Results tagged “documentary”

Not that this should surprise anyone, what with the flash mob tribute, the Chongming Island Neverland Ranch and the myriad of other ways China has shown its love for the King of Pop, but This Is It has proven to be a spectacular hit in the country. Tickets sold out within days of going on sale, severely trouncing the last Chinese megahit, Transformers 2. In case you want to see a gallery of what the premiere in Shanghai looked like, this is it.

MJ has officially "Beat It" into China's exclusive film import quota. Premiering globally on October 28, the Michael Jackson documentary, "This Is It," was able to snatch one of the last of China's 20 annual foreign movie import slots. Chinese censors approved the film before National Day, just in time for China's premiere date on October 30, says the AP.

Daedalum Films released the first half of their excellent documentary, Human Flesh Search Engine, onto the internet a couple of weeks ago. Now the second half is up too, though you'll need a password to access it. Email info (at) daedalumfilms (dot) com for the password and then check the rest of their film out either on Vimeo or on the Daedalum Films' website.

In case you missed the screening of Daedalum Films' Human Flesh Search Engine, the documentary is now available on Vimeo. Well, currently half the documentary is available on Vimeo. The second part will be released soon, its directors say.

With all the recent talk about pollution and children being poisoned, we thought it'd be good to take a quick look at a documentary from 1992 about Da Zhu Xian, a remote county in Sichuan Province.

Youku Buzz has found an upload of Senior Year (高三). The 94-minute video documents the last year of classes at No. 1 High School of Wuping in Fujian Province and won the best documentary award at the 30th Hong Kong International Film Festival in 2006. Luckily, this version contains English subtitles so everyone can follow along.

Thought the whole Rebiya Kadeer movie controversy was over after Chinese filmmakers pulled out of the Melbourne International Film Festival in protest? Apparently it's only gotten more ridiculous.

The Xinjiang riots has not only affected the political climate, now it looks like it´s also leaking over to the artistic area as well. Last week China made an attempt to stop a film from being screened at Australia´s biggest film festival, Melbourne International Film Festival.

Jia's film, tentatively titled Shanghai Legend (上海傳奇), is scheduled to be finished towards the end of this year/beginning of next, and will be premiered around April 2010.

ShanghaiPRIDE commenced with a bang and, thankfully, not a bust. Mainland China's 1st Gay Pride event kicked-off yesterday with over 200 people cramming into Vargas Grill. Attendees of the inaugural event were a mix of gay, straight, local Chinese, expats, and a lovely drag queen named Anita.

Did you miss the Up from the Underground screening? That's too bad! But no matter: Daedalum Films has put it online just for us.

After nearly two months of being detained in North Korea, Asian-American journalists Euna Lee and Laura Ling will allegedly be put to trial on June 4, according to the AP. The DPRK's Korean Central News Agency did not reveal any other details, including what charges the two face. If they are accused of illegal entry, they could spend up to three years in a labor camp. If they are found to have engaged in “espionage” or “hostility towards North Koreans,” they could add five to 10 years in prison onto their sentence. Lee and Ling were caught filming along the China-DPRK border in March. Both were working for Current TV.

                           

Daedalum Films hosted a screening of Up From the Underground, a documentary short about the Shanghainese band Hard Queen.

If you're in China, you probably won't be able to watch the HBO documentary "China's Unnatural Disaster" which chronicles the aftermath of the Sichuan Quake from the perspective of the grieving parents.

If you haven't gotten enough of Hard Queen, after our interview, their new EP and the awesome release party at YYT, then make sure you catch the May 9 screening of Daedalum Films' Hard Queen documentary, Up from the Underground.

Another great newsreel from Quirky Beijing entitled Ghosts of Empire: Peking dated 1931 from the Port O’Call series by William M. Pizor. [h/t to Danwei]

Ted Koppel, former anchorman for ABC's Nightline, has a new four-part series on the Discovery Channel entitled "Koppel on Discovery: The People's Republic of Capitalism." The show began last night, and according to the New York Times, it offers an in-depth perspective on "an emerging capitalist economy tethered to an authoritarian government" by interviewing millionaires, peasants, drag queens and students. Adam Segal, a senior fellow in China studies at the Council of Foreign Relations, tells NYT that while the series might not add to the scholarly debate, it's important for the "general public":

By showing how the vast majority of Chinese have been made better off by economic development, it provides a credible argument for why, even with fairly widespread social unrest, the reign of the current regime is not seriously challenged.

