgical procedure. Trapped in many dreams, she finds an android corpse and tries to wake it up by telling it stories. The android then wanders through her stories and its senses gradually awaken.

Co-produced by Charles Gillibert’s CG Cinema, the project marks Bi’s first film since “Long Day’s Journey Into Night,” which contained a bravura final 59-minute sequence consisting of a single shot in 3D.

Since debuting as a bona fide action hero in The Transporter, Jason Statham has now carved out a legacy as a Hollywood action movie superstar. But what brought his first ever franchise to an end? And why did the studio decide to launch a much lesser reboot instead? Well, according to The Stath himself, it was due to the ridiculous demand that the actor sign on to three more installments without even seeing a script.

You know what? It was obviously a great experience doing those films, and I would have loved to keep doing it. But they wanted me to sign on and do three more films without even seeing a script, and they offered me less money to do three than Id get paid for one! So it was a business decision. I would have loved to have done it, but you cant really sign on without doing a script,...

Following more of a career in socially conscious prestige films, director Ann Hui turned to genre fare much like her debut film “The Secret” to produce a solid hit in the quirky romantic ghost/comedy “Visible Secret.” After the underperforming “Ordinary Heroes,” “Secret” was a more suitable success with several acclaimed nominations at the Hong Kong Film Awards with one win and spawning a sequel a year later that earned the film a spot on an emerging impressive slate of releases from Radiance Films.

Check the interview with the director

After meeting at a club and starting a romance, Peter Choi (Eason Chan), an unemployed hairdresser, and June (Shu Qi), a strange nurse, decide that they can work as a couple and start a relationship. Since meeting her, Peter encounters unexplained things which she says are spirits she can see. They run into people apparently under attack by ghosts and unexplainable deaths,...

The Transporter franchise is underrated, with moderate box office hits but a reliable action concept. Collateral may connect to The Transporter universe, making it potentially the highest-grossing film in the franchise. The idea of Statham reprising his role as Frank Martin in cameo roles could create an interesting expanded universe.

The Transporter is likely one of the most underrated action film franchises. They've never been the biggest box office hits or earned rave reviews from critics, but they have been a reliable action franchise.

The three films starring Jason Statham were all moderate box office hits, and the concept and title are easy to understand so that general audiences get what The Transporter films should be about. General audiences might not know Frank Martin, the character, but if you ask them about Jason Statham's movie with a car, they will likely think of The Transporter even before his role in the Fast & Furious movies.

Amsterdam and Beijing-based film sales company Fortissimo Films has picked up licensing duties to upcoming “Escape From the 21st Century,” a Chinese sci-fi action title.

The story follows three friends who discover they have the power to travel back and forth 20 years with a sneeze. However, the future is not as good as they hoped and need to take on the responsibility of saving the world. The action shuttles between 1999 and 2019 and on Planet K, which is very similar to Earth.

The film is directed by Li Yang (short and co-directed feature “Lee’s Future”) and stars Zhang Ruoyun (“Joy of Life”), Zhong Cuxi (“Youth”) and Song Yang (“Wrath of Silence”).

The picture is produced by Desen International and is headed for a mainland China commercial release on Aug. 3 through Enlight Pictures. Fortissimo is handling rights in the rest of the world ex-mainland China.

Watch the trailer here.

Fortissimo had a busy Cannes,...

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (Ampas) has invited 487 artists and executives to become members, with Sandra Huller, Justin Triet, Celine Song and Da’Vine Joy Randolph among the high profile invitees.

Also invited to join are actors Da’Vine Joy Randolph and Fiona Shaw, directors Alice Diop, David Yates and S S Rajamouli, and writers Arthur Harari and Tony McNamara.

Executives invited to join that branch of the Academy include British Film Institute CEO Ben Roberts and Fifth Season co-CEOs Chris Rice and Graham Taylor.

Among those invited to join the costume designers branch are Holly Waddington and Małgorzata Karpiuk.

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (Ampas) has invited 487 artists and executives to become members, with Sandra Huller, Justin Triet, Celine Song and Da’Vine Joy Randolph among the high profile invitees.

Also invited to join are actors Da’Vine Joy Randolph and Fiona Shaw, directors Alice Diop, David Yates and S S Rajamouli, and writers Arthur Harari and Tony McNamara.

Executives invited to join that branch of the Academy include British Film Institute CEO Ben Roberts and Fifth Season co-CEOs Chris Rice and Graham Taylor.

Among those invited to join the costume designers branch are Holly Waddington and Małgorzata Karpiuk.

Every summer, The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences invites a deluge of new members to join its ranks. Since #OscarsSoWhite back in 2015, the Academy has moved away from its elitist tendencies and toward embracing younger and more diverse artists and executives from all over the world. This year’s invited class is no exception.

If the invitees all accept Academy membership, the total members will number 10,910 and voting members 9,934. And with the addition of the 2024 members, 35 percent of Academy members identify as women, 20 percent of Academy members are from underrepresented ethnic and racial communities, and 20 percent of Academy members are from countries or territories outside the U.S.

As usual, a slew of Oscar nominees and winners are gaining admittance to the club (71 Oscar nominees and 19 winners), including actors Lily Gladstone (“Killers of the Flower Moon”), Sandra Hüller, and Da’Vine Joy Randolph (“The Holdovers”), costume designer Holly Waddington...