Lou Ye Talks about Chinese Censorship at Berlinale
On February 11, Lou Ye’s new film The Shadow Play premiered at the Berlin Film Festival in the Panorama section. Director Lou Ye, screenwriter Ma Yingli, and composer Jonas Colstrup attended the premiere and the press conference of the film. At the press conference, Lou Ye said that making the film pass the Chinese censorship is the most difficult experience in his career. The whole process was very complicated and took two years. When he was asked to comment on China’s censorship system, he said that his attitude towards censorship would never change. He believes that cinema should be free. The Shadow Play is about China’s economic reform and the ups and downs people went through during this time period. Starring Jing Boran, Song Jia, Qin Hao, and Chen Yanxi, the film centers around the death of a government official and a rookie cop’s investigation into the case. Read more on Mtime
Will ‘The Wandering Earth’ Beat ‘Wolf Warrior 2’?
As of 9:30 am on February 12 (Beijing Time), science fiction film The Wandering Earth has made 2.4 billion yuan ($354 million), overtaking Avengers: Infinity War as the 10th highest-grossing film of all time in China. This also makes the number of local films on the top 10 list become 8. The only two foreign films on the list are The Fate of The Furious and Fast and Furious 7. Currently, The Wandering Earth is dominating the market in China with about 38% of screen share. It’s also worth noting that the current total box office of The Wandering Earth is 500 million yuan more than that of Wolf Warrior 2 for the same duration. It remains to be seen if The Wandering Earth will beat Wolf Warrior 2 at the end. Read more on Mtime
Hong Kong Film Awards 2019 Announces Nominations
On February 12th, the 38th Hong Kong Film Awards announced the nominees for this year’s 19 awards. Felix Chong’s Project Gutenberg leads the competition with 17 nominations, including Best Film, Best Director, Best Screenplay and Best Actor/Actress. Other Best Film nominees are Dante Lam’s Operation Read Sea, Fruit Chan Gor’s Three Husbands, Sunny Chan’s Men on the Dragon, and Oliver Siu Kuen Chan’s Still Human. The award ceremony will be held at the Hong Kong Cultural Centre on April 14. Read more on Sohu
