After nearly 15 years of restricting the manufacturing and sales of video game consoles, China has lifted a ban on foreign and domestic gaming companies. At long last Sony, Microsoft, and Nintendo will be able to sell anywhere in the country. Previously, regulators confined consoles to the Shanghai Free Trade Zone. Last year, China had …
The first few minutes of The Iron Ministry are a black screen overlaid with the sound of train machinery. The darkness goes on long enough that some patrons were muttering over whether or not the picture was being projected correctly. Gradually, however, images come into view, though hazy and out of focus; hard to identify. The gears and bellows of the train pulsate and throb. They don’t look mechanical. It looks like the workings of grey, diseased organs. The first sign of human activity is a closeup of cigarette butts sloshing in a water-filled nook. And then people themselves finally enter the picture, mites living in the larger host body of the train.
Transformers: Age of Extinction, Michael Bay’s fourth film in the franchise, broke a box office record in China this past weekend, surpassing $300 million and becoming the first ever film to do so. The Hollywood Reporter had the news Sunday, noting that it puts Age of Extinction well on its way to breaking the $1 …
Ming (Yang Shicong) lays atop a patch of grass on a sea-side cliff, the word ‘yes’ in torso sized letters written across the front of his shirt. As he stands to face the sea dotted with distant fishing boats, his shirt ripples in the wind, waving the bold letters ‘n’ and ‘o’ printed across his back. Burned Wings (2013) begins on serenity, but don’t be fooled, for this genre bloodbath is anything but serene.
“Why are there violent demolitions in a harmonious society?” asks artist Zhang Jun as he leads the cameras of director Zheng Kuo through the derbies of the wall that once stood behind his art studio. His joke about the Chinese phrase “harmonious society” is repeated later as he points out broken objects that lay scattered across his studio floor.
Three Sisters Directed by Wang Bing Hong Kong/France, 2012 Wang Bing’s epic-length documentary is an intimate depiction of childhood in the context of extreme poverty, providing an observational portrait of a Chinese peasant family. In a remote mountain village in China’s Yunnan province, which borders Burma, the every-day lives of the three youngest members of …
Speechless Written and Directed by Simon Chung Hong Kong/China, 2012 If a picture’s worth a thousand words, than what can you say about a picture named Speechless. Devoid of meaningful dialogue and any excuse for doing so, the protagonist in Simon Chung’ Speechless adheres to a gimmick that never fully surpasses its novelty. The protagonist …