Results tagged “disney”

Woah Mickey, now that Shanghai Disneyland finally seems to have gotten all its papers in order, it seems like everyone can’t stop gabbering on about it (for instance, has anyone else noticed that Shanghai Daily has kind of turned into Shanghai Disneyland Daily today). Except, we suppose, us. Hey, give us a break, we’ve been covering this roller coaster ride of a deal for so long that it being greenlighted has actually left us a little flabbergasted. And so, since we’re at a loss for words, we’ll let other people talk about what they think about the soon-to-be erected (well, at least by 2014) Sleeping Beauty castle in Pudong.

After years of back and forth, it looks like Shanghai Disneyland has been given the go-ahead. According to news sources, the Shanghai Municipal Government Informatin offices announced the deal's approval early this morning. While details still have to be worked out between the mouse and the ministries, it seems like a pretty set deal.

With the recent news about Beijing giving Disneyland Shanghai the go ahead, it looks like it's only a matter of time before the mouse lands in town. After a recent meeting of the City's International Business Leaders Advisory Council, Mayor Han Zheng declared that a decision could be announced as early as next week. But between the lines, we all know that's code for unequivocal approval, right? After all, it's not like the Shanghai government would announce a greenlight on Disneyland and then snatch it away last minute. Oh wait.

Seemingly apropos of nothing, Li Bincheng, a leading tourism official in Shanghai, told people that China can sustain three Disney theme parks if it wanted to. "China has a population of 1.4 billion or 1.5 billion. It will not be a problem even if there are three Disneylands here," he said in response to a question about competition between Hong Kong Disneyland and the on again-off again Shanghai park. He then went on to add that if the Shanghai park ever actually came to be, it'd probably be ten times larger than its Hong Kong counterpart. But no worries, because Guangdong and Guangxi residents will probably still go to the much much smaller Hong Kong Disneyland since they live closer. Hmmm, that sure is a lot of talk for something that hasn't even won approval from the higher ups in Beijing yet. Source: SCMP

After a rather disappointing Shanghai summer movie season (Terminator Salvation, Transformers 2, Ice Age 3), we're really looking forward to our annual Disney/Pixar pickup with the long-awaited China-release of "Up", hitting theaters tomorrow!

"High School Musical" is a bonafide hit with Shanghai audiences! The stage adaption of Disney's record breaking TV movie musical first opened in South Africa as part of a global tour before coming to its second stop, here in Shanghai. According to CCTV news, "the show has been a box office success" at the Shanghai Grand Theater for the past two weeks since its June 30th debut, with "ninety-five percent of the house sold for each performance."

Awww, how adorable! From another random shanzhai technology company comes this actually well thought out Winnie the Pooh-themed cellphone.

Yesterday marked the worldwide premier of what's poised to be this year's feel good flick: Disney-produced panda movie 熊猫回家路 (Xiongmao huijia lu).

This is an advertisement. Disney English, a private English language learning center, will be hosting an educator recruiting open house on Thursday, April 9, 2009 from 11:00am-2:00pm. They are looking for ESL, EFL educators with a Bachelor's degree and a minimum of one year experience teaching English as a foreign language. They seek candidates who will bring creativity and excitement to the Disney English classroom. Visit their first center in Shanghai, talk to staff and learn more about this exciting opportunity to join in the magic of The Walt Disney Company! Contact: Rene.e.dubose.-ND@Disney.com. Thursday, April 9, 2009, 11:00am to 2:00pm, Disney English Center, 165 Maoming Nan Road (Close to Nanchang Road), Shanghai 200021. More job ads. Place a job ad.

With all that whining and wheezing earlier this year, you would've thought we'd reached a resolution by now. But even though Disney is pulling resources out of Hong Kong, it still hasn't committed fully to putting them into Shanghai - and it's hard to tell who's fault it is.

As the global financial crisis hits rock bottom, especially in the US, the theme park industry is experiencing exceptionally hard times as visitor numbers plummet and projects as far off as the Middle East are put on hold.

If we listened close enough, we could probably hear the words going through her head right at that moment: "I have an Asian friend, so it's okay." And to be quite honest, it probably is.

According to China Daily, the Walt Disney Company and Shanghai's municipal government have finally signed a project proposal to build a Disneyland theme park on the Chinese mainland. Assuming the newspaper hasn't jumped the gun, this would put a stopper on the will they won't they drama that's shadowed the deal since it was a glint in Mickey Mouse's eye.

