News

Imax Corporation and Wanda Film, China’s largest movie exhibitor, are deepening their longstanding partnership with a new deal to upgrade technology and collaborate on future events and experiences. Wanda Film is already Imax’s biggest exhibition partner in the world, with 381 Imax locations in operation across China — and another 19 already on the way. The deal was announced Tuesday, midway through the Shanghai International Film Festival.

The new deal builds on the relationship by committing Wanda to upgrade 61 of its top-performing locations to the giant screen company’s state-of-the-art “Imax with Laser technology,” including top-grossing locations in China’s tier-one cities like Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, and Shenzhen. Additionally, Wanda Film will renew up to 37 existing Imax locations for another five years and, subject to mutual understanding between the partners, add up to 25 new Imax locations over the next three years.

The partners additionally agreed to explore “explore opportunities to collaborate...

Dalian Wanda Group is selling a 49% stake in its investment arm to local film and TV producer China Ruyi Holdings in an on-going effort to reduce debt.

Wanda is selling the stake in Beijing Wanda Investment for $315M (RMB2.26Bn) as part of fundraising efforts to repay debt of $400Bn due this past weekend.

Wanda Investment owns a 20% stake in the group’s Shenzhen-listed entertainment division Wanda Film, which operates a cinema chain in China, finances Chinese films and retains a stake in Dune producer Legendary Entertainment.

Earlier this month, Wanda Investment separately sold an 8.3% stake in Wanda Film for $306N (RMB2.2Bn). The buyer was Lu Lili, the wife of Shen Jun, controller of financial data platform East Money Information.

Tencent-backed Ruyi invests in movies including recent hit comedy Post Truth and the blockbuster Detective Chinatown franchise, as well as TV series including Nirvana In Fire.

Dalian Wanda, a...

Movie stars Zhou Xun and Jelly Lin head the cast of “Imperfect Victim,” a new mainland Chinese drama series that focuses on workplace sexual harassment and leads to a rape trial.

Zhou plays a lawyer who steps in to represent the character played by Lin (“The Mermaid”), who alleges assault by her boss at work. He is portrayed by TV veteran Liu Yijun. The case becomes complicated and Zhou’s character is forced to question her own ethics.

The show is highly topical, given the slowly building #MeToo movement in China. This is being fuelled by numerous instances of sexual discrimination, sexual assault and outright violence towards women, many instances of which have gone viral on Chinese social media before being deleted by censors.

Zhou Xun in “Imperfect Victim.” Courtesy of iQiyi.

The first episode of “Imperfect Victim,” for instance, includes a section on the culture of heavy after-hours drinking...

The Hktdc Hong Kong International Film and TV Market (Filmart) and EntertainmentPulse opened at the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre (Hkcec). From 13 to 16 March, over 700 exhibitors will showcase films and TV shows to global buyers and build connections.

Comprising eight exciting events, including Filmart and EntertainmentPulse, the Entertainment Expo launch ceremony was officiated by Mr Kk Chan, the Chief Secretary for Administration of the Government of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, Mr Raistlin Lau, Acting Secretary for Culture, Sports and Tourism of the Government of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, Ms Zhou Jihong, First-Grade Counsel, International Cooperation Department, National Radio and Television Administration, Mr Zhang Guo Yi, Deputy Director-General of the Department of Publicity, Cultural and Sports Affairs of the Liaison Office of the Central People's Government in the Hksar, Ms Margaret Fong, Executive Director of the Hong Kong Trade Development Council (Hktdc), Mr John Chong, Chairman...

Following a string of celebrity scandals, Chinese officials have told young filmmakers entering China’s top film school that their foremost task is to develop the “moral cultivation” necessary to further China’s rise in the world.

The Beijing Film Academy, cradle of the country’s top filmmaking talent, last week opened a major new campus in the capital’s northern Huairou district, an hour’s drive outside the urban center. At an outdoor opening ceremony, more than 1,000 new students sat in socially distanced rows to hear speeches from local government officials, administrators and notable alumni.

The school, which last year celebrated its 70th anniversary with a splashy party, has a deserved reputation for selecting and honing some of China’s foremost directing, performing and craft talent. Past alumni include Zhang Yimou, Chen Kaige, Jia Zhangke, Huang Xiaoming, Zhou Dongyu, Zhao Wei and Ai Weiwei.

The overall message, hammered home repeatedly,...

Wong Kar-Wai’s upcoming TV series “Blossoms” has released its first trailer, giving viewers a peek at the first new work from the auteur in nearly a decade.