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 telling you now, we're ridiculously out of the loops), but there should be more in the future. Read more about the film and filmmaker on his blog.

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 doc by Jia Zhangke. We've been hearing about this intermittently for awhile, and whatever our reservations about promo films, we're still curious to see what Jia's up to with this film.The article says that trailers are being shown on TV soon, but we haven't seen anything new on the video-sharing sites.

From Current TV:

This is the story of an ordinary Chinese fishing community, living on a beautiful island, discovered by the Chinese media and transformed into a tourist hot zone. This is a side of China not usually shown in the West.

With a 600-year long history, Kunqu (崑曲) opera is one of the oldest extant forms of the Chinese opera and known as the "mother" of a hundred operas. Although dozens of professional Kunqu troupes used to operate across China, only a handful remain today in Beijing, Shanghai, Nanjing, Hangzhou, Chenzhou and Yongjia. Kunqu has been awarded the title of "Masterpieces of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity" by UNESCO, which also recognises that the art form is in grave danger of extinction. Shanghai Opera Dreams, a production by Discovery Channel, follows several Kunqu experts in Shanghai on a mission to raise interest among the young, to uncover talent and to keep the art alive.

Japanese filmmaker Satoru Mizushima (水島総) was not too happy about Nanking, the American documentary about the Nanking Massacre. So he set out to create his own film The Truth about Nanjing (南京の真実, Nanking no shinjitsu) to set straight what he felt were "fabrications" and "false impressions" propagated by the film and a "setup by China to control intelligence". Several leading politicians, including Tokyo's rightwing governor, Shintaro Ishihara, have come out in support of the film which basically denies that a massacre ever happened and honours several post-war criminals as martyrs. Now that the film is out, tensions are running high (watch that fiery debate in the second clip on the right).

From National Geographic:

Cars are racing into China supercharging its economy, and delivering dreams of a better life. But Chinas cars are clogging its highways and spewing out clouds of pollution. The rest of the world better watch out, because some Chinese automakers have plans to flood the world markets with cheaper Chinese cars be they made by GM or Chinas own Geely Automotive. We go inside the Geely plant in Ningbo, and follow a worker after hours in the canteen with his girlfriend, and then in the dorm he shares with seven other men. We see chairman and founder Li Shufu at his university in Beijing, welcoming the freshmen who one day will work at Geely, and help take it onto the worlds stage. We tag along with David and Vivian Ren as they go shopping for a car in Beijing, and then spend a 12-hour day picking it up, getting the licence plate, and paying for it with cash. The automobile industry and private car ownership are pivotal to Chinas economic recovery. They promise freedom to travel and a better life. But they are contributing to Chinas pollution. This worries environmentalist Sherry Liao who also believes that China is adopting too many western values. Car marketing expert Michael Dunne makes sense of it all. Call it a driving dream or a nightmare. This is China's revolution on wheels.

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 of the Cultural Revolution, and goes on to talk about the rise of the 5th and 6th generation filmmakers, the struggle with censors, the new breed of underground directors and the globalisation of Chinese cinema. A great watch if you can set aside some time to load all the clips!

From the makers of The Unseen China, Jiang Xueqin and Brian Keeley, comes another documentary, Children of Blessing. While we are not totally fans of the way the directors have framed their story (and we won't spoilt the show for you or impose our opinion on you, watch it for yourselves and share with us what you think in the comment section!), this is still a stellar production, and we'd like to share it as our Christmas present to you. Give yourself some time to load up the vids, kick back and watch this show that will open your eyes to another China you've never seen.

If you've been browsing the DVD shops lately, you might have already come across Nanking, a documentary—of sorts—about the Nanjing massacre of 1937. The film consists of three elements: first-person accounts from survivors and eye witnesses, including Chinese civilians and soldiers as well as Japanese soldiers. These are all real people, telling their stories on film. Then there actors portraying some of the people, mostly Europeans and Americans, that played a role in setting up...