REFLECTIONS IN A CHINESE EYE

Sunrise Over Tiananmen Square

Sunrise Over Tiananmen Square by Shui-Bo Wang, National Film Board of Canada

Shui-Bo Wang's feature documentary is a visual autobiography of an artist who grew up in China during the historic upheavals of the ‘60s, '70s and '80s. A rich collage of original artwork and family and archival photos presents a personal perspective on the turbulent Cultural Revolution and the years that followed.  For Shui-Bo Wang and others of his generation, Tiananmen Square was the central symbol of the new China – a society to be based on equality and cooperation. This animated documentary artfully traces Shui-Bo's roots and his own life journey as he struggles to sort through ideology and arrive at truth.

They Chose China by Shui-Bo Wang, National Film Board of Canada

 In this feature documentary, Oscar®-nominated filmmaker Shuibo Wang (Sunrise Over Tiananmen Square) aims his camera at the astonishing story of 21 American soldiers who opted to stay in China after the Korean War ended in 1954.  Back home in the United States, McCarthyism was at its height and many Americans believed these men were brainwashed by Chinese communists. But what really happened? Using never-before-seen footage from the Chinese camps and interviews with former PoWs and their families, They Chose China tells the fascinating stories of these forgotten American dissidents.

More at http://www.nfb.ca/film/they_chose_china/

To this day, I have vivid memories of this event, even though I was a teenager in a small town in SouthWest Missouri.  My opinion was the same as everone in this area of America.  These men were traitors and should be hanged or shot upon their return to the States

After watching this film, I've had a change of heart.  It was a dificult decision, but I now believe that most of the men were sincere, and indeed, they were most likely correct in their frimly held views against the war.

 Of course, I have arrived at this decision after many decades have passed, therefore, in hindsight, I now have a better understanding of the war, the politics at the time, and the anti-war views of these men.

Bai Ling reveals dark memories of Chinese army

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  FILE - In this file photo taken Nov. 7, 2007, Chinese actress Bai Ling arrives to …

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  FILE - In this file photo taken March 12, 2009, Bai Ling arrives at the premiere …

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Actress Bai Ling said she is confronting a dark chapter from her past: sexual abuse she suffered as a teenager at the hands of Chinese army officers.

Bai, 44, who was a soldier in a People's Liberation Army performance troupe from age 14 to 17, told The Associated Press in a recent interview that she was "opening a wound that was very secret to myself, that even my parents don't know."

Therapy she received during a U.S. reality TV series helped her understand what she endured in the 1980s and the psychological marks it left on her, Bai said.

She was pressed to have sex with her superiors, with one encounter leading to pregnancy and an abortion under an assumed name, Bai said, adding that other women serving with her in Tibet were also forced into sex and regularly plied with alcohol.

Bai stressed that she blames individual officers and not the Chinese government for events that have haunted her life and work.

The actress ("The Crow," ''Red Corner," TV's "Entourage") said she worries about how her revelations on VH1's "Celebrity Rehab With Dr. Drew" will be received. The show, which airs Sunday, is in its fifth season.

"The only comfort is that I'm using this platform to help others. I know that my story is so powerful and honest and so simple," Bai said. "Even if I can help one child and make them feel they haven't been forgotten, that's the only comfort I have."

Bai "did go through something terrible and was able to access it and deal with it," said Dr. John Sharp, part of the "Celebrity Rehab" treatment team this season. He is a faculty member at Harvard Medical School and a practicing psychiatrist.

She had deflected memories of "these men who were sexually abusing her" so she wouldn't fall apart psychologically, Sharp said. "But when she got in to a safe place ... she was able to admit to herself what she'd been dealing with."

Until now, Bai said, she didn't even perceive her treatment by her army superiors as abuse: "Because of the Chinese culture of obedience, you don't ask questions. ... You follow and obey."

               Read more at Yahoo

Reel China: Targets an elusive film fan — the Chinese American

Masanobu Ando as "The Chef" in the movie "The Butcher, The Chef and the Swordsman" from China Lion Film Distribution and Fox International Productions. (China Lion Film)

 

For years, Chinese films shown in U.S. theaters have fallen into two distinct camps, both driven by largely white patrons: martial-arts movies for young men, such as Jet Li's "Hero," or critically acclaimed art-house fare, such as Kaige Chen's "Farewell My Concubine." Only rarely has a movie conquered both blocs, as did Ang Lee's "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon."