Though Wong is most often thought of as a Hong Kong director, he was born in Shanghai. The “Blossoms” series is his first of two long-anticipated adaptations of a celebrated eponymous novel by Jin Yucheng, and appears to be a stylish love letter to his hometown. A film version of “Blossoms” is also in the works.

The series will consist of 24 hour-long episodes, his production firm Jet Tone Productions confirmed to Variety. Though Wong has produced and directed the pilot, he will only produce and helm some of the future episodes. It remains unclear how many others are already completed or in the works, and the series does not yet have a release date.

“Blossoms” nonetheless marks his first turn behind the...

A first trailer for Wong Kar-Wai’s upcoming dramatic series “Blossoms Shanghai” emerged on the internet this weekend. While it lacks English subtitles, the first footage from this sweeping ode to Shanghai has plenty of the Hong Kong director’s visual panache. Watch below.

Written by award-winning Shanghainese screenwriter Qin Wen, with visuals from Academy Award-winning “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon” cinematographer Peter Pau, the series, according to the official synopsis, “tells the story of an enigmatic, self-made millionaire, Mr. Bao (Hu Ge), and his journey of reinvention from a young opportunist with a troubled past to the heights of the gilded city of Shanghai. Set against the backdrop of massive economic growth in 1990s Shanghai, the series unveils the glamour that follows his dazzling wealth and his entanglement with four fabulous women that represent the pursuits of his life: adventure, honor, love and innocence.”

The series is set to debut in 2022 internationally,...

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,...

Projects from Hong Kong director Wong Kar-wai come and go, from the now-dead Amazon series “Tong Wars” to the suspended development and production on his film “Blossoms” back in February due to the coronavirus. While a movie is still in the works, that project now lives as “Blossoms Shanghai,” Wong’s first dramatic series and an adaptation of the epic, multi-award-winning novel “Blossoms” by Jin Yucheng. Check out the promotional poster for the film, featuring Hu Ge, below.

Created and produced by Wong, “Blossoms Shanghai” offers an homage to the “In the Mood for Love” director’s birthplace at the most intriguing moments in its recent history. The pilot is also directed by Wong. This is Wong’s first time behind the camera since 2013’s “The Grandmaster.”

Written by award-winning Shanghainese screenwriter Qin Wen, with visuals from Academy Award-winning “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon” cinematographer Peter Pau, the series, according to the official synopsis,...

China’s internet is thrilled by news that Marvel appears to be insisting on casting an ethnic Chinese actor as Shang-Chi in the master of kung fu’s own spinoff film and has begun scouting out candidates for the role.

Variety reporter Justin Kroll tweeted Sunday that Marvel is apparently “putting out test offers for a group of men in their 20s” for its “Shang-Chi” movie. He added that the studio has “been adamant to reps offering up their clients for the role” that candidates “have to be of Chinese ancestry,” with no other Asian ancestry accepted.

Twitter is blocked on China’s highly censored internet, but that hasn’t stopped the tweet from going viral in the mainland. Users have screen-grabbed it and spread it on China’s parallel Weibo platform, where the hashtag “Shang-Chi casting” has since been viewed 100 million times, and the hashtag “Marvel’s first Chinese...

Chinese film studios must function as actual studios, not just tourist destinations, in order to remain viable in the long term, said Chen Jianyu, board chairman of the entity that oversees the Xiangshan Global Studios, one of China’s largest.

Speaking at the Shanghai International Film Festival, on Friday, Chen cited statistics showing that China is home to more than 3,000 registered studios. But he said that “the majority of them are there for the purpose of film-related tourism, rather than to actually provide space for film and TV crews. Tourism is the real substance, while studio itself is just the superficial form. Tourism is the end, while the studio is just the means.”

But in the end, with this approach, only 5% of them are profitable. “Ultimately, a studio should be an actual studio — that is the foundation of its vitality,” he said.

He explained that the country currently suffers from an over-supply of such facilities.

In competition in Cannes with “Wild Goose Lake,” director Diao Yinan explained Sunday why he’s fascinated by dark crime thrillers – and why his new film features dialogue in China’s Wuhan dialect.

“Such thrillers are not only an exercise in style; they’re also full of dramatic tension, and when you combine style with dramatic tension, you can easily make a film that’s both good-looking and is an expression of the auteur,” Diao said at the “Wild Goose Lake” news conference. “The social issues that are facing Chinese society at the moment make a fertile soil out of which this kind of film noir grows.”

