Headlines from China: ‘Mad World’ and ‘Small Talk’ Submitted to Compete for the Oscars; Maoyan and Weying Officially Merge

Chinese Language Films ‘Mad World’ and ‘Small Talk’ to Compete for the Oscars

Drama film ‘Mad World’ has been submitted by Hong Kong to compete for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film. This year in April, ‘Mad World’ collected three prizes at the Hong Kong Film Awards. Meanwhile, Taiwan also just announced its Oscar entry, ‘Small Talk’, a lesbian documentary directed by Hui-Chen Huang and executive produced by Hou Hsiao-hsien. The film had its international premiere at the 2017 Berlinale, and won the prestigious Teddy Award. ‘Small Talk’ marks the first Oscar documentary entry submitted by Taiwan. Read more on Mtime

China Top Ticket Firms Maoyan and Weying Officially Announce Merger Deal 

On September 21 (Beijing Time), China’s top online ticketing firms Maoyan and Weying officially announced their merger. The two companies will merge into one company named Maoyan Weying. Maoyan Weying will integrate Weying’s ticketing services into Maoyan’s online ticketing platform. Enlight Media, Weying Technology, Tencent Technology, and China’s leading group buying site Meituan will be major shareholders of Maoyan Weying. “Merging the two platforms is just the first step. Integration is the key. The new platform will have access to both Maoyan and Weying’s consumer bases while getting traffic from Tencent and Meituan, which will make Maoyan Weiying the absolutely largest online ticketing platform in China.” says Lin Ning, CEO of Weying Technology. Read more on Ent Group

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Another Chinese Real Estate Firm Taps Into the Film Business

China Resources Land (华润置地), a property developer of China Resources Group(华润集团), announced on September 21 that the company had founded a new film division to build and operate movie theaters in China. According to the announcement, the new film division aims to open over 40 upscale movie theaters across China over the next five years. Their cinema chain will be branded as Wan Xiang Cinemas. Read more on Jiemian

‘Kingsman: The Golden Circle’ Names TFBoys’ Wang Junkai as Ambassador 

After successfully scoring an October 20 release date for China, action spy comedy film ‘Kingsman: The Golden Circle’ just announced that Chinese teen idol, TFBoys‘ Wang Junkai,’ had been named as the film’s ambassador in China. A poster, with Wang dressing and posing like Kingsman in the film, was also released. The announcement was made on September 21, Wang’s 18th birthday,  to celebrate Wang’s coming of age and also to echo “Manners maketh man”, a classic quote from the Kingsman movie. Read more on Mtime

How HTC’s New Acquisition Deal with Google Will Affect Its VR Arm 

Google and HTC announced on Thursday that Google just bought HTC’s smartphone division Pixel at $1.1 billion. According to HTC’s announcement, the deal will allow the company to concentrate more on its virtual reality division while also reducing development costs. HTC’s VR arm was launched two years ago and has successfully released VR headsets VIVE. Currently, in the market of VR headsets, HTC’s VIVE ranks No. 2 by market share just after Sony’s PSVR. Read more on TMT Post