Yesterday, Reuters (via Yahoo!) reported that the Walt Disney Co. has reached an agreement with the Shanghai government to move ahead with the plans to build the theme park in the city. CNN Money on the other hand reported on the same day that no agreement has been made. The saga continues.

The world's biggest children's entertainment company now also wants to play a part in educating your children too — and to be more specific, to teach them how to speak proper English. When we found an ad in the taxi we were in yesterday drawing our attention to DisneyEnglish.com, we thought this was some fake school that had ripped off Disney's name, but when we got home to check it we realised that not only was this a genuine Disney English school, this was the world's very first Disney English school. And it's right here in Shanghai, located on Maoming Lu. For some strange reason, we think this is going to be a huge success in the Chinese market. What do you think?

We know — the on-again-off-again Disney Shanghai deal is getting kinda bawwwrrrriiiing — but latest news has it that the deal could include a major media component that would leave other media companies salivating and give Disney unrivalled access to the highly sought-after Chinese market:

The joint venture agreement would give Disney a huge advantage over U.S. media rivals by allowing it to bypass foreign film import quotas and summer and holiday blackout periods, as well as television censorship, both imposed by the central government.

Continue reading "Disney Shanghai to include media deal?"

Both the Shanghai government and Walt Disney Co have now denied media reports confirming the arrival of Disneyland in Shanghai by 2012. According to municipal spokesperson Chen Qiwei, "The project still needs central government approval and Shanghai will obey Beijing's decision." And with that, ladies and gentlemen, we're back at square one, so brace yourselves for the next round of ding-donging. Looks like "done deals" on Xinhua and Shanghai Daily are not what they seem. [Source]

Chinese tourists will no longer need to make their way to Hong Kong for a touch of Disney because a bigger, better Disney is coming to Shanghai in 2012. Located in Pudong's Chuansha Town (or 20 minutes from Pudong Airport), Shanghai Disney will cover 10 square kilometers — eight times the size of Hong Kong Disney. [Source]

Photo from Shanghai Sky

In the Murinae subfamily of the Rodentia order, there are whole heaps of squeekers that in English we name either (Harvest / grass / stink) mice or (water / whistling / bush) rats with no real logic. The Chinese on the other hand just say screw it; let's call them all 鼠 and see what they taste like.

The yuan broke the 7.4 mark against the US dollar for the first time yesterday largely fueled by expectations that China is seeking a quicker appreciation of the currency to fight inflation.

Image from Pocacola.com

We admit it — we kind of like old wind-up tin toys. We only have one, though. It has ping pong players who go back and forth and it really used to scare our dog. Well, the International Herald Tribune recently published a story ("A trip into China's past, through its toys") about a museum filled with such gadgets from the first three quarters of the 20th century. The Museum of Shanghai Toys, naturally, is in Singapore. A snippet:

But they only get RMB 25,000 in damages. The movie companies involved in the suit were New Line Productions, Walt Disney, Warner Bros Entertainment, Columbia Pictures, Universal Studios, 20th Century Fox and Paramount Pictures. The defendant was listed as Shanghai Leying Audio Visual Co. Ltd, but this story tells us the company also went by the name "Kadi" and was " well-known to many expatriates in Shanghai for selling pirated products." We think it might be safe to assume that they are talking about Ka De Club, the chain (?) of DVD shops that has been fleecing foreigners for years (OK, perhaps fleecing is a little strong — their prices were around 3 or 4 kuai higher than other shops selling the same thing). Evidently, the name change occurred after charges were filed, so the shop could continue to operate. We've lost track of Ka De — it moved around quite a bit over the years, trying to avoid Johnny Law, we assume (the raid that led to this lawsuit was in Changning) — and then there were Ka De clones, we think, trying to cash in on the "good" name. We have a feeling they'll be back.

Over the years, we've seen plenty of cartoon characters pasted onto cars here in Shanghai — it's just part of Chinese car culture — but this is the biggest display of Disney devotion we have seen yet. Who needs diamond-encrusted rims when you can have cute dalmations? We can think of no better way to pimp out a VW sedan.

Austinist was in an entertainment state of mind as they covered the dickens out of the Austin Film Festival, depicted all the Big 12 football coaches as South Park characters, and interviewed Jose Gonzalez.

before, and guess what, not much has changed since then, except maybe the talks are heating up and going somewhere. The Washington Post reports that all they are waiting for now is official approval from Beijing and then voila! ... a sh*tload of tourists streaming into Pudong. It seems one of the main issues was whether or not a Shanghai Disneyland would affect business at the Disneyland down in Hong Kong. We guess they did some research and are now cool with it. Quick, buy some real estate in the Chuansha area!