The latest films by acclaimed Chinese directors Guan Hu, Wei Shujun, Gu Changwei and Zhang Dalei are among 14 features selected for the main competition at the upcoming 26th Shanghai International Film Festival.
The festival has announced a total of 50 films in contention for the Golden Goblet Awards, which further include 11 titles for the Asian New Talent competition, five each for the animated feature and documentary feature competition, and 15 for the short film competition. Between them are 38 world premieres – a new record for Siff – as well as six international premieres and six Asian premieres.
The main competition section carries four Chinese titles,...
The festival has announced a total of 50 films in contention for the Golden Goblet Awards, which further include 11 titles for the Asian New Talent competition, five each for the animated feature and documentary feature competition, and 15 for the short film competition. Between them are 38 world premieres – a new record for Siff – as well as six international premieres and six Asian premieres.
The main competition section carries four Chinese titles,...
- 5/30/2024
- ScreenDaily
The Shanghai International Film Festival unveiled the competition selection for its upcoming 26th edition Wednesday, featuring a lineup characteristically heavy on Chinese titles. As in recent years, the lineup also includes a bevy of European, Japanese and Central Asian movies, but not a single film from the U.S. or South Korea.
The most anticipated film from the festival’s 14-title main competition in 2024 is undoubtedly Chinese director Guan Hu’s drama A Man and a Woman, featuring a pair of lead performances from the big local stars Huang Bo and Ni Ni. Guan wowed critics at the Cannes Film Festival just a week ago with his darkly comic thriller Black Dog, which took home the French festival’s prestigious Un Certain Regard prize. Guan also is no stranger to the Shanghai festival. His WWII tentpole The Eight Hundred was scheduled to open the 2019 edition of the event, but it...
The most anticipated film from the festival’s 14-title main competition in 2024 is undoubtedly Chinese director Guan Hu’s drama A Man and a Woman, featuring a pair of lead performances from the big local stars Huang Bo and Ni Ni. Guan wowed critics at the Cannes Film Festival just a week ago with his darkly comic thriller Black Dog, which took home the French festival’s prestigious Un Certain Regard prize. Guan also is no stranger to the Shanghai festival. His WWII tentpole The Eight Hundred was scheduled to open the 2019 edition of the event, but it...
- 5/30/2024
- by Patrick Brzeski
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
Putting the three Cs of children, cancer and comedy together makes you wonder just what you're getting into when starting Wei Te-sheng's “Big”. And it's one that certainly puts you through the wringer, taking many different approaches from various perspectives. This is a lengthy and tormenting experience, but is the suffering worth it?
Big is screening at Osaka Asian Film Festival
With the children's ward of a hospital undergoing renovations, six child cancer patients of various ages and stages are put into the same room: Room 816, altered to ‘Big' on its door. With the parents also staying in the room, it becomes a very chaotic place to be. But also a place of sadness, as each child has to face important, life-defining moments. Pulling together through the trauma, the parents and children look for moments of hope through it all, bringing new life to a world where death is a very real prospect.
Big is screening at Osaka Asian Film Festival
With the children's ward of a hospital undergoing renovations, six child cancer patients of various ages and stages are put into the same room: Room 816, altered to ‘Big' on its door. With the parents also staying in the room, it becomes a very chaotic place to be. But also a place of sadness, as each child has to face important, life-defining moments. Pulling together through the trauma, the parents and children look for moments of hope through it all, bringing new life to a world where death is a very real prospect.
- 3/4/2024
- by Andrew Thayne
- AsianMoviePulse
It’s not the history so much as the anatomy of a family that is scrutinised by Jianjie Lin in his slippery psychological drama. With a cool and unsettling mood reminiscent of Michael Haneke and ambiguities that recall Lee Chang-dong’s Burning, Lin offers a chiller in the shadow of China’s post-one-child policy.
Wei (Lin Muran) is a kid from a middle-class background with a biologist dad (Zu Feng) and a mum (Guo Keyu) who, having left her life as a flight attendant behind her, has poured all her energy into her son. An incident at school sees Wei take fellow teenager Shuo (Sun Xilun) home with him. It’s quickly apparent that Shuo’s background is vastly different from that of Wei with his reaction to being offered five types of soy sauce by Wei’s mum speaking volumes. He, in fact, is pretty taciturn but reveals that his mother is dead,...
Wei (Lin Muran) is a kid from a middle-class background with a biologist dad (Zu Feng) and a mum (Guo Keyu) who, having left her life as a flight attendant behind her, has poured all her energy into her son. An incident at school sees Wei take fellow teenager Shuo (Sun Xilun) home with him. It’s quickly apparent that Shuo’s background is vastly different from that of Wei with his reaction to being offered five types of soy sauce by Wei’s mum speaking volumes. He, in fact, is pretty taciturn but reveals that his mother is dead,...
