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According to the author Christopher Booker, in his 2004 book “The Seven Basic Plots: Why we tell stories”, there are only the several basic narratives. Of course they can veer off into various directions but fundamentally the main arc stays in place. With observing Toby Russell’s excellent introduction to Hong Kong action documentary “Cinema of Vengeance” – it can be said that action cinema is even more singular than that. Action cinema is invariably about revenge with either the antagonist or protagonist ultimately seeking payback for some reason. Why do I mention this? Well over the last decade or so, period action cinema from China/Hong Kong has been rather production line. At one point, nearly every prestige swordplay feature would be a tale set around the three kingdoms. Familiarity can breed contempt and so does a story that is one we’ve seen before distract? “Brotherhood of Blades” is mercifully...

Five competitive local titles have announced as of Monday that they will be vying for box office supremacy in China over the May 1 Labor Day weekend, a public holiday.

They include a long-anticipated video game adaptation, an omnibus pandemic film helmed by three different female big shots from China, Hong Kong and the U.S., a sleek Aaron Kwok-starring thriller, a TV series adaptation and the first title from helmer Li Yu not to star the now-disgraced Fan Bingbing in 14 years.

Their sales will be worth tracking, as holiday periods tend to be the most money-making in the world’s largest film market, where the February Chinese New Year box office set world records with an impressive $1.2 billion in sales in just six days.

In years past, Labor Day was considered a less significant holiday for movie-going than Chinese New Year, the summer holidays, October’s weeklong National Day holiday in October,...

Patriotic film was produced to celebrate the 70th anniversary of China’s entry into the Korean War.

Local war epic Sacrifice topped the box office on its opening weekend (October 23-25) in China, according to figures from theatrical consultancy Artisan Gateway, grossing $53m in three days.

Produced to celebrate the 70th anniversary of China’s entry into the Korean War (1950-53), the film focuses on the attempts of Chinese soldiers attempting to repair a bridge while under constant bombardment from US artillery and planes.

The film is co-directed by three of China’s biggest commercial filmmakers – Frant Gwo (The Wandering Earth...

Meeting only minimal resistance, Chinese-made war film “Sacrifice” invaded the box office and secured a quick victory against already battle-weary opponents.

The film released on Friday and in three days earned $53.0 million according to data from consultancy firm Artisan Gateway. It occupied the majority of available theatrical territory and clocked up a per screen average of $422 on Saturday alone.

The Artisan Gateway data points to an aggregate weekend gross of $76.9 million. The running total of $2.10 billion for the year to date is still 75% down on this time last year.

Released to coincide with official celebrations that mark China’s role in the Korean War (known in China as The War to Resist U.S. Aggression and Aid Korea), “Sacrifice” is a tale of courage under fire that focuses on Chinese forces repairing a bridge, while coming under repeated American bombardment. The narrative very much fits with that of the current...

War film “Sacrifice” got off to a heroic start at the China box office on Friday, likely setting the tone for another good weekend in Chinese cinemas, and a barrage of films in the same canon.

By 7pm local time on its opening day, “Sacrifice” had notched up RMB74.1 million, or $11 million at current rates of exchange.

First audiences appear to have shown their critical approval too. Early viewer feedback via cinema ticketing agency Maoyan gives “Sacrifice” an excellent score of 9.4 out of 10, while rival ticketing agency Taopiaopiao viewers scored it a notch higher at 9.5. The more thoughtful cinephile site Douban has not yet given it a score.

Taken together, the film’s early box office and approval ratings allowed Maoyan to forecast that “Sacrifice” could run on to score RMB2.5 billion or $373 million. It that transpires, it would make it one of the top-grossing films anywhere in the world this year.

The French actor-director and the Swiss philosopher are fine-tuning a film they’ve directed and acted in together, produced by Pan-Européenne and Jmh. Halted mid-March on account of the health crisis, filming on Almost by France’s Bernard Campan and Switzerland’s Alexandre Jollien wrapped in June following a two-week film shoot in the French department of Hérault. This is the 4th feature film directed by actor Bernard Campan (the winner of 1996’s Best First Film César for Les trois frères and nominated for the Best Actor César in 2003 via Beautiful Memories) and the first cinematic foray of writer and philosopher Alexandre Jollien, who was born with a cerebral-motor disability, spent 17 years of his life in a specialised institution - all the while managing to keep up with his schooling - and went on to study philosophy...

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...