"The Butcher, the Chef and the Swordsman," a Mandarin-language action comedy that hit U.S. screens this weekend, is a bit of a different animal — it has sword fights but also a music video, hand-drawn animation, slapstick jokes, split screens, black-and-white photography, opera, a video game and even a point-of-view shot from the eyes of a decapitated warrior. The movie's distributor, China Lion, hopes the over-the-top mix will lure a new audience to cinemas: mainstream Chinese American film buffs.

More than 3.5 million people of Chinese descent live in the United States, according to 2007 data, and more than 1.3 million reside in Canada. But as film distributors have discovered, many Chinese movie fans simply don't go to theaters here. They're accustomed to watching films on specialty cable TV channels, over the Internet or on pirated DVDs — bootleg discs of the latest Chinese movies are often available in the United States within three days of their home country release.

L.A.-based China Lion and AMC Entertainment launched their exhibition partnership last fall, and their programming reflects not only the globalization of the entertainment industry but also the increasing sophistication and commercialization of China's film business. The first three China Lion releases, though, have generated rather modest box-office returns.

Read more at The Los Angeles Times

60,000 porn websites shut in China

Beijing: More than 60,000 pornographic websites have been shut in China following a massive crackdown, authorities said.

Nearly 1.785 million websites have been checked since the launch of the campaign in December 2009 and some 2,197 cases of dissemination of online pornography have been dealt with during the crackdown, National Office Against Pornographic and Illegal Publications said.

The office said it has received more than 160,000 porn-related tip-offs from the general public, state-run Xinhua reported.

"Spread of pornography has been effectively curbed and the Internet further purified," the office said.

China has the world's largest online population, with more than 420 million netizens.

IBN LIVE

Chinese Monkey King story adapted in $60M 3-D film

HONG KONG (AP) — The Monkey King character from Chinese folklore will be revived in a $60 million 3-D blockbuster starring Donnie Yen and Chow Yun-fat, as local filmmakers try to match the massive success of "Avatar" by launching their own productions in the new format.

The Monkey King, also known as Sun Wukong, hails from the classic Chinese novel "Journey to the West," which describes a Buddhist monk's pilgrimage to India to collect religious texts. He is protected by three disciples, including a fighting monkey with magical powers.

The popular story is frequently adapted in stage productions, movies and TV series. It received the Hollywood treatment in 2008 when Lionsgate released "The Forbidden Kingdom," which costarred Jackie Chan and Jet Li, who played the Monkey King.

Now Chinese filmmakers are answering with a big-budget adaptation of their own.

Hong Kong director Soi Cheang started shooting "Monkey King" in Beijing on Oct. 8 with Yen in the title role and Chow playing a mythical emperor, Hong Kong-based Filmko Entertainment, one of the investors, said in a statement Monday. Other stars include actor-singer Aaron Kwok and actresses Kelly Chen, Cecilia Cheung and Gigi Leung.

"Monkey King" follows the character's life story before his India trip, when he attacked the Heavenly Kingdom with the Buffalo Demon King (Kwok), upset that he was snubbed by its rulers — a move that led to his imprisonment until the pilgrimage.

Read more at Google Hosted News

Zhang calls new film a back-to-basics romance

BUSAN, South Korea — Veteran Chinese director Zhang Yimou unveiled his new romance to foreign audiences at Asia's leading film festival on Wednesday, calling it a simple love story that sheds the bright colors and epic scale of his recent productions.

Set against China's decade-long ultra-leftist Cultural Revolution, "Under the Hawthorn Tree" follows the relationship between a high school student sent to work in the countryside and a young geologist.

Zhang hones in on the prudishness and sexual ignorance that characterized courtships at a time when China was caught up in revolutionary fever and closed to Western influences.

Hand-holding is taboo and hugs are tentative. The female character rejects help as she crosses a creek with her love interest — relenting only to holding onto a common tree branch found lying on the ground. But their hands slide and link. A peck on the cheek sparks a squeamish look. A planned night of intimacy ends in awkward, clothed slumber.

"Indeed, there are many major commercial productions in China these days. The movies have displayed different kinds of glamor. It is unusual to suddenly make a basic, no-frills small film like this," Zhang told a news conference at South Korea's Pusan International Film Festival. The festival kicked off Wednesday with the first screening of "Under the Hawthorn Tree" outside of China.

"I was just touched by the love story of these two young people," he said. "I wanted to show the young people of today an innocent kind of love."

