This self-orientalizing piece of crap has a few good moments. Since they are few and far between, we'll just tell you what they are. Li Bing Bing plays the white-haired witch, and has the best lines in the movie, like "all men are liars" (this line rendered in Chinese, as 天下男人都是騙子), and, as a retort to Liu Yifei's "I should have killed you, witch" Li Bingbing says something like "I'll kill you first, bitch!". We......

An interesting take on some of the problems caused by the one child policy. Wang Xiaoshuai's latest garnered him a best director award at the Berlin film festival.The story centers around a divorced couple, both now remarried, who have a child that suffers from childhood leukemia and is in desperate need of a transplant -- but with no siblings, there are no suitable donors. Thus, the parents are faced with the possibility of having to......

We saw this movie in the theater, in Paris, which it seems is one of the only places where this movie could be seen on the big screen other than at film festivals. The film is actually from a few years back, but was never shown in China, and while we think there are probably DVDs floating around, we can't say that we've seen any of them. The film is about a down and out......

Shanghai filmmaker Shu Haolun (舒浩仑） made a name for himself a few years back with his personal documentary Nostalgia 《乡愁》, an exploration of the nong tangs where he grew up and which are slated for destruction. He's just come out with a new film, a 20 minute fiction film called Young Blood 《少年血》, that also explores 1980s Shanghai life, telling the story of young teenage love. There was a screening last month (sorry to be......

From Slate V: In Slate V's ongoing effort to bring you the worst in world cinema, our bad-movies curator, Mark Jordan Legan, has a sampling of good vs. evil epics from China, the Philippines, and Indonesia. The China entry is actually from pre-handover Hong Kong, but wow — it sure is crappy. File these films (can we use that word here?) under the so-bad-they-are-good category. We think we might like the Filipino one the best,......

Do films with titles like "Feathers of Dongtan" and "Sounds. Breaths" give you a tingle in your special area? If not, fret not, there's still some time to develop that acquired taste which is promotional films for really-big-Chinese-events. "Vision Shanghai", like "Vision Beijing," is going to feature documentary films by famous directors, thought the names of those directors have yet to be released. However, Shanghai Film Group has announced its next Expo film, a full-length......

The idea is simple: get five internationally reknowned directors to make short, impressionistic films about Beijing, showing the people of Beijing in their everyday lives and as they prepare for the Olympics—and in the kindest light possible. The five filmmakers were: Patrice Leconte (France), Andrew Lau (Hong Kong/China), Majid Majidi (Iran), Giuseppe Tornatore (Italy), and Daryl Goodrich (UK). You can find a rundown of each film's style and content as well as a link to......

‘Majestic Film Verleih’, the company who will bring the movie to german cinemas released 8 official press pictures who show the stars in action. Also, german broadcasting agency 'Deutsche Welle' released a clip on YouTube with a report about the shooting in Shanghai....

Worst. Wong Kar-wai movie. Ever. Wong Kar-wai movies used to be mini-events in our lives, so we were probably more disappointed than the average viewer. It's hard to believe that My Blueberry Nights (MBN) was made by the same guy who made a gem of a road movie about ten years ago, Happy Together (HT). Both are road movies about lonely souls and wayward lovers, so it's hard not compare the two, but unfortunately,......

This week, we bring you a documentary called "Asian Cinema Odyssey - China" which was screened on Discovery Channel (although others say it's from National Geographic) . We can't seem to find any other information about this documentary (so let us know if you do find any) which is almost like a Chinese Cinema 101 crash course.. It starts with a bit of history on how the Chinese film industry has arisen from the ashes......

Heres' a public service announcement to (illegal) satellite TV users from Shanghaiist: Don't put stuff on top of your satellite receiver box. We had gotten in the habit of placing the occasional DVD or DVD sleeve on top of our satellite box, which is covered by a bunch of small vents. Not long ago, while working at our computer (surprise, surprise) at around 1 am, we heard a popping noise coming from near the TV......

Those of you that were fans of the gritty documentary realism of Li Yang's first feature, Blind Shaft, will probably take an intuitive liking to Blind Mountain for that very reason. Li Yang's use of regular folks--non-actors--always feels like a breath of fresh air, especially after watching movie/pop-star bloated films we've recently watched, such as Lust, Caution and King of California. The story: it's the early 1990s somewhere in bumblefuck northwestern China, and a Bai......

Qian Zhijun, the cute chubby Shanghai teenager, who became a cult figure last year after his picture was posted online and other Internet users began photoshopping his image into the Mona Lisa and Doraemon among other characters (more pictures after the jump), may be going to Hollywood! Apparently, he has been approached by New Line Cinema, a major Hollywood film studio, to star in a film adaptation of "Ghost Blows Out the Light," (鬼吹灯) a......

...says the Chinese female population. According to China Daily, the Hong Kong superstar topped the list of most desired sperm surveyed by 1000 women and conducted by Self Magazine. The women cited his good looks and wealth. Right on his heels, in second place, was none other than Bill Gates, also due to his wealth great charm and good looks. At a measly and disappointing tenth place came Brad Pitt. Whether or not Lau would......

Thanks to the kind folks at ARCH, the second installment of movie nights at ARCH is going to be this Thursday, and the movie we will be showing is Hong Kong auteur Wong Kar-wai's (王家卫) Happy Together, starring Tony Leung and Leslie Cheung as gay lovers in Buenos Aires. If you've never witnessed what happens when you cross Christopher Doyle's cinematography with Wong's cinematic sensibilities, we could point you to numerous writings on it. Fans......

Shanghai Daily tells us that some cinemas will maintain their half-price ticket Tuesdays, while others are selling full price tickets on the money-spinning love-based day. "I think their approach is understandable," said Wu Hehu, deputy manager of Shanghai United Cinema Lines, the city's biggest cinema chain. even though we're already very rich, we want to suck money from pressured youths like the RMB-obsessed vultures that we are "No one wants to miss Valentine's Day's huge......

Chinese director Chen Kaige’s recent movie Wu Ji (The Promise) (website in Chinese) has already surprised Chinese film fans with its US$35 million budget. Now, the premiere of the movie on Dec. 14 at Paradise Warner Cinema City offers a surprise to all of us. According to Xinhuanet news (in Chinese) a VIP ticket for premiere of Wu Ji is set at RMB 1,888. The price includes a face-to-face meeting with the director and one......

Jackie Chan reportedly told The Times of India that "Asians should unite against American cinema." Chan, star of such American movies as Around the World in 80 Days, The Medallion, Shanghai Knights, The Tuxedo, Rush Hour, Rush Hour 2 and Shanghai Noon, went on to say, "Why do we need to ape their culture. I see an Indian saying 'Yo Man!' but that's not what Asian are about." He added, "Cinema reflects culture and there......

The Shanghai Daily has declared The Year of the Yao "a bomb" -- which means the movie has now attained that status on both sides of the globe. The story says: Seven local theaters showing The Year of the Yao have taken in only 80,000 yuan (US$9,877) since the movie opened in the city on July 15. "For each of the first three screenings, there were only several people sitting in the cinema," said Wang......