Wednesday August 27 At The Blues Room, it's time for the second "Battle of the bands", where local rock musicians compete for honour and free studio time. Find out more here. At 146 Tongren Road, near Beijing road, 铜仁路146号，近北京西路 Thursday August 28 It's movie night at Arch, this week The Great Debaters, a movie based on a true story about a debate team from a small African American college will be screened. At 439......

This PBS documentary on the underground church movement produced by the Chicago Tribune's Beijing Bureau chief Evan Osnos can now be watched online here, and it is as we said it would be — groundbreaking.......

On the list of things that seriously really piss us off children’s movies, Americanized kung fu and animated pandas don’t exactly play a starring role. In fact, it’s probably fair to say they don’t even make a cameo. Unfortunately for artist Zhao Bandi (赵半狄), all these things seem to be at the top of his list, and all these things are clearly evident in DreamWorks’ new film Kung Fu Panda. To display his righteous outrage,......

Left: American Gangster trailer; Right: Across the Universe trailer The 11th Shanghai International Film Festival had a rocky start on Saturday, when the opening film, Olympic Dreamers, failed to arrive, leaving confused media stranded in the rain after an unusually brief opening ceremony. Critics from around the world have noted that the event has less energy this year, a change from a decade-long trend of increasing prestige. Chinese organizers point to the earthquake as......

By Sue Anne Tay The screening schedule for the 11th Shanghai International Film Festival, running from June 14 to 22, is out and categorized by the cinemas that are screening the movies. You can get your tickets at the 23 cinemas participating in the Film Festival or book tickets through East Tickets 东方票务at 962388 (website). The (confirmed) prices of the tickets range from 40, 50 and 60 RMB, but the one tricky logistic is that......

By Sue Anne Tay Tickets for the 11th Shanghai International Film Festival, which will be held from June 14 to 22, are reportedly on sale at 23 appointed star-graded cinemas across the city. Alternatively, you can call East Tickets 东方票务at 962388(24H) or visit their website to book tickets. The ticketing company says the full screening schedule will be released online in a day or so, and tickets will range from RMB30, RMB40 to RMB60. Some......

From France24: Jia Zhang Ke (贾樟柯) mixes documentary and fiction in his film about three generations of Chinese workers. Watch clips from '24 City', filmed in the town of Chengdu, and an interview with the director. The film which features actresses Joan Chen and Zhao Tao is Jia's second stab at Cannes' coveted Palme d'Or award. A minute's silence was observed at the film's press conference at the festival. In a report by AFP:"I spent......

By Jay Caplan How often can you encourage world peace by kicking back and watching movies? Pangea Day Shanghai is your chance: a 12-hour movie marathon of short and feature length offerings from local filmmakers, culminating with a 4-hour global simulcast of 24 international short films. In 2006 filmmaker Jehane Noujaim won a TED Prize: $100,000, and one wish. Noujaim wanted peace, and believed mutual understanding the key to achieving it. Save for travel, film......

Chinese reports have been saying that around May 1, Google China unveiled its Onebox search function, which allows you to find movies and movie times. If you've used Google in the US, you are probably familiar with this function, it's the thing that sits atop the regular search results, as you can see in the pictures. The main key words are the movie, the name of the theater, and the city that you live in.......

None of the recent wuxia martial art epics can seem to avoid the the endemic schlockiness of the genre, so as a viewer we are just content to find one that isn't altogether too offensive in this regard. We think that Three Kingdoms manages to do that. There's some good action, though nothing you haven't seen before — the hail of spears and arrows, the beheaded enemies, the evil vixen (Maggie Q) playing pipa while......

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,......

'The Easter Bunny Hates You' from Black20.com The Easter Bunny, skipping along with its little basket of Easter eggs and floppy ears, is really cute right? Wrong. Sure, for one day of the year this fairy-tale creature might be an adorable chocolate-distributing fluffy friend, but for the other 364 days it's an absolute animal. Like the video? See how it all started after the jump.......

During his discussion with Kerry Brown and Duncan Hewitt at the recently held Shanghai International Literary Festival, Paul French quoted British environmentalist Jonathon Porritt as saying that "the biggest problem with the environment in China is that nobody in China could care less about it". China's environmental woes are well-documented and, despite attempts to convince the world otherwise, the country is still rarely seen as a leader on environmental protection. Having twenty of the world's......

From taiande of Current TV: What happens when Texas Holdem Poker, the "gambler's game," is introduced to the world's most populous and heavy wagering nation? We explore this question beginning in Shanghai, the epicenter of mainland China's fast growing poker scene. More from Shanghai-based Daedalum Films.......

A new directive by the Chinese censorship board, also known as the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television (SARFT), has banned producers of erotic movies, including their directors and leading actors, from participation in domestic film awards. Violators may be banned up to five years from the movie industry and recalcitrant studios may even have their licenses revoked. Xinhua quotes a report by the Beijing News that details exactly what kind of content SARFT......