Zhang was a major driver behind China's deluge of historical and kung fu epics in the past decade, his contributions including the martial arts films "Hero" and "House of Flying Daggers" and the imperial court drama "Curse of the Golden Flower." He also dazzled the world with his massive opening ceremony for the 2008 Beijing Olympics, which saw hundreds of performers form Chinese characters with large blocks.

Read more at Google hosted news

Digging up the ashes of revolution

Freedom is an abstract for those living in a free society, but for those who don't, it's nothing less than the unattainable dream worthy of the ultimate sacrifice.

The only problem is, freedom looks different to different people, and when the plates of history are etched in the acid bath of bloody events, the official version of freedom often comes with prohibitive conditions. Frequently, it doesn't even look like freedom at all.

For Chinese director Jia Zhangke, it wasn't the definition of freedom that pulled him into a comprehensive scavenger hunt for survivors of the Cultural Revolution. It was the smell of a fire that burns still, even 60 years hence.

Zhangke decided to dig up the smouldering ashes in his new movie currently touring film festivals, I Wish I Knew. A feature-length documentary that interviews key participants, victors and victims of China's famed 1949 "liberation," the movie rotates around the fundamental concept of freedom - and what it looks like, and feels like, to those on opposite sides of the struggle.

"I always felt it was important to record the personal stories and the thoughts of the older people who saw so much," says Zhangke, via a Mandarinspeaking translator.

"The Cultural Revolution happened in 1949, and the survivors are beginning to die off from old age. Their history, their stories, would be lost if we didn't record them now for posterity."

Zhangke says many of the stories are hard to hear, which is why the Chinese government was typically against any thorough chronicle of its bloody past. But as the tight reins of communism slacken to accommodate a galloping capitalist economy, the rules of engagement shift -- and that's where Zhangke seized on the opportunity to make his movie now -- before the people and their stories faded into nothing.

"I wanted to do this 10 years ago, and go back even further -- all the way back to 1920 -- but I couldn't because those stories are gone now. The people are dead. Now I start in 1933," says Zhangke, the auteur behind such films as 24 City, Still Life and Unknown Pleasure.

Read more at The Vancouver Sun

A Family Caught in the Wheels of China’s Industrial Locomotive

Movie Review

Last Train Home

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Zeitgeist Films

Chen Suqin, left, and Zhang Changhua, married migrant factory workers in Lixin Fan’s documentary “Last Train Home.”

According to an introductory note that appears on screen at the beginning of Lixin Fan’s documentary “Last Train Home,” every year, during the lunar New Year, 130 million workers return from China’s industrial cities to their homes in the countryside. This temporary shift in population, which the film calls the largest human migration in the world, is one of those numbers that seem impossible to comprehend. One hundred and thirty million people, moving between work and family, stoking the engines that drive the machinery of worldwide consumer capitalism. What does that look like? What does it mean?

To suggest an answer to the first question, Mr. Fan, a Chinese-Canadian filmmaker whose guile and courage with the camera can seem almost magical, looks down at a throng of migrants pressing toward the train station in the southern city of Guangzhou. The crush of faces, possessions and umbrellas looks almost like an abstract composition, until you are in the middle of it, at which point it becomes chaotic and overwhelming. In what looks almost like a random encounter, Mr. Fan zeroes in on two individuals, a married couple whose travails will provide a painful, local illumination of a huge and complicated social phenomenon.

Zhang Changhua and Chen Suqin, who come from a rural village in Sichuan province, have worked in the factories of Guangzhou for 15 years, stitching and bundling garments, sharing quarters in a dormitory and returning home each year to visit their children. Zhang Qin, their daughter, is a high school student when the film starts, and her younger brother is in middle school. The children live with their grandmother, who settled in the area when the Chinese government was sending workers from cities to farms, and who is part of a long cycle of sacrifice and suffering propelled by changes in state policy and shifts in the global economy.

Read more at The New York Times

The Chinese Violin

In this animated short from the Talespinners Collection

, a young girl and her father move from China to Canada, bringing only their Chinese violin along for the journey. As they face the challenge of starting fresh in a new place, the music of the violin connects them to the life they left behind and guides the girl towards a musical future

 

• Joe Chang,
• 2002,

What's the Toy Story with Pixar's enduring appeal?

