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Exclusive: UTA has inked Chinese filmmaker and 2024 Un Certain Regard Prize winner, Guan Hu, for representation in all areas. 

Guan recently won the Un Certain Regard Prize at the 2024 Cannes Film Festival for his film Black Dog. The film has since screened at global festivals and has received several accolades. He was also nominated for Best Director at the Gotham Awards and is a nominee for Best International Film at the upcoming 2025 Independent Spirit Awards for the film.

The filmmaker is part of a sixth generation of Chinese directors, has directed and written numerous features including his 2020 war epic The Eight Hundred, which became the highest-grossing live-action film worldwide that year with close to a half billion. His 2015 film Mr. Six not only resonated with Chinese moviegoers, but saw its adaptation rights snapped up by several countries. Other titles include Cow (2009); Design of Death (2012); The Chef, The Actor, The Scoundrel (2013); and The Sacrifice (2020), among others.

Trinity CineAsia has secured UK and Ireland rights to Chinese drama Black Dog, winner of this year’s Un Certain Regard prize at Cannes, in a deal with Playtime.

Directed by Guan Hu, the feature was released in China on June 15 and will open in UK and Irish cinemas on August 30.

It marks the second Cannes acquisition for Trinity CineAsia, which previously picked up Hong Kong action drama Twilight Of The Warriors: Walled In ahead of its premiere in the Midnight Screenings section of the festival last month.

The distributor also handled the UK release of Guan’s previous film,...

Less than a decade ago, the Shanghai International Film Festival was the preeminent annual hotspot for Hollywood and European dealmakers determined to forge alliances and carve out a foothold in China’s then-booming commercial film sector. In the post-pandemic era, however, as the Chinese industry continues to mature and the Hollywood hype over the country’s market potential long ago gave way to grim reality, the festival has transitioned into a somewhat more inward-facing occasion.

That domestic focus is on display in the Shanghai event’s 2024 lineup, which features 10 Chinese movies among the 25 titles of the two main international competition sections (and not a single film from the U.S. or South Korea). For international film buffs, the Shanghai festival is now best viewed as an opportunity to take stock of current trends in Chinese filmmaking — and on that front, the event’s 2024 lineup is rich with potential.

The 26th...

Chinese director Guan Hu’s visually stunning new feature, Black Dog, starts off with a familiar premise: After spending a decade behind bars, an ex-con named Lang (Eddie Peng) returns to his tiny native city in Northwest China on the outskirts of the Gobi Desert. He tries to integrate into regular life, but certain demons from his past come back to haunt him.

If this sounds like any number of throwaway B-movies, or like the plot of the recent Sylvester Stallone series Tulsa King, be advised that Black Dog is not that kind of thing at all. First off, it’s unclear who, exactly, the title is referring to. Is it the film’s total outcast of a protagonist, who barely utters a full sentence to anyone — including his own father — as he attempts to settle into a place that doesn’t want him? Or is it the stray black greyhound he meets in town,...

As we have mentioned in the past, Chinese cinema has a knack of producing crime films that unfold in a distinct art house style, with titles like “Black Coal, Thin Ice”, “Mr Six”, and “Long Day's Journey into the Night” being among the first that come to mind. Cannes-favorite (all four of his movies have screened there) Wei Shujun returned in 2023 in the festival with, “Only the River Flows”, a movie that follows a similar approach.

“Only the River Flows” screened at Cannes Official poster – 76th edition © Photo © Jack Garofalo/Paris Match/Scoop – Création graphique © Hartland Villa

Adapted from the novella “Mistakes by the River” by the famous Chinese novelist Yu Hua, the almost entirely shot on 16mm film takes place in the small city of Banpo in China during the 90s. It is there that police detective Ma Zhe is tasked with finding the culprit of the murder of Granny Four,...

“Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves” opened in fourth place at the mainland China box office with a muted $5 million haul. Top honors belonged to Japanese animation film “Suzume” for the second weekend.

