News

China’s Gone With The Bullets is primed to be one of the biggest films of the year — and has some thinking it could be the one to beat Transformers: Age Of Extinction’s all-time Middle Kingdom box office record when it releases on December 18. But a funny thing happened on the way to the movie’s premiere as even high-profile local films are not immune to the censorship board.

Local media is reporting that Monday night’s Beijing premiere was cancelled at the last minute on Sunday. Beijing Bu Yi Le Hu Film Company released a statement around midnight saying, “We are so sorry to inform you all that new circumstances arose during the final phase of the censoring of the movie, and we have to take time to make some final adjustments, so the premiere has to be delayed.” Sony Pictures Releasing International has rights to the film outside China.

Jiang Wen’s upcoming Gone With The Bullets is on its way to blockbuster status in China — a month before its release. At a press conference this week in Beijing, China.org reports it was announced that the film has already pre-sold 120M yuan ($19.6M) worth of tickets. IMAX pre-sales have also broken the midnight premiere record of 4M yuan ($653K) set by Michael Bay’s Transformers: Age Of Extinction. It’s been speculated that this film, a sequel to 2010’s Let The Bullets Fly, which made 720M yuan ($117.5M) in China and $140M worldwide, could be the one to beat Age Of Extinction’s all-time China box office record set earlier this year with a gross of $301M. But producer Ma Ke noted at the conference, “What has made us happier is we spent four years making a serious, high-quality movie. The responsibility for a domestic film shall always lie on quality at first,...

Stars: Yang Song, Yu Chenghui, Yuanyuan Zhao, Ma Jun, Xu Fujing, Ma Ke, Zhexin Liu, Yao Weiping, Ou Keqin, Li Guisheng, Bing Bo | Written and Directed by Haofeng Xu

Haofeng Xu, writer of the still-to-be-released (at least in the UK) The Grandmaster, makes his directorial debut with The Sword Identity, a Chinese martial arts film adapted from his own novel.

During the Ming dynasty, four fighting schools exist in the city of Guancheng and anyone who wishes to set up a new establishment must prove their worth in battle. When Liang Henlu (Yang Song) tries to form a fifth school so he can pass on his master’s teachings, the martial arts masters mistake his sword for a forbidden Japanese weapon and believe him to be a pirate. After witnessing the power of the sword in combat, however, they begin to realise it could be the legendary weapon that was...

Shooting commenced last month in Beijing on Sony’s local language 3D production Gone With The Bullets, the second in Jiang Wen’s trilogy.

Jiang directs and produces through his production company with Ma Ke’s Buyilehu.

Let The Bullets Fly (Rang Zidan Fei), the first film in the Bullets Trilogy, was one of the highest grossing domestic Chinese releases in recent years and grossed more than $140m.

Buyilehu will distribute in China and Sony Pictures Releasing International will handle the rest of the world. The parties anticipate a December 2014 release.

Gone With The Bullets started production on October 2 on location in Beijing at the China Film Group studio in Huairou and will film in Shanghai, Fujian and Inner Mongolia as well.

Jiang stars opposite Ge You, Zhou Yun, Shu Qi and Wen Zhang. The 1920s-set story is based on real events surrounding the notorious Flowers Competition beauty pageant...

Columbia Pictures announced principal photography has commenced on Jiang Wen's 3D feature film Gone with the Bullets , through his production company with Ma Ke, Buyilehu. The second film in "the Bullets Trilogy" (begun with Jiang's 2010 hit feature Let The Bullets Fly , one of the highest grossing domestic Chinese releases in recent years, with over $140 million at the worldwide box office). Gone with the Bullets will be distributed in China by Buyilehu, and internationally by Sony Pictures Releasing International. Gone with the Bullets started production on October 2, on location in Beijing at the China Film Group studio in Huairou, and will film in Shanghai, Fujian and Inner Mongolia as well. Jiang will star in the film opposite Ge You ( Personal Tailor ,...

With his screenplay for The Grandmasters coming to the big screen next year by Wong Kar Wai, writer/director Haofeng Xu gives us the first taste of his creativity with an adaptation of his own novella, Wo kou de zong ji [The Sword Identity]. A mix of comical playfulness and serious martial arts, the script has some impressive camera compositions to allow for intriguing visuals, acting that is consistently earnest throughout, and fight choreography that’s a joy to experience. All those things do little to help from wondering why the plot is so elaborately sprawling, though, a contentious point lessening the film’s effectiveness by assaulting us with never-ending diversions. The press notes for the Vancouver International Film Festival do describe it as a ‘deconstruction of classic martial arts cinema traditions’, so perhaps I’m just missing something in the translation.

Listening to the plot will help to understand how crazy it...

In a city often derided as art-phobic and money-obsessed, the Hong Kong International Film Festival provides an annual opportunity for local audiences to contextualize their own regional cinema alongside the breadth of international contemporary filmmaking. While the glitz of the Hk movie industry is paraded in various galas and a high-wattage opening award ceremony, the programmers have left plenty of room throughout the festival’s seventeen days of screenings for the usual arthouse suspects, student-director and avant-garde showcases, and a strong focus on new Chinese-language cinema. With this diverse slate spread out across multiplex theaters throughout the city, it’s surprising that Hkiff also manages to maintain a certain level of coherence, partly due to the atmosphere created by what seems to be a dedicated viewership and the visibility of well-known Sinophone cinephiles like Tony Rayns and David Bordwell. Since I had just four whole days in the city, I...

After a lengthy hiatus, Hawaii Five-o returns with "Ma Ke Kahakai" on Monday night.

The installment will take viewers into Chin's past, as Kono discovers the truth about the scandal that ended her cousin's career with the Honolulu Police Department.

As teased in the official preview posted here, McGarrett and Danny will also find a dead body during a hiking expedition. Check it out now:

Ma Ke Kahakai Preview...