- 2/29/2024
- by Amber Wilkinson
- eyeforfilm.co.uk
Did you know that the median AdSense income for creators with one million subscribers on YouTube is $90,025 per year? How about that Twitch streamers with a million followers have a median income of $542,208 per year? Or that TikTokers with a million followers have median annual earnings of just $473 from TikTok’s Creator Fund?
You probably didn’t know that, because this information–like lots of financial information about our industry–isn’t widely available to anyone, including the people most impacted: creators.
But Karat Financial wants to change that. The fintech company, which was founded in 2019 by Eric Wei and Will Kim and whose flagship product is a credit card for content creators, is introducing Karat Insights, a free-to-access tool that lets creators compare their earnings against anonymized financials from their peers.
Karat Insights’ data comes from thousands of creators who’ve hooked up their bank accounts directly to Karat’s other services,...
You probably didn’t know that, because this information–like lots of financial information about our industry–isn’t widely available to anyone, including the people most impacted: creators.
But Karat Financial wants to change that. The fintech company, which was founded in 2019 by Eric Wei and Will Kim and whose flagship product is a credit card for content creators, is introducing Karat Insights, a free-to-access tool that lets creators compare their earnings against anonymized financials from their peers.
Karat Insights’ data comes from thousands of creators who’ve hooked up their bank accounts directly to Karat’s other services,...
- 2/26/2024
- by James Hale
- Tubefilter.com
Identified only by their last name, Tu, the husband and wife in Brief History of a Family have built their comfortably middle-class life together in accordance with China’s one-child policy. Now, in less restrictive times, a chance to expand their nuclear unit arrives in the form of their teenage son’s mysterious new friend. From shifting perspectives, writer-director Lin Jianjie examines the contained volatility of this four-person configuration. His stylistic choices can be spot-on or self-conscious in their artifice, but his debut feature reveals a talent to watch. With its intriguing performances, narrative restraint and unanswered questions, the movie delivers a strong pull of yearning as well as tantalizing currents of suspicion and dread.
The two boys are schoolmates who apparently have never interacted until the day Wei (Lin Muran) makes an overture of friendship that’s less innocent than it seems. The studious loner Shuo (Sun Xilun) becomes...
The two boys are schoolmates who apparently have never interacted until the day Wei (Lin Muran) makes an overture of friendship that’s less innocent than it seems. The studious loner Shuo (Sun Xilun) becomes...
- 2/22/2024
- by Sheri Linden
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
Parental conflicts arise when the younger generation’s goals differ from expectations, particularly in affluent families tied to societal status. Ideally, a parent’s love should outweigh ambitions, but conflicts arise when young individuals’ decisions deviate from expectations, causing tension. Fearing for their children’s prospects, parents may inadvertently stifle freedom, prompting individuals to seek solace outside the family and become susceptible to threats. In Jianjie Lin‘s debut film, Brief History of a Family the narrative tackles these common dissensions between children and their parents from a fresh perspective. The story revolves around a seemingly perfect family of three, whose stability is tested when the son’s mysterious classmate unexpectedly becomes the fourth member and depicts how China’s one-child policy that ended in 2016 still lingers among the middle class. This disrupts the delicate balance between parental guidance and the autonomy crucial for a young person’s growth.
One eventful day,...
One eventful day,...
- 2/19/2024
- by Dipankar Sarkar
- Talking Films
Brief History Of A Family
Chinese director Jianjie 'JJ' Lin’s feature debut, Brief History Of A Family revolves around the shifting dynamics of a middle-class family. Wei, an only child in post one-child policy China befriends the reclusive Shuo, inviting him back home. Wei’s parents warm to the vulnerable teenager. As time passes, their friendship disrupts the dynamic Wei shares with his parents, as Shuo comes to resemble the son they’d quietly wished for.
In conversation with Eye For Film, Lin spoke about experiencing an existential crisis that set him on an unexpected path, his patient and detail orientated approach to filmmaking, and reimagining a traditional genre film.
Paul Risker: What appeals to you about filmmaking as a means of creative expression?
Jianjie 'JJ' Lin: I used to study biology and for a big part of my life I had very little to do with film.
Chinese director Jianjie 'JJ' Lin’s feature debut, Brief History Of A Family revolves around the shifting dynamics of a middle-class family. Wei, an only child in post one-child policy China befriends the reclusive Shuo, inviting him back home. Wei’s parents warm to the vulnerable teenager. As time passes, their friendship disrupts the dynamic Wei shares with his parents, as Shuo comes to resemble the son they’d quietly wished for.