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 Rescue is the latest action thriller from the legendary Dante Lam, director of Operation Mekong and Operation Red Sea, and is set to be one of the biggest hits of Chinese New Year, with a budget of over 700 million Rmb and underwater scenes shot at the world-famous Baja Studios in Mexico, where James Cameron produced Titanic. The first Chinese film to focus on China’s Coast Guard rescue organisation, The Rescue has an all-star cast of top Chinese talent including Eddie Peng (Operation Mekong), Wang Yanlin (Operation Red Sea), Xin Zhilei (Brotherhood of Blades) and Lan Yingying (Pacific Rim Uprising). Five years in the making, the film had a high caliber Chinese and Hollywood crew headed up by Dante Lam’s long-time production partner Candy...

[Read the whole post on screenanarchy.com...]...

The Rescue is one of the most anticipated Chinese release of the year, and the latest action thriller from legendary director Dante Lam, whose films Operation Mekong and Operation Red Sea were stellar box office hits in China and internationally. Released in time for Chinese New Year through Cmc, distributor of global phenomenon The Wandering Earth, the film hits cinemas across the UK day and date with China on 25 January.

The first Chinese film to focus on China’s Coast Guard rescue organisation, The Rescue has an all-star cast of top Chinese talent including Eddie Peng (Operation Mekong), Wang Yanlin (Operation Red Sea), Xin Zhilei (Brotherhood of Blades) and Lan Yingying (Pacific Rim Uprising).

The film is one of the biggest Chinese productions of recent years, with a budget of over 700 million Rmb, shot on location in China and with underwater scenes shot at the world-famous Baja Studios in Mexico,...

It’s been a good year for Beijing Culture, one of the lead production companies behind some the biggest films of the year in China.

The company began as a tourism-management entity overseeing popular historic sites of interest in Beijing, and only established its film division in 2016. Yet in the space of three years, it has been a driving force behind China’s two top-grossing films of all time – “Wolf Warrior 2,” which took in $847 million, and “The Wandering Earth,” which grossed $686 million and is still in theaters – as well as mega-hit “Dying to Survive” ($462 million at the B.O.) and “A Cool Fish,” the 10th highest-grossing locally produced film last year with a $119 million gross.

Last year, Beijing Culture made a net profit of $48.7 million, up 6% year-on-year, thanks to a rise in the profitability of its film business compared to previous years, according to Chinese media reports.

The company...

Production in China has got underway on a Mandarin-language remake of hit Japanese comedy “Key of Life.” The plot involves a failed actor who swap identities with a stranger, only to discover that the man is a top assassin.

The original film was produced and distributed by leading Japanese indie The Klockworx – along with production committee members including King Records, Dentsu and TV Asahi — in 2012. It was acquired for North American release by Film Movement.

“The original ‘Key of Life’ was a black comedy with both the story and the characters bordering on the absurd. The Chinese version will make the characters more local, but the essential structure of the screenplay will be kept intact,” a spokesman for production company Shanghai Artown Film told Variety.

The original screenplay written by director Kenji Uchida won prizes at the Kinema Junpo Awards, the Japan Academy and the Shanghai International Film Festival, where...

Alibaba Pictures confirmed that it has invested an undisclosed amount in Chinese celebrity blogger-turned-film director Han Han’s Shanghai Tingdong Film. Han’s upcoming “Pegasus” is one of the most anticipated films of the year in China.

Alibaba Pictures, part of e-commerce giant Alibaba, is now the second-largest stakeholder in Tingdong. It has a 13.1% stake, according to Chinese finance publication Caixin.

The deal is a “long-term strategic partnership that covers content production, distribution and marketing, merchandise and artist management,” Alibaba told Variety on Thursday. It falls under the umbrella of a new initiative launched in November called the “Jin Cheng Co-Production Plan” — with “jin cheng” roughly translating in English to “golden orange.”

Under this plan, Alibaba intends to co-produce 20 films over the next five years with various top production teams. The films will be released during China’s four busiest movie-going times: Chinese New Year (around January-February), the summer, the...

The Asian Film Awards Academy (Afa Academy) is a multifaceted institution that aims at developing regional film industries and markets in Asia, but also promotes Asian cinema globally, enhances visibility and influence, giving the international audiences an opportunity to see outstanding works by Asian talents that were nominated or awarded at the Asian Film Awards.

A flagship program of this initiative is “Asian Cinerama – Film Roadshows” created in partnership with film festivals all around the world. 12th Five Flavours Asian Film Festival continues to collaborate with Afa Academy, curating the section comprised of six major films from the Asian Film Awards and bringing them to the Polish audience in Warsaw.