Fans of all ages refuse to grow out of the Toy Story brand - but Hollywood can't afford to get complacent if it wants to stay ahead of the global game

Toy box office success ... Toy Story 3. Photograph: Disney/Pixar

1. Toy Story 3 3D
2. Production year: 2010
3. Country: USA
4. Directors: Lee Unkrich
5. Cast: Don Rickles, Joan Cusack, John Ratzenberger, Laurie Metcalf, Michael Keaton, R Lee Ermey, Tim Allen, Timothy Dalton, Tom Hanks, Wallace Shawn
6. More on this film

The Pixar factor

Pixar maintained its unblemished record as the company's 11th release, Toy Story 3, launched at the top of the charts through Disney over the weekend. Arguably the most astonishing production house ever to come out of Hollywood, Pixar is a phenomenon. Its films all combined have grossed several billion dollars globally, almost every one is widely admired by critics, and several have won Oscars. The enduring appeal of the brand was demonstrated by the impressive $109m (£73m) launch, which shows that, 15 years after the first Toy Story appeared in cinemas, fans of all ages are still willing to turn out.

The number is significant in that Toy Story 3 is only the third animated feature to gross more than $100m in its opening weekend, Shrek Forever After and Shrek 2 being the other two. We can expect more and more 3D-animated features to achieve this in the years to come and every studio executive wants a good animation property. While they are labour-intensive, often taking several years from inception to delivery, well-rendered animated movies based on solid storytelling tend to yield high returns. The trick is to keep the production costs down and, as the sector matures, we are seeing this start to happen.

Live-action movies continue to struggle this summer, but I'm convinced this is nothing more than a blip; an unfortunate confluence of poorly executed material. It will pass. Hollywood will always churn out movies of varying quality – there will be plenty more shockers and delights in the years ahead. The question is, when will the theatrical experience level out – and what will that level be?

Read more at The Guardian

 

No 'fight for fight's sake'

John Woo's new film has martial arts, but also women and love, reports Liu Wei

John Woo describes his new Chinese film as a cross between Mr. and Mrs. Smith and Face/Off, only set in ancient China.

Titled Reign of Assassins, it follows a female assassin who wants to become a housewife. But it is not easy to abandon one's past.

Armed with an ancient monk's remains that can unleash destructive power, she embarks on a deadly pursuit of other assassins.

It is scripted by Taiwan director Su Chao-pin and co-directed by Woo, who says he loves the story.

"I think he (Su) was inspired by Face/Off, but he will not admit it," Woo says, with his signature shy smile. "Both stories are about people who want to destroy their past and lead a different life. But that is difficult."

The story also has shades of Mr. and Mrs. Smith in that the assassin marries a skilled swordsman who works as a postman.

"I love the story because it is very different from most wuxia films," Woo says. "It tells human-interest stories, while many wuxia (stories are about) just fight for fight's sake."

Also, the film is a dream come true for the 64-year-old veteran. Known for gunplay films such as A Better Tomorrow and Windtalkers, Woo has long wanted to shoot films about wuxia, women and love. Now he has all in one film.

"Sword is the new gun in this film," he says. "Gun or sword, as long as they are used right, can stand for integrity and justice, not violence."

Michelle Yeoh, star of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and Mummy 3, leads the cast. An old friend of Woo, she wins high praise from the director.

"She is as brave as Jackie Chan," Woo says. "She used to be a dancer, so her fighting sequences are both beautiful and powerful."

The film is also a love story, Woo says. "You will see how a woman gives up everything for love."

Yeoh, in turn, describes Woo as the real star on the set.

"Every day I find more and more people on the set, all fans of Woo," she laughs. "Everybody wants to watch how he directs the film. He is very gentlemanly, always smiling, (saying) okay, good, but (what about) another take?"

Yeoh also says Woo gives Su much freedom to direct. He always seeks Su's opinion first, before giving his advice.

"He never tells Su to do something or not to do something, I think this is the way really accomplished men do things," Yeoh gushes.

Su is not the first young director Woo has supported. He has produced the works of two young directors and is aiding Taiwan director Wei Te-Sheng's new epic Seediq Bale (literally "a real man" in the language of the Seediqs, a Taiwan aboriginal group).

"I like working with young talents," he says. "Sometimes, they just need an opportunity."

Read more at asiaone

Foreigners getting bigger roles on Chinese TV

Along with men in fedoras and 1930s cars, the costume drama "Grassroots King" has a feature that nearly every Chinese TV show seems to require these days: a Western character.