He added: “In my films and in this film in particular, I try to portray the opposite of a utopia – a space that exists in our inner hearts as a space of mystery and danger but also in the restaurants, bars and gray spaces outside the big cities.

Los Angeles-based content aggregator Cinedigm will launch its Chinese entertainment Avod channel Bambu in June, and partner with Ott platform Future Today for distribution. The company also recently announced a definitive agreement to acquire the latter for $45 million in cash and $15 million in Cinedigm common stock, a deal expected to close in the second quarter of 2019.

Bambu seeks to bring Chinese-language content to primarily North American Generation Z and millennial viewers. It has been acquiring Chinese TV and film titles for months, including the popular “Journey to the West” TV series, Jackie Chan-starring 2017 fantasy film “Namiya,” and road trip comedy “Breakup Buddies,” among others.

Deals in the past six months include a 30-feature film deal with Youku; 500 hours of popular content from China International TV Corporation, a subsidiary of state broadcaster CCTV, which includes hot period drama “Nirvana in Fire” and food documentary “A Bite of China”; and 40 films licensed non-exclusively from China Lion.

The Chinese city that is home to the world’s largest film studio has released lists of its top registered taxpayers in 2018, revealing the payments by major production companies and movie stars at a time when new tax regulations have upended the industry.

In years past, the small city of Dongyang in coastal Zhejiang province attracted big entertainment companies to Hengdian, a town under its jurisdiction, with preferential tax benefits and the massive Hengdian World Studios complex. The area now gives an indication of what lies in store for the Chinese movie industry as authorities order companies to file and pay back taxes accrued under benefit schemes considered legal at the time.

A list released Tuesday on Dongyang’s official WeChat account – but since deleted – ranked Huayi Brothers as the highest-paying entertainment company in the region and fifth highest taxpayer overall, having coughed up RMB326 million ($48.2 million) in 2018. Dongyang Daylight Entertainment,...

Los Angeles-based content aggregator and distributor Cinedigm has signed a non-exclusive licensing deal to screen nearly four dozen movies from China Lion Film Distribution on Bambu, a content-streaming platform focused on Chinese-language content. Bambu is expected to launch by mid-year.

The China Lion titles will be part of Bambu’s launch lineup, and will target North American Gen Z and millennial viewers. The titles include blockbuster “Detective Chinatown”; China’s unlikely selection for 2016’s Oscar race, “Go Away, Mr. Tumor”; well-received comedy “Mr. Donkey”; and the Jackie Chan-starring “Namiya,” among others.

In early December, Cinedigm announced a partnership with China International TV Corp., a subsidiary of state broadcaster China Central Television (CCTV), to put more than 500 hours of Chinese TV content on the platform. Titles in that deal included “Nirvana in Fire,” China’s most popular series in 2015; the classic “Journey to the West” series; and CCTV’s popular food documentary series,...

Los Angeles-based content aggregator and distributor Cinedigm will partner with China International TV Corporation (Citvc) to bring 500 hours of Chinese content to American viewers on Bambu, its digital channel devoted to Chinese-language material set to launch early next year. Citvc is a subsidiary of state broadcaster China Central Television (CCTV), and is one of the country’s most influential media groups.

The deal, touted by Cinedigm as a “cornerstone” of its content strategy for Bambu, will give American fans of Chinese entertainment access to shows like CCTV’s runaway-hit documentary series “A Bite of China,” which serves up mouth-watering footage of specialty foods and their preparation from across the country, and the immensely popular 2015 historical drama “Nirvana in Fire,” described by some as China’s “Game of Thrones.” Older classics like “Journey to the West,” the most-watched show in Chinese TV history, will also stream. Most of the content will be dubbed into English.

Cinedigm is teaming with the powerhouse China International TV Corp. to bring more than 500 hours of popular Chinese content to the U.S. for its forthcoming digital channel Bambu.

The Chinese content digital channel, which will feature programming mostly dubbed into English, will launch in early 2019. Cinedigm already operates nine Ott channels, including Docurama and CONtv, which covers Comic Con gatherings around the country. The Bambu service is expected to cost $4.99 a month, and will be available via major streaming devices and pay-tv carriage.

In September, Cinedigm CEO and Hollywood studio veteran Chris McGurk described Bambu as a “giant beta test” that will be continually tweaked based on consumption patterns. Cinedigm, which is owned by Hong Kong investment firm Bison Holdings, enjoys a rare degree of access to the lucrative Chinese market.

Among the Citvc titles are some of the highest-rated shows to air in China in recent years. Among...