“Suzume” incurred a 55% week-on-week drop, falling from $49.6 million in its opening weekend, to $22.1 million in is second, according to data from consultancy Artisan Gateway. After ten days in Chinese theaters, “Suzume” now has a cumulative total of $80.6 million.

Nevertheless, its lead at the top of the box office chart was unassailable. The weekend’s best-placed new release title was “Hachiko,” a Chinese retelling of the Japanese tale of a dog which faithfully waited at a station for its master years after his death. (The story was previously given a U.S. version with Richard Gere in the lead human role.) It earned $8.9 million (RMB61.2 million) in its opening weekend.

Produced by streaming service iQiyi, the Chinese film stars Feng Xiaogang,...

Chinese actor Li Yifeng, whose feature credits include The Pioneer and Mr Six, has been detained by police in Beijing for allegedly soliciting prostitutes on multiple occasions.

Citing a Sunday post on the Weibo account of the Beijing Municipal Public Security Bureau, the Global Times reports that Li was arrested under criminal charges, and confessed to the crime. The bureau did not disclose his full name in its post, though CCTV later said it had confirmed that it was the actor, citing sources from “authoritative channels.”

Earlier, Li’s studio had issued a statement saying that some internet comments about his personal life were simply rumors. Li had also reportedly posted on Weibo, where he has over 60 million followers, saying the rumors had caused him emotional damage and affected his ongoing businesses.

Those posts were shortly deleted, and related search terms also disappeared, state-backed local media said.

Several brands including Prada,...

The crime film is not exactly one known for its art-house aesthetics, as the frantic pace, the intense use of music, and the occasionally extreme violence are almost always, the traits that characterize the category. However, occasionally, and even more frequently during the latest years, we have seen a number of films that despite focusing on criminals and the whole concept of crime, implement mostly artistic aesthetics, with the focus being on them as much as on the story and characters, while the pace is most certainly slow. The quality, however, is by no means lower, as the titles we have winnowed here eloquently highlight.

Without further ado, here are 10 (and one more) great samples, in chronological order:

10. Breathless

The circle of violence started by domestic violence is the prominent focus of the film with nearly all of the characters going through such experiences. Sang-hoon’s abuse during his childhood...

Major brands are dumping their partnerships with Kris Wu, a former member of the K-pop group Exo and one of China’s most influential celebrities, after he was accused of predatory behavior toward women.

The allegations have created a nationwide scandal and set the Chinese internet on fire. Eight out of the top 10 search items on the Twitter-like Weibo platform Monday were about the issue, while just one of the many related hashtags has garnered hundreds of thousands of comments and nearly 2 billion views.

“I just want to… prevent anyone from being hurt again. I hope I will be the last victim,” said 19-year-old college student Du Meizhu, who has come forward with detailed allegations about the 30-year-old star.

Wu, a Canadian citizen, has strongly denied the allegations. On Monday, Wu issued an official statement via social media. Representatives for Wu could not immediately be reached for comment late Monday.

China’s two new propaganda films topped the box office over their first weekend in theaters, but it appears that the politically correct content may not prove popular enough to drive sales at blockbuster levels.

Most of the biggest local blockbusters set to hit China over the rest of the year are propaganda titles. Though analysts believe that China will keep its crown as the world’s largest film market this year, some question whether its annual gross may suffer from a surplus of “main melody” political films and fewer Hollywood tentpoles as the U.S. exhibition sector wobbles back on its feet post-covid.

China’s cumulative box office this weekend was just $44.9 million, down significantly from the comparable weekend of 2019, when Maoyan figures show it hit $120 million. Those heights were made possible by blockbusters “Spider-Man: Far From Home” and Herman Yau Hong Kong actioner “The White Storm 2: Drug Lords,...

Top Chinese director Feng Xiaogang will step in front of the camera alongside Chinese-American actor-director Joan Chen in a local adaptation of the 2009 Hollywood tearjerker “Hachi: A Dog’s Tale,” which began shooting Thursday.