Kerry Brogan, an actress from Newton, Mass., who plays the lead character's British girlfriend, is one of dozens of foreign performers on Chinese TV, recruited to appeal to increasingly worldly audiences.

Our audiences are no longer satisfied to watch foreign characters played by Chinese in a wig," said Yan Hao, a producer of "Feng Yu," a spy thriller whose cast includes three Western actors.

Producers who used to hire exchange students and other foreign amateurs to supply a dash of nonspeaking exotic color to TV shows now put out casting calls as far as the United States and Europe for professionals. They appear in productions as diverse as war stories and romances, and some host variety shows.

Brogan, a Mandarin speaker in her 20s, said she has appeared in 40 movies and TV productions. In "Grassroots King," a saga set in the turbulent years before World War II, she has a speaking role as a regularly appearing character.

"There's much greater desire to work together between Westerners and mainland Chinese people," Brogan said. "The market has a greater need."

Yan said Chinese audiences are looking for entertainment that reflects the world they see on the Internet and in China itself as society becomes more cosmopolitan.

Read more at theLos Angeles Times

Cold War: China (1949-1972)

Mixed messages from the merry men

CHINESE cinema-goers will later this month thrill to Russell Crowe and Cate Blanchett, as Robin Hood and Maid Marian, flinging the filthy French from the beloved homeland.

Their movie has been selected as one of the 20 foreign films annually given access to China.

At first blush, stealing from the rich and giving to the poor might seem the perfect theme for a society that has been avowedly communist for 60 years.

This, after all, was the way Mao Zedong came to power: leading a revolt against fat rural landowners and inherited wealth.

But a second take leads to different thoughts. Today, it is the Communist Party that is the establishment, and it is cadres who hold most of the keys to privilege and power. The wealthy are expected to become party members.

So who will Chinese viewers identify, if their thoughts turn to today's parallels, as the heroes and villains?

An erroneous view has taken root abroad, following the communist ascendancy, that China's culture is now - as people wrongly presume it always had been - one of subservience and deference to The Powers That Be: the kowtow as kosher.

If so, then, Chinese viewers of Robin Hood will rather focus on the theme of the righteous ruler returning to claim what is rightfully his, rather than on revolt.

The triads can be traced back, legend has it, to secretly loyal followers of the displaced Ming dynasty who conspired to undermine the succeeding Qing rulers, the Manchus, who had swept in from the northeast, from beyond the Great Wall. In this reading, the cruel yet oddly effete French rulers of England in Ridley film might have their equivalents in the Manchu-speaking barbarian Qing emperors.

Read more at The Australian

China is Pissed Over 'Red Dawn' Remake

The United States was invaded by the Soviet Union in 1984 -- at least in John Milius' Red Dawn. The remake of the war film is due out later this year, but since the Soviet Union no longer exists the conquering force has been changed to a coalition of the Russians and the Chinese. This has one of China's state-run newspapers up in arms. Fan-made posters for the film aren't helping the cause either. Images released online show a cracked red, white and blue U.S. map stamped with the People's Liberation Army star and the slogan, "Rebuilding Your Reputation."

Chinese newspaper headlines read "U.S. Reshoots Cold War Movie to Demonize China," and "American Movie Plants Hostile Seeds Against China," which goes to prove that secretary of state Hilary Clinton's recent visit to strengthen relations didn't do much to dissuade suspicion and fear. An excerpt from the Global Times had this to say on the subject: "Despite the world's focus on U.S.-China relations in the strategic and economic dialogue and their increasing economic connections, China can still feel U.S. distrust and fear, especially among its people. Americans' suspicions about China are the best ground for the hawks to disseminate fear and doubt, which is the biggest concern with the movie Red Dawn."

What seems particularly interesting about this is that I see China's point on some levels. Placing them in a villain's role isn't quite the same as using the Soviets back in the day. The Soviets were the enemy, while the Chinese-U.S. relationship is very different. However, the Chinese commentators apparently believe all American audiences are ignorant and incapable of differentiating between reality and fiction. I doubt many people will walk out of a Red Dawn remake thinking they've just viewed a documentary or a prophetic film about the imminent future and ready to take up arms.

This whole story becomes even more bizarre when you stop and realize that they're outraged over a remake of Red Dawn. The 1984 original is certainly a cheesy cult classic, but a remake -- starring Tom Cruise's son Connor and due out later this year -- isn't guaranteed to reach even that status. Truthfully, if China should be mad about anything, they should complain that the chief villain, Captain Lo, is played by Will Yun-Lee -- a Korean actor.

