Entertainment

From Beijing with love

Sony Pictures enjoys its biggest ever Chinese opening with new Bond movie
Nov 20, 2015 (WiC 304)

Ling Ling Qi! Ling Ling Qi!” Even the ticket sellers sounded excited about Spectre at a cinema in downtown Beijing last weekend, heralding James Bond’s latest appearance on the big screen as “007”. The excitement has ...

She’s feeling super

Li Bingbing cast by Hollywood in Chinese superhero movie
Nov 13, 2015 (WiC 303)

When Mao Zedong said that “Women hold up half the sky,” he probably didn’t have a female superhero in mind. But Hollywood studio executives and Chinese film producers have long felt that were they to cast an actor from China displaying ...

Fleshing out the rules

New censorship diktat for soap operas makes life tougher for producers
Oct 9, 2015 (WiC 299)

According to Christopher Marlowe’s Dr Faustus Helen of Troy’s face launched a thousand ships. In China’s current broadcasting environment, Fan Bingbing’s cleavage seems capable of stirring a similar number of proscriptive ...

In demand

Pretty in pink: Angelababy
Oct 2, 2015 (WiC 298)

Angelababy has a lot to celebrate this year. Romantically, the 26 year-old starlet got engaged to Chinese heart-throb Huang Xiaoming back in May – and is set to wed next week. Career-wise, she landed her debut role in Hollywood and will appear ...

Getting lost proves lucrative

Chinese comedy about Hong Kong is breaking records at the box office
Oct 2, 2015 (WiC 298)

For anyone unfamiliar with the Hollywood comedy The Hangover Part II, it is a near-identical copy of the 2009 original: the same bunch of blokes, another bachelor party, and, of course, memory loss. It largely transplants the original ...

Hurray for Hollywood

America’s big movie studios are clamouring for China deals
Sep 25, 2015 (WiC 297)

We are not enemies, but friends… The mystic chords of memory… will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature.” With this Abraham Lincoln concluded his first ...

Talking to the stars

For Hollywood movie promoters, China’s Graham Norton is Betty Zhou
Sep 25, 2015 (WiC 297)

One reason Tom Cruise gives for why he loves to appear on the irreverent, vastly popular British TV programme The Graham Norton Show is the freedom that guests have to express themselves. “You can say anything on this show,” he ...

Worst of the worst

Why China’s answer to the US movie Top Gun turned out to be a disaster
Sep 18, 2015 (WiC 296)

The Pentagon has occasionally turned to Hollywood for a bit of pizzazz. In 2011, for example, the American military struck a sponsorship deal with the producers of X-Men: First Class. The goal: to convince recruits that they could live ...

Nothing on the box

Last week’s TV and movie schedules were somewhat less exciting than usual
Sep 11, 2015 (WiC 295)

For those taking a taxi through Beijing ahead of last week’s parade to mark the 70th anniversary of victory against Japan (to use its abbreviated name), there was no Mandarin pop music to ease the delays caused by the endless roadblocks put up ...

Not getting it

Hou's film praised for beauty but deemed incomprehensible
Sep 11, 2015 (WiC 295)

The first Academy Awards ceremony was held in 1929. It was a private Hollywood dinner in which the guests numbered about 270. In the 86 years since its inception, no foreign-language film (that is to say non-English language) has won Best ...

Mobile devices
Get the Week in China apps App Store Google PlayDownload Apps
Home|Current Issue|About Us|Contact Us|Data Privacy Policy

©2009-2022 Week in China is published weekly by ChinTell Limited, a company based in Hong Kong. All rights reserved.