It is currently set to premiere on New Year’s Eve.

Feng is best known for his work as a director on films such as “Youth,” “I Am Not Madame Bovary” and “Cellphone,” but he has also frequently taken on acting roles, with his most recent starring role in 2015’s “Mr. Six.” China-born Chen is one of the few leading ladies with a robust career on both sides of the Pacific.

The Chinese “Hachi” remake will be helmed by Xu Ang, who previously directed “12 Citizens (2014),” a Chinese version of Reginald Rose’s “Twelve Angry Men,” and the popular Sohu TV police procedural web series “Medical Examiner Dr. Qin.” It is billed as an “original iQiyi productioni...

The Asian cinema market has been growing steadily over the last couple of decades and gaining millions of fans both on and off the continent. China alone has a gigantic movie industry that is projected to surpass $22 billion by the end of 2025, but South Korea and other countries don’t lag too far behind.

Instagram is the place where you can witness the unparalleled popularity of Asian films, actors, and actresses. The network is crowded with popular movie accounts, so it’s always interesting to follow who ranks highly in the cinematography of the largest continent.

We decided to do the dirty work for you and present some of the finest Asian movie profiles on Instagram. Let’s take a look!

Lee Min-Ho

With more than 21 million followers, Lee Min-Ho is definitely one of the most popular Asian actors – at least on Instagram. We appreciate Min-Ho for his acting skills...

Four days feels like an eternity in “The Eight Hundred,” mainland Chinese writer-director Guan Hu’s monumental, if sometimes unwieldy epic interpretation of the courageous defense of a warehouse by the Chinese Nationalist Army in October 1937. For those with little knowledge of the Sino-Japanese War, the bombardment of facts, action and characters in the 147-minute film can be too much to take in at one go. But the spirit of the mission, like that of “The Alamo,” should be easy for any audience to root for.

Since its mainland China release on Aug. 21, the $80 million mega-production by major studio Huayi Brothers has conquered $165 million at the box office, making it a pandemic-era global theatrical top-grosser. It will go down as a breakthrough not only as Asia’s first film shot entirely with Imax cameras, but also for its audacity to handle a historical chapter sensitive to both sides of the...

China’s Joy Pictures — previously a buyer, marketer and distributor best known for bringing “La La Land” to China — is now turning towards the production and sale of animation, and is at Afm for the first time this year as a seller.

So far a hot title has been one of Joy’s few live-action films: “Libai: Fire in the Sky.” A fantasy martial arts pic jointly produced by Joy, Tencent Penguin Pictures and Ckf, it streamed exclusively on Tencent earlier this year. All rights have been sold to Korea, and discussions are under way for India and Europe.

Highlights from the rest of its almost exclusively animation slate include two titles co-financed by Joy: “The Legend of Hei,” which grossed $44.8 million in China in September and screened at Afm Saturday, and “Gg Bond,” an older IP targeting the 4-to-12-year-old demographic, produced by Winsing Animation.

Joy is also producing...

Long-awaited martial-arts film “The Hidden Sword” announced Monday that its theatrical release this Friday in China has been canceled because of “market reasons,” becoming the latest casualty of a censorship campaign that is damaging the country’s box office.

The film is helmed by writer-director Xu Haofeng (“The Final Master”), who was also the screenwriter for Wong Kar Wai’s “The Grandmaster.” “The Hidden Sword” stars Xu Qing, Zhang Aoyue (“The Final Master”) and Huang Jue. It was completed and approved in 2017 by China’s official censors, who issued it the necessary “dragon seal” of Chinese government approval for theatrical release.

That year, it won the prize for best artistic contribution at the 41st Montreal World Film Festival and was nominated for four prizes at the Taiwan-based Golden Horse Awards, long the most prestigious awards for Chinese-language films. Posters and trailers for the movie were released, but it never ended up hitting Chinese theaters,...

The publicity-shy chief of Beijing Culture, which has backed such Chinese mega-hits as “Wolf Warrior II” and “The Wandering Earth,” openly urged film directors Monday to stick to material pleasing to the Chinese state, for the sake of their investors.