What do you think? Is this much ado about nothing or does China have a point? And how happy are the suits at MGM to be getting all this free publicity? Hit the comments section and tell us what you think.

[via ABC News]

Banned Chinese Independent Documentaries Shine Overseas

Independent documentaries from mainland China have received increased attention and recognition overseas in recent years. (Getty images)

Independent documentaries from mainland China have received increased attention and recognition overseas in recent years. The 2010 Buenos Aires International Festival of Independent Cinema has added a new category, “Radical Visions From China,” consisting of eight locally based contemporary filmmakers.

Four of the eight winning entries of Humanitarian Awards for Documentaries shown during the Hong Kong International film Festival that concluded on April 6 were productions by mainland Chinese directors.

One of the award winners was Petition, a 12-year project by 39-year-old Zhao Liang. The documentary that recorded the stories of a group of petitioners in Beijing was to be shown by invitation at a special screening in Cannes last March. The movie was banned in China right after its debut at the Beijing Independent Film Festival.

Zhao Liang remarked that Petition is more important for Chinese audiences than foreign audiences, because many people in China have no idea that incredible things like this happened and are still happening in their own country.

Read more at The Epoch Times

China's bumper box office

HONG KONG (MarketWatch) -- Grabbing some popcorn and taking in a movie is a habit few of us think twice about. In China it's been a different proposition, however, when cinemas are often old and run down, and there's a much better selection of movies free on the Web or pirated on DVD.

But now, new figures showing a huge jump in Chinese box-office receipts send a clear message -- mainland Chinese have caught the habit of paying for content.

As the industry leapfrogs into the modern age of digital and 3D cinemas, it has also stumbled onto a massive new movie audience. This will be making studio executives from Hong Kong to Hollywood sit up and take notice.

To foreign studios, China must have seemed like one long horror movie, with overseas films limited by quota to 20 a year, with a gross revenue share, and with piracy losses so large that few even bothered to try counting.

It could now be time for a new China script.

Read more at MarketWatch

Why does Japan STILL refuse to face up to the atrocity its army revelled in? Two new films have reopened old wounds about the Nanking Massacre

The competition was reported in a Tokyo newspaper, and it was clear that two soldiers of the Japanese Imperial Army were partaking with extraordinary enthusiasm. 

‘Incredible record in the contest to behead 100 people!’ screamed the headline with gruesome relish. ‘Mukai 106 - 105 Noda - Both 2nd Lieutenants go into extra innings.’

According to the report, two junior officers had a wager to see who could decapitate 100 Chinese soldiers first.

Brutal history: A scene from the new film City Of Life And Death

But they hit their target so quickly that they decided to set a new goal of 150. The date was December 13, 1937, and the Japanese Imperial Army was in the process of ruthlessly conquering Nanking, which was then the capital of China.

Ten years later, the story came to the attention of the Nanjing War Crimes Tribunal.

Second Lieutenants Mukai and Noda were extradited from Japan and executed.

Hitler and Stalin may have killed millions more by gassing or starving, but the sheer velocity of the Nanking massacre is what takes the breath away.

In just six weeks, hundreds of thousands of Chinese soldiers and civilians were slaughtered by the Imperial Army in and around Nanking.

Quite how many hundreds of thousands has never been agreed.

China claims 300,000. The official tribunal put the death toll at 200,000.

Read more at The Daily Mail Online

High plains director

Tibetan director Pema Tseden's life has been in a spin recently. Just arrived back in Beijing after a three-week visit to the US, where he screened his films and exchanged ideas in several universities and Asian societies, Pema hasn't yet overcome the jetlag. During the sleepiest hours of the day, he still comes out to meet his crew about his new film, although he can barely open his eyes.

Two cellphones rang continuously in his coat pocket, with the occasional text messages beeping in. Pema answered every one of them without delay, switching between Chinese and Tibetan. Pema speaks Amdo dialect, one of the three Tibetan dialects widely spoken in Qinghai Province, the same as the characters in his films.

Fast fame

As a director who has only graduated from Beijing Film Academy last year, fame seems to have arrived too fast for Pema. His first long film, The Silent Holy Stones, won a fistfull of international awards and nominations; and he was invited to New York as one of the five directors representing Chinese independent cinema, together with Jia Zhangke and Li Yang, whose films won prizes in Venice and Berlin.