In conversation with Eye For Film, Lin spoke about experiencing an existential crisis that set him on an unexpected path, his patient and detail orientated approach to filmmaking, and reimagining a traditional genre film.
Paul Risker: What appeals to you about filmmaking as a means of creative expression?
Jianjie 'JJ' Lin: I used to study biology and for a big part of my life I had very little to do with film.
- 2/15/2024
- by Paul Risker
- eyeforfilm.co.uk
Jianjie Lin’s Brief History of a Family is an immaculate sculpture, one of those art-film thrillers in which every element of every frame is under profound control. There’s no stray detail here, no spontaneous behavioral business for the audience to discover for itself.
The risk of this sort of film is lifelessness, as in any number of thrillers released each year by A24. But the potential benefit is a heightened suspense achieved by our implicit understanding that the filmmakers have the means and ability to do whatever they please. You’re in their hands, and they could be ready to work you over. Lin achieves and sustains this tension, as his eerie, underpopulated frames and pregnant foreshadowing create an understated unease.
Brief History of a Family opens with a medium shot of a teenage boy, Yan Shuo (Xilun Sun), attempting to do pull-ups on a playground. Shuo is...
The risk of this sort of film is lifelessness, as in any number of thrillers released each year by A24. But the potential benefit is a heightened suspense achieved by our implicit understanding that the filmmakers have the means and ability to do whatever they please. You’re in their hands, and they could be ready to work you over. Lin achieves and sustains this tension, as his eerie, underpopulated frames and pregnant foreshadowing create an understated unease.
Brief History of a Family opens with a medium shot of a teenage boy, Yan Shuo (Xilun Sun), attempting to do pull-ups on a playground. Shuo is...
- 1/29/2024
- by Chuck Bowen
- Slant Magazine
Chinese filmmaker Lin Jianjie’s debut feature “Brief History of a Family,” which is being sold by Films Boutique, has debuted its trailer (below), following its world premiere in the World Cinema Dramatic Competition section of the Sundance Film Festival.
The film, which will make its European premiere in the Panorama program of the Berlin Film Festival, was received warmly by Variety critic Carlos Aguilar. In the review, Aguilar says the suspenseful drama was “elevated by its consistent visual inventiveness.” He adds that although at first it seems to be the story of a “cunning infiltrator wreaking havoc in an unsuspecting household,” it then “reveals itself as a tale of wish fulfillment for everyone involved.” Aguilar says that it is this approach which “turns Lin’s debut into an engrossing brain-tickler.”
The drama is put in motion by an incident at the high school attended by Wei, an outgoing only son from a middle-class family,...
The film, which will make its European premiere in the Panorama program of the Berlin Film Festival, was received warmly by Variety critic Carlos Aguilar. In the review, Aguilar says the suspenseful drama was “elevated by its consistent visual inventiveness.” He adds that although at first it seems to be the story of a “cunning infiltrator wreaking havoc in an unsuspecting household,” it then “reveals itself as a tale of wish fulfillment for everyone involved.” Aguilar says that it is this approach which “turns Lin’s debut into an engrossing brain-tickler.”
The drama is put in motion by an incident at the high school attended by Wei, an outgoing only son from a middle-class family,...
- 1/23/2024
- by Leo Barraclough
- Variety Film + TV
Elevated by its consistent visual inventiveness, Chinese writer-director Jianjie Lin’s suspenseful drama “Brief History of a Family” could appear, at first glance, as a clear-cut case of a cunning infiltrator wreaking havoc in an unsuspecting household. Yet the closer we observe, the more it reveals itself as a tale of wish fulfillment for everyone involved. No doubt comparisons to “Saltburn,” “The Killing of a Sacred Deer” or “The Talented Mr. Ripley” will abound, but what Lin conceived is far more subcutaneous, with a sobering tone and disinterested in building up to a grand plot twist — though the resolution is unexpected.
Hit with a basketball while doing pull-ups, 15-year-old Yan Shuo (Xilun Sun) injures his leg. As an apologetic gesture, the guilty culprit, Tu Wei, a fellow classmate from an affluent family, invites Shuo to play video games and to stay over for dinner. Mr. and Mrs. Tu react, impressed...
Hit with a basketball while doing pull-ups, 15-year-old Yan Shuo (Xilun Sun) injures his leg. As an apologetic gesture, the guilty culprit, Tu Wei, a fellow classmate from an affluent family, invites Shuo to play video games and to stay over for dinner. Mr. and Mrs. Tu react, impressed...
