See China

Director Wang Quan’an’s new film White Deer Plain (Bai lu yuan).

Director Er Dongsheng’s latest film The Great Magician and its trailer.

An action-packed, quickly-cut, visually compelling and overtly witty film filled with metaphors that are no less layered than “Inception”, Jiang Wen’s new film “Let the Bullets Fly” perhaps can be understood only by the extremely sophiscated and jaded audiences of China and nowhere else.

Detective Dee and the Mystery of the Phantom Flame (狄仁杰之通天帝国), a new film by famous Hong Kong director Tsui Hark (徐克) featuring the Tang Dynasty legendary detective Dee Renjie will become another hit on the Chinese film market. Chen Chusheng (陈楚生), winner of 2007 Superboy Contest, interpreted its promotional songs with quite a touching voice. Drumbeats and ballad-style melody are very catching.

Cui Yongyuan (崔永元), one of China’s (few) most “nostalgic and upright” TV gurus, shot a 32-episode documentary named “My WWII” after interviewing 3500 ordinary people in 8 years, but found it hard to sell.

Over the past two weekends, Beijing played host to three major music festivals, showing the breadth of the Chinese music scene. Local independent music label Modern Sky put on the Strawberry Music Festival, which has an indie-rock bent featuring Chinese acts and a smattering of international bands. The Midi Festival, organized by Beijing’s Midi School of Music, has a more rock ‘n’ roll vibe, a punk- and metal-heavy lineup, and an eleven-year history. And the smaller Ditan Park Folk Festival was launched just last year by an independent promoter who also owns a guitar shop in Beijing.

The bestseller book (on which the film is based) describes the professional ascent of a girl who works for a global company, DB. She is often cited as being quick and clever, knowing how to get promotions and please her superiors. The book has since then become a bit of a handbook for aspiring Office Ladys all across China.

When CCTV1’s prime time dramas come on air, the viewers know immediately what the broadcaster is attempting to address. They are all issues that affect the population, ranging from national projects such as the Qinghai-Tibet railway, to northeast China’s countryside entrepreneurship, to the lives and troubles of people on different social ladders in big cities.

《变形记》Bian Xing Ji at the SARS Stage at Chaoyang 9 Theater Reviewed by Elyse Ribbons Sitting in the cheerfully decorated small theater on the 4th floor of the Chaoyang 9 Theater compound, the atmosphere was full of expectations.  The second part in an ongoing series by Director and Playwright Wu Ran, Bian Xing Ji was [...]