"The only reason that we cannot make genre movies is the barrier that censorship sets. If I want to make the movie here, I have to portray all the communists as superheroes...This would betray my original idea and make it difficult to develop the story."

Shanghai has hosted all kinds of people - revolutionaries, capitalists, politicians, soldiers, artists, and gangsters. Shanghai has also hosted revolutions, assassinations, love stories. more ›

The Shanghai Foreign Correspondents Club last night played host to Jia Zhangke, the man NPR recently dubbed "the most important filmmaker working in the world today." The evening began at Shanghai Film Art Center with a special screening of Jia's latest film, the Shanghai-focused documentary I Wish I Knew (《上海传奇》), released to coincide with the ongoing World Expo. The viewing was followed by a Q&A with the director down the road at Cotton's on Xinhua Lu. You can listen to to that 76-minute session right here (in Chinese with English translations). more ›

Well, this was unexpected. While we knew Melbourne wouldn't do much about China's demands to stop the Rebiya Kadeer movie, "10 Conditions of Love," from airing at their International Film Festival program, three Chinese films were withdrawn in protest. Jia Zhangke's short film "Cry Me a River," Zhao Liang's "Petition" and Emily Tang's "Perfect Life" were pulled as an objection to Kadeer's presence at the festival and the inclusion of her movie in the program. Festival organizer Richard Moore said the festival was "disappointed that this action has been taken." Source: Hollywood Reporter more ›

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. more ›

Think Rocky V, but during the Olympics. Jackie Chan, 54, will engage in some kind of fighting? boxing? kung fu? exhibition against Tszyu, 38, a welterweight boxer from Russia and former Olympian. However, as this is China's Olympics, we suspect that, like in the movies, Chan will triumph over the white man in the final, climactic scene. If he's in top form, he might be able to rescue some Ming vases and other priceless artifacts of Chinese culture at the same time! The exhibition has been agreed upon by both parties and would be set for August 22 or 23, depending on whether or not it gets final IOC approval. more ›

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. more ›

Chinese news portals have been abuzz lately with the news that a male prostitute has claimed on his blog to have had sex with Chinese film director Jia Zhangke (贾樟柯) who is currently attending the Cannes Film Festival. And Shanghaiist knows once something is claimed on a blog, it is absolutely true. more ›

We pretty much knew, even before we stepped into the theater, how this film was going to play out among the critics: more ›

There's a definitely a buzz for fans of Chinese cinema with the release of Jia Zhangke's new film Still Life 《三峡好人》. In Shanghai and probably the rest of China, the film's theatrical release comes on December 14, the same day that Zhang Yimou's new film Curse of the Golden Flower. And while from the standpoint of the box office returns, it seems pretty clear who the winner will be, Jia doesn't at all seem flustered by the lackluster box office performance that his film has seen in the limited screenings that have happened over the last few weeks. more ›

Jia Zhangke’s Golden Lion-award-winning Still Life (in Chinese, Sanxia Haoren, or "The Good People of the Three Gorges") isn’t quite the masterpiece that we’ve come to expect from the man responsible for the pitch-perfect The World (2004) or Platform (2000). But save for a few minor hiccups, it comes awfully close. more ›

We'd heard a lot of hype about Hong Kong director Johnnie To's (杜棋峰) new film Exiled (放逐), not least of all because it was one of three Chinese language films that competed at the Venice Film Festival (against new works by Jia Zhangke and Tsai Ming-liang). more ›

Seems to be accessible in Shanghai ... for now. 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 ›

Photo by 2 dogs taken from the Shanghaiist Contribute page. To see your photos on our Contribute page, use Flickr and tag your photos “shanghaiist”. Or you can email your photos to photos@shanghaiist.com and they will automatically appear on our site. more ›

Photo by 2dogs taken from the Shanghaiist Contribute page. To see your photos on our Contribute page, use Flickr and tag your photos “shanghaiist”. Or you can email your photos to photos@shanghaiist.com and they will automatically appear on our site. more ›

A caveat to begin with: We are predisposed to liking movies about migrant workers attempting to eke out an existence in Beijing. Loach is Fish Too (泥鳅也是鱼), directed by Yang Yazhou, tells the story of recent divorcee Ni Qiu (meaning "loach" in Chinese), who takes her cute little twin girls to Beijing in search of a better life. Along the way she meets a man who has the same name as her, which makes for laughs galore! From this point it becomes an understated love story about a headstrong peasant woman who holds her principles and dignity above all else and a man, also from the countryside, who, despite seeming a bit sketchy and good-for-nothing at first, actually is a good man. more ›

If you're like Shanghaiist, you like going to the movies. And if you're like Shanghaiist, you rarely go to the movies in Shanghai -- because, well, most of the movies that show here are crap. (And because you can buy 10 DVDs on the street for the price of one ticket to the theater.) Thank God then for the Shanghai International Film Festival, which concludes this weekend. Finally, we get some indie and art house fare on the big screen. Right? Right? more ›