- 1/22/2024
- by Carlos Aguilar
- Variety Film + TV
Exclusive: New York-based arthouse distributor KimStim has acquired all North American rights to Wei Shujun’s Cannes Un Certain Regard title, Only The River Flows. Paris-based MK2 Films is handling international sales on the film.
The Chinese noir thriller has recently been a big hit at the Chinese box office, grossing $43M (RMB309.5M), an exceptional number for an independent film in that market.
Following its Cannes premiere, the film has screened in 33 international film festivals, including London (BFI), Busan, Chicago and Vancouver. It received its China premiere at Pingyo International Film Festival, where it won best film in the festival’s Fei Mu Awards.
Based on Yu Hua’s popular short novel Mistakes By The River, the film is set in a small town in 1990s China where the chief of police is heading an investigation after a woman’s body washes up in the local river.
Zhu Yilong,...
The Chinese noir thriller has recently been a big hit at the Chinese box office, grossing $43M (RMB309.5M), an exceptional number for an independent film in that market.
Following its Cannes premiere, the film has screened in 33 international film festivals, including London (BFI), Busan, Chicago and Vancouver. It received its China premiere at Pingyo International Film Festival, where it won best film in the festival’s Fei Mu Awards.
Based on Yu Hua’s popular short novel Mistakes By The River, the film is set in a small town in 1990s China where the chief of police is heading an investigation after a woman’s body washes up in the local river.
Zhu Yilong,...
- 12/14/2023
- by Liz Shackleton
- Deadline Film + TV
The burgeoning ‘acquimissions’ model of co-productions was one of the points of discussion at Singapore’s Asia TV Forum and Market.
Conceptually, acquimissions blend the worlds of acquisitions and commissioning where independent producers and production studios engineer co-productions between themselves and platforms and commissioners across territories and windows.
“This is something that has happened because of the shrinking production budgets, something that is slowly, but surely, touching Asia,” said Justin Deimen, president, 108 Media, a global company that is actively pursuing the acquimissions model.
“If your businesses is entirely or solely dependent on full commissions to just keep going, I think you need to strike that balance, you need the diversity in your portfolio. It’s time to really shake it up,” said Donovan Chan, co-founder and creative director of Singapore’s Beach House Pictures. Earlier, Chan spoke at length with Variety on the changes facing producers in Asia.
Tenten Wei,...
Conceptually, acquimissions blend the worlds of acquisitions and commissioning where independent producers and production studios engineer co-productions between themselves and platforms and commissioners across territories and windows.
“This is something that has happened because of the shrinking production budgets, something that is slowly, but surely, touching Asia,” said Justin Deimen, president, 108 Media, a global company that is actively pursuing the acquimissions model.
“If your businesses is entirely or solely dependent on full commissions to just keep going, I think you need to strike that balance, you need the diversity in your portfolio. It’s time to really shake it up,” said Donovan Chan, co-founder and creative director of Singapore’s Beach House Pictures. Earlier, Chan spoke at length with Variety on the changes facing producers in Asia.
Tenten Wei,...
- 12/10/2023
- by Naman Ramachandran
- Variety Film + TV
Est N8 is joint venture launched by LA’s Est Studios, Bangkok’s N8 in Cannes.
International finance, production and sales company Est N8 has has boarded worldwide sales rights to Asian horror titles Dead Boys Club (Geng Kubur) and The Scarecrow for upcoming fall festivals and markets and has commenced talks at Busan.
Head of sales and distribution Tenten Wei is engaging with buyers in South Korea and will continue talks at Tokyo International Film Festival (October 23-November 1) and the American Film Market (October 31-November 5).
Est N8 is the joint venture launched by Los Angeles-based Est Studios and Bangkok...
International finance, production and sales company Est N8 has has boarded worldwide sales rights to Asian horror titles Dead Boys Club (Geng Kubur) and The Scarecrow for upcoming fall festivals and markets and has commenced talks at Busan.
Head of sales and distribution Tenten Wei is engaging with buyers in South Korea and will continue talks at Tokyo International Film Festival (October 23-November 1) and the American Film Market (October 31-November 5).
Est N8 is the joint venture launched by Los Angeles-based Est Studios and Bangkok...
- 10/9/2023
- by Jeremy Kay
- ScreenDaily
Before it became a blockbuster movie, “Kingdom” was first a manga by Yasuhisa Hara and then an anime by Studio Pierrot. Despite the fact that it is animated in CGI, the quality of the story, and the artform actually, has still made it a rather successful series.
on Crunchyroll
by clicking on the image below
The story of Kingdom is a fictional adaptation of the Chinese history known as the Warring States period, which ended in 221 BC when Ying Zheng, king of Qin, succeeded in conquering the other states and unifying China. Several of the characters are based on historical figures.