Read more at Global Times

The East is Red

Added to the director's chair - THE EAST IS RED!

The dance epic was created on the initiative of Premier Zhou Enlai. Employing the art forms of song, dance and poetry, it depicted the arduous struggle of the Chinese people to achieve victory from past hardships. The team of directors and choreographers was led by Chen Yading and Zhou Weizhi. Both of them were artists and administrators in art and literature circles. There were 29 choreographers led by Zha Lie involved in this work and rehearsals for the dance epic lasted for months. The premiere of the work and the following performances were all held at the Great Hall of the People.

richien

More at the director's chair

Is He Kidding? Mickey Rourke as Genghis Khan?

If you're annoyed about random Asian characters being re-done by the white folk, how about this: Mickey Rourke told the Orlando Sentinel that he is going to play Genghis Khan in an upcoming biopic. Genghis. Khan. In other words, the Mongolian emperor whose invasions of neighboring lands earned him much of Central Asia and China, before successors stretched the barriers even further.

As a story of conquest, we're talking the thundering hooves of horses, large-scale massacres, and all the charming aspects of war -- prime content for a man like Rourke. But playing an Asian conqueror? What is this? 1965 and Laurence Olivier playing Othello? 1956 and John Wayne playing Genghis? It would be just as weird as John Cho playing Christopher Columbus. Anyhow, Rourke says that John Milius, the pen behind Red Dawn and Apocalypse Now, wrote the script, and it will focus on how Genghis' son and grandson saw him. "You see him in flashbacks, back when he was in his mid-40s. And back then, being in your mid-40s was being REALLY old." Rourke goes on to discuss how he's probably a better horse rider than he is a car driver, has his great stunt crew ready for the gig, and really likes that Khan was also a dog lover: "in one instance, in this script, he orders his men -- 'Hold the dogs back.' He was looking out for the dogs. I like that."

Is Rourke just kidding? Is this really happening? Weigh in with your thoughts below.

Cinematical

Top China Video Site Steps Up Its Piracy Fight

Youku Is Latest to Use Technology to 'Fingerprint' Copyrighted Content as Popular Site Tries to Lure Advertisers

BEIJING—China's most popular online video site, Youku.com Inc., is trying to shed its reputation for abetting piracy by taking a page from YouTube's playbook: using technology to "fingerprint" videos, making it easier to find unlicensed copies.

The Beijing-based company, which has been sued over pirated videos, has developed a content-filtering system that generates identifying codes based on characteristics like color combinations and brightness. The company is using the system to help step up its removal of unlicensed content and says the technology will allow copyright owners to search Youku's database for unlicensed copies.

Youku has already started using the fingerprinting technology to find and remove content prohibited by Chinese government censors, a process that was previously done mainly by workers scanning video clips. Chinese authorities require Web sites operating in the country to remove certain content, including pornography and politically sensitive topics such as the spiritual group Falun Gong, and authorities can shutter any sites that don't comply.

Read more at The Wall Street Journal

'Bodyguards and Assassins' dominates HK awards

HONG KONG — An action thriller about a group of volunteers who protect modern China's founding father from imperial assassins dominated the Hong Kong Film Awards, winning best film and seven other awards.

"Bodyguards and Assassins" also clinched best director for Hong Kong filmmaker Teddy Chen.

"Echoes of the Rainbow," a nostalgic look back at 1960s Hong Kong, won best script for director Alex Law. Veteran Simon Yam, who plays a quiet, hardworking cobbler in the movie, was named best actor at Sunday's ceremony.

Wai Ying-hung was crowned best actress for portraying a single mother whose son faces rape charges in "At the End of Daybreak."

Best supporting actor went to Nicholas Tse, who was a rickshaw driver in "Bodyguards and Assassins." Michelle Ye won best supporting actress for "Accident," in which she is part of a criminal team that masquerades murders as accidents.

Read more at Google News

China gets ready to declare love for Tagore

BEIJING: The Chinese seem to be falling in love with Rabindranath Tagore all over again. The Indian Nobel laureate is to be feted through busts, books and films in the country which he visited twice in the 1920s and, amid controversy, left an influence on the literature of the time.

While a statue of the poet is being put up in Shanghai, a major project of translating his complete works in 28 volumes has been undertaken by a government-run publishing house. Besides, Tagore's birth anniversary will be celebrated in the presence of an international audience at the Indian pavilion during the World Expo in Shanghai on May 10.

Read more at The Times of India