At this year’s Five Flavours, Asian Cinerama invites several guests to present Asian Cinerama to the local cinephiles – Chan Tai-lee, the “Ip Man” series script writer, who comes to the festival with his directorial debut, “Tomorrow Is Another Day...

In the 1960s, economic high times in the West triggered the rise of so-called “Europuddings,” tortured contractual liaisons between international talents whose feature-film products were often the cinematic equivalent of Esperanto — something intended to appeal to everyone, but so culturally disconnected and artistically generic as to typically wind up pleasing no one.

Today’s emerging equivalent may be represented by “China Salesman,” which is apparently what happens when umpteen private investors (those companies and producers listed below are just the tip of an iceberg) plus the Prc government pool their resources to make a popcorn extravaganza both populist and propagandistic. How that resulted in a largely Africa-set action adventure jumble involving industrial-political espionage, not to mention the inimitable starring combo of Mike Tyson and Steven Seagal (actually billed here as “Steve”), is anyone’s guess. Indeed, a tell-all chronicle about how this movie came into existence might be more compelling than the film itself,...

The first weekend in December is often one that falls through the cracks, and last weekend's winner, Disney Pixar's Coco, looks to take full advantage of that. This frame is often forgotten, since it falls between the Thanksgiving holiday weekend and either the prestige Oscar candidates or the final big-budget blockbusters that arrive over the holiday season, and this year is no different, with no movies opening in wide release, although there are a slew of movies arriving in limited release, such as Parade Deck Films' Another WolfCop, Epic Pictures' Badsville, Well Go USA's Brotherhood of Blades 2, Hannover House's Daisy Winters, A24 Films' The Disaster Artist, Cinedigm Entertainment's Gangster Land, Zorya Films' Inoperable, the independent Kepler's Dream, Fox Searchlight's The Shape of Water, Vertical Entertainment's Slumber, Well Go USA's The Swindlers, IFC's Tribes of Palos Verdes and Amazon Studios' Wonder Wheel. With no wide release contenders, Coco...

With Disney Pixar's Coco being the only new release over the Thanksgiving holiday weekend, it was expcted to easily take down Warner Bros.' Justice League this weekend. While last weekend's winner Justice League didn't drop quite as much as expected, Coco still had no trouble taking the top spot with $49 million, with a five-day holiday weekend total of $71.1 million. Warner Bros. Justice League wasn't too far behind, dropping a decent 56.6% in its second weekend to take second place with $40.7 million.

While the Justice League movie fared well in its second weekend at the box office, it wasn't the only holdover to post a minimal decrease over the holiday weekend. Wonder dropped from second to third place this weekend, but it only dipped 19% from its opening weekend, taking in a decent $22.3 million, while Thor: Ragnarok dropped just 22.5% and took in $16.7 million in fourth place, while Daddy's Home 2 rounded out the top 10 with $13.2 million,...

The Thanksgiving holiday is often a very busy weekend at the box office, with studios putting out some of their most highly-anticipated movies on the Wednesday before Turkey Day. Perhaps indicative of the sagging box office trend in 2017, that is not the case this year, with Disney Pixar's Coco being the only major studio movie to open in wide release. Bleecker Street's The Man Who Invented Christmas is also opening nationwide alongside Paramount's expanding drama Roman J. Israel, Esq., although neither of those movies is expected to give Coco much competition. We're projecting that Coco will take the top spot with $60.2 million over the three day-weekend, and $92.6 million over the five-day holiday weekend, while the box office disappointment that is Justice League likely poised for a huge drop in the coming days.

If Disney Pixar's Coco does hit its projection, it will mark a decent three-day improvement over its last outing,...

Parade Deck Films has released a new poster for the upcoming sequel Another WolfCop, which is slated to hit theaters in limited release on December 1. The original WolfCop never had a theatrical release in the U.S., but the Canadian film debuted in a number of film festivals around the world and got a home video release in the U.S. in 2015, a year after its debut in Canada. Now the sequel is getting ready to invade theaters in the U.S., although it remains to be seen whether or not we'll get a new Another WolfCop trailer between now and December 1.

Alcoholic werewolf cop Lou Garou (Leo Fafard) springs into action when an eccentric businessman with evil intentions seduces Woodhaven's residents with a new brewery and hockey team in this outrageous horror-comedy sequel. Directed by Lowell Dean (WolfCop), the film stars Amy Matysio (Stranded), Jonathan Cherry (Goon: Last of the Enforcers...