Today marks the 33rd anniversary of the Great Tangshan Earthquake, believed to be the largest earthquake disaster of the 20th century thanks to its immense death toll. The earthquake hit very early in the morning, at 3:42am, which contributed to its extreme deadliness. Chinese official sources stated that it measured a 7.8 on the Richter scale. It was then followed by a 7.8 magnitude aftershock about 16 hours later. more ›

Thanks to the somewhat softened relationship between Taiwan and China, a new film festival opened up last week and will continue into late July. The Cross-Strait Exhibition - a very formal title indeed - marks the first time in history that mainland China and Taiwan are collaborating on a film promotion event. At the same time, new rules for subsidy within the Taiwanese movie industry have just been made official. more ›

And here are some of the style awards that were given out last night at the Shanghai Grand Stage. Some really dubious choices there: more ›

Of course, everyone and their momma's got a blog now, but Sina.com has made it somewhat more official by opening a series of blogs just for the members of the Film Critics Association. It makes it easier to find the work of some of China's more well-known film critics. The blogs are young, you'll find at most a few posts, but it's at least a place you can go to find some interesting opinions and reflections on the state of Chinese cinema as well as the biz. Take Zhang Baiqing's blog, where he discusses the importance of the audience to the film or Yang Yuanying's comments on recent Chinese attempts at big-budget commercial films from Zhang Yimou and Feng Xiaogang. There are a total of thirty prominent film critics' blogs featured here. more ›

Occasionally, weird stuff happens in China. It was world AIDS day last week as well as Migrant Worker Rights' Day (in certain areas) and both the government and ordinary citizens organized ways of spreading the message of HIV prevention. Here's two of the more unique things we found: more ›

It may be the pariah for self-respecting filmmakers (and film buffs) everywhere, but if it’s true that there’s no business like show business, then, the Oscars are anything but irrelevant. Case in point: The recent announcement that China will have not one, but two of its own submitted for consideration in the crapshoot otherwise known as the Best Foreign Film category. Of course, it never hurts when you’re able to find a loophole in the system. For all intents and purposes, the would-be blockbuster The Banquet should be represented by the mainland -- it features one of China’s most beloved (and commercially successful) auteurs in Feng Xiaogang, while starring Chinese megastars Zhang Ziyi and Zhou Xun. So how come it ended up as Hong Kong’s submission? Well, the catch is that The Banquet is a Hong Kong-China co-production, which means those of you who were pulling hard for Johnnie To backed the wrong horse. more ›

But back to Bing Feng Tea House: The blogger answers his question this way: more ›

Shanghaiist was thinking about how to characterize a movie like this: We mulled over “worst movie we’ve ever seen,” and thought this too harsh, as there are probably loads of worse movies that we’ve seen but have repressed the memory of. And we hope the same happens with this movie. more ›

Stirred by the unprecedented success of Super Voice Girls for Hunan TV, Zhejiang TV and Yahoo are jumping on the bandwagon. Yahoo -- or should we say, Yahoo! -- is duking it out with Baidu and Google, and their latest ploy is this contest, which involves three famous directors: Feng Xiaogang, Chen Kaige and Zhang Jizhong. The contest is called Sou Xing ("searching for stars"), and it's subtitled 让你红的发紫, which literally means that you'll be so red (i.e. popular) that you'll turn purple. Sounds better in Chinese. Anyhow, there's internet voting, all kinds of lists, PK speculations, and, like any good Chinese site, has countless pictures of soulless good-looking-in-that-cookie-cutter-pop-star-way people. The first part was conducted online during March, and the final parts will be shown on Zhejiang TV later this month, when the final 12 contestants for each director will square off against each other. The final prize is an acting contract and the chance to use those "acting" skills for the directors when they make their commercials for Yahoo!. more ›

It's that time of year again: the Forbes annual China celebrity list is coming out on March 8. This article (in Chinese) tells us that the top 10 has already been released, and Li Bingbing (李冰冰) has graduated to the big time, garnering top honors. The Forbes list is calculated using a "income+media exposure" criterion, and while we aren't privy to how much Li makes, we know that she graced the covers of more magazines this year than any other celeb. The rankings include 100 people, with the top ranked as follows: more ›