The first season consists of 38 episodes which focus on three different arcs. In the first one, we meet Xin and Piao, war-orphans working as servants in a poor village in the kingdom of Qin. However, they dream to become the “Great Generals of the Heavens” and train daily.
on Crunchyroll
by clicking on the image below
The story of Kingdom is a fictional adaptation of the Chinese history known as the Warring States period, which ended in 221 BC when Ying Zheng, king of Qin, succeeded in conquering the other states and unifying China. Several of the characters are based on historical figures.
The first season consists of 38 episodes which focus on three different arcs. In the first one, we meet Xin and Piao, war-orphans working as servants in a poor village in the kingdom of Qin. However, they dream to become the “Great Generals of the Heavens” and train daily.
- 9/19/2023
- by Panos Kotzathanasis
- AsianMoviePulse
Mainland China, July 2021: Another day another online movie made its way to the massively popular video streaming platforms there to catch the roving eyes of the viewers looking for a quick fix. Produced by Henan Guanglan Culture and starring a bunch of unknown actors, at least outside of China anyway, Tencent Video's “Longmen Town Inn” or “Dragon Gate Town Inn” in Chinese, is one such production like many countless more.
on Amazon by clicking on the image below
Set in a nameless desert, the simple plot concerns Wu Long Jian Xian (Chu Xiao Long), a peerless swordsman who has to fight off challengers from other cults eager to take him down in order to claim the top position in Jianghu. Ultimately this leads to a standoff at Broken Soul Cliff in which he is the sole survivor and thereupon he also decides to live in seclusion.
on Amazon by clicking on the image below
Set in a nameless desert, the simple plot concerns Wu Long Jian Xian (Chu Xiao Long), a peerless swordsman who has to fight off challengers from other cults eager to take him down in order to claim the top position in Jianghu. Ultimately this leads to a standoff at Broken Soul Cliff in which he is the sole survivor and thereupon he also decides to live in seclusion.
- 7/16/2023
- by David Chew
- AsianMoviePulse
Despite some controversy from the 1999 Cannes Film Festival, which eventually led Zhang to withdraw both of his films from the program, “Not One Less” became another international success, netting four awards from the Venice Film Festival, including the Golden Lion. The script is adapted from Shi Xiangsheng's 1997 story “A Sun in the Sky',' and takes place during the particular decade, when primary education reform had become one of the top priorities in the People's Republic of China. About 160 million Chinese people had missed all or part of their education because of the Cultural Revolution in the late 1960s and early 1970s, and in 1986 the National People's Congress enacted a law calling for nine years of compulsory education. By 1993, it was clear that much of the country was making little progress on implementing nine-year compulsory education, so the 1993–2000 seven-year plan focused on this goal. One of the major challenges educators...
- 7/10/2023
- by Panos Kotzathanasis
- AsianMoviePulse
‘Only The River Flows’ Review: A Witty, Convoluted China-Noir That is Less Whodunnit Than Whodidntit
Imagine the gleaming surfaces of Park Chan-wook’s terrific “Decision to Leave” stripped of romance, all scuzzed-up and grimy. Imagine drilling down through Diao Yinan’s Berlin-winning “Black Coal, Thin Ice” and finding unexpected seams of absurdist dark comedy. You are now somewhere in the seamy offbeat world of “Only the River Flows,” director Wei Shujun’s inventive riff on Asian-noir that gives the expanding subgenre something its Chinese contributions often lack: a pitch-black sense of humor.
Wei has been laying claim to the title of laid-back joker in China’s new-gen pack since debuting with affable slacker comedy “Striding into the Wind” in 2020 (a selection in 2020’s canceled Cannes festival) and following it up with autoreflexive filmmaking satire “Ripples of Life.” Now he brings his wry sensibilities to bear on this murdery mindbender, which he adapts, with a healthy disdain for boring stuff like “linear plotting” and “resolution,” alongside Kang Chunlei,...
Wei has been laying claim to the title of laid-back joker in China’s new-gen pack since debuting with affable slacker comedy “Striding into the Wind” in 2020 (a selection in 2020’s canceled Cannes festival) and following it up with autoreflexive filmmaking satire “Ripples of Life.” Now he brings his wry sensibilities to bear on this murdery mindbender, which he adapts, with a healthy disdain for boring stuff like “linear plotting” and “resolution,” alongside Kang Chunlei,...
- 5/25/2023
- by Jessica Kiang
- Variety Film + TV
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