Jonathan Landreth
About the author Jonathan Landreth was the founding editor of China Film Insider in July 2015, and helped build CFI in its first year. He currently is Content Strategist for the Asia Society Policy Institute. From 2013-2018 he was managing editor of ChinaFile, the online magazine of the Center on U.S. China Relations at Asia Society. From 2004-12, Landreth lived in Beijing, where he opened the first Asia bureau of The Hollywood Reporter and was its first Asia editor. His work also has appeared in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Los Angeles Times, The Christian Science Monitor, Forbes, The China Economic Quarterly, Wallpaper, Reuters, and Agence France Presse—often with a focus on how the media and entertainment industries shape perceptions of China.
Film Review: ‘Born In China’ Projects Soft Power, Cuddly As Well
After his previous work, it may have seemed natural for Lu to direct a documentary about animals facing extinction in China. With China’s breakneck growth and its President talking about taking the lead in global warming prevention, what better time for a Chinese director to show the world that beyond the cities on its smog-choked coast resides an innocent China of vast natural beauty and splendor in need of protection? Read More
China Film Insiders: Melanie Ansley
What’s important is to take the pulse of everybody in terms of what projects are going on: where are they getting their financing? Who’s behind it? What are these companies after and what are they making? The China Hollywood Society gives me the opportunity to talk to people I might not otherwise meet, about work I might not normally hear about. Read More
Film Review: ‘Suspect X’ An Inelegant Equation
Western audiences may be unsettled by the idea that the unspeakable acts that Shi commits to help his lady neighbor and thus win her affection might deserve compassion. In our culture, this is plain creepy, but in China, where a generation of male only children have been mathematically aced-out and will never have a woman to love because there aren’t enough to go around, the story does strike a certain poignant chord. Read More
What Everybody ‘Knows’ About Insta-Star Jing Tian
In the vacuum left by the lack of a reliable independent press, Chinese gossip, with its penchant for detailed embellishment and invasive speculation can make TMZ look like The New York Review of Books. Add the Internet into the mix, and it goes to the next level, a web of conspiratorial, celebrity-denigrating innuendo that is wildly judgmental, sexist, and almost impossible to respond to. Read More
Does Xi Jinping Go To The Movies?
Obama loved The Godfather, Trump screened Finding Dory his first month in office, and North Korea’s late Kim Jong Il was cinema-obsessed. But what about China’s President? Does Xi Jinping unwind with a bucket of popcorn and a buddy comedy? Read More
Why You Can’t Cast Richard Gere If You Want Your Film To Show In China
Sexiest Man Alive Is Persona Non Grata In PRC Say you’re producing a project that you hope can qualify as a US-Sino Co-Production. Or you have a strong, non-Chinese commercial project that you want China to accept as part of its import quota. Or you’re submitting a script to STX, or Paramount, or a Read More
Film Review: ‘The Great Wall’ is The Best of Zhang, The Worst of Zhang
The Great Wall (2016), story by Max Brooks, Edward Zwick & Marshall Hershkovitz; screenplay by Carlo Bernard & Doug Miro, Tony Gilroy; directed by Zhang Yimou Distributed by Universal Pictures (cinemas here) Grade: B+ The first coproduction between China and the US directed by an A-list auteur from either country, Zhang Yimou’s The Great Read More
Film Review: Han Han’s Race Back To The ’90s Is a Sentimental Journey
Duckweed (2017), written by Yu Meng; directed by Han Han
. Grade: A- It’s been a tumultuous decade since producer Fang Li of Beijing Laurel Films sighed to the foreign press about the fate of two of his movies that fell afoul of China’s censors for portraying a little too much real life grit. Both Lost Read More
Film Review: ‘Demons Strike Back’ at the Audience in ‘Journey to the West 2’
Slapstick subversiveness notwithstanding, "Journey to the West 2: The Demons Strike Back" still amounts to a Sinocentric power play that diminishes the appeal of the enterprise. Read More
Film Review: ‘Buddies’ Out of Control in ‘India’
‘Buddies’ Out of Control in ‘India’ Buddies in India (2017), written and directed by Wang Baoqiang. Distributed by ChinaLion, opened in the U.S. January 27, 2017 (cinemas here). Grade: C+ A bromance with a hollow message, combined with a whirlwind of wuxia action, road comedy, Bollywood musical, and a half-baked primer on classical monkey-god mythology, Read More
MOST POPULAR
LATEST ARTICLES
- Luckin Coffee’s ‘Tom and Jerry’ collab goes viral Dec 3, 2024
- Young Chinese opt for ‘less is more’ Nov 16, 2024
- China 2025 luxury market forecast: Key consumer trends Nov 13, 2024
- Can Gen AI revitalize Singles’ Day? Nov 13, 2024