“If you’re shooting an art house or smaller budget films, it’s no problem — say what you want to say and shoot what you want to shoot,” Beijing Culture chairman Song Ge said at his company’s first-ever press conference, held at the Shanghai Intl. Film Festival. “But once you’re shooting with investors’ money, given the societal circumstances we have today, you should shoot films that reflect mainstream values.”

He defined those values as “things that the state allows you to shoot – things that the average people are used to seeing, that stabilize society.” Echoing the Communist Party line, he declared that “this is the place of commercial films.

The Shanghai Film Festival has abruptly yanked its opening movie, the $80 million patriotic war drama “The Eight Hundred,” on the eve of the fest’s kickoff, Variety has confirmed. A restored 4K version of “Midnight Cowboy” will play tomorrow night instead, the organizers announced Friday evening on social media.

The cancellation of the Saturday premiere was made for unspecified “technical reasons,” which is often a euphemism for censorship problems, although a source close to the project told Variety that that is not the issue in this case and that the film had successfully passed the content censorship stage. “Technical reasons” were also cited in the withdrawal of Zhang Yimou’s “One Second” from the Berlin Film Festival in February.

While Chinese authorities have withdrawn films from other film festivals – two were pulled from the Berlinale, including “One Second” – it’s unusual for a Chinese-made film to be yanked from a Chinese festival.

China’s Huayi Bros. has locked in multiple overseas rights sales for its upcoming big-budget war film “The Eight Hundred” on the eve of the Cannes Film Festival and market.

The film is set for a release in North America, Australia and New Zealand through Cmc Pictures. Distributors in these territories typically coordinate their release dates closely with the film’s outing in mainland China, which is scheduled for July 5.

The film was also sold to First Run for South Korea; Koch for Germany; Trinity for the U.K.; Shaw for Singapore and Brunei; Gsc for Malaysia, Vietnam, Cambodia, Myanmar and Laos; and to Emphasis for worldwide airline distribution.

Guan Hu, the Chinese director who broke through to international and commercial success with 2015 gangster drama “Mr. Six,” directed “The Eight Hundred” on a budget of $80 million. Filmed over a period of eight months, it is the first Chinese feature to...

This last week in April has seen, with Avengers: Endgame and the Battle of Winterfell episode of Game of Thrones, the culmination on the largest scale possible in our fractured culture of a long-simmering trend in American action filmmaking away from color in favor of a grim, murky, monochrome darkness. The TV show was immediately criticized for being nigh unwatchable on a normal television, its images being so dark and cluttered with digital artifacts, while the Marvel movie chose to stage its splash page final battle, the climax of a decade of franchise-building, not as a triumph of four-color majesty but as a dull smear of muddy gray. I’m not sure where exactly the trend started, it might have been when Tim Burton’s shadowy Batman movies outpaced Warren Beatty’s lively Dick Tracy, or it might have been when the pseudo-realism of Steven Spielberg’s Saving Private Ryan...

Leading Chinese film studio Huayi Bros. has begun sounding out international distributors in Berlin about director Guan Hu’s $80 million war film “800.” It will be completed by midsummer and is one of the most anticipated Chinese titles of the year.

Guan, who broke through to international and commercial success with 2015 gangster drama “Mr. Six,” is putting final touches on the film. Huayi’s pitch in Berlin focuses on the film’s fact-based narrative and the huge resources marshaled to deliver intense and realistic action. Filmed over eight months, it is the first Chinese feature to be shot with Imax digital cameras.

It’s one of just a handful of big-budget pictures generating buzz in China, where production has slowed in recent months. Dante Lam’s “Rescue,” about an intrepid Coast Guard team, is budgeted at $90 million.

The central narrative of “800” focuses on a group of Chinese soldiers and draft dodgers...

Films set to show at the 40th Toronto International Film Festival (Tiff), updated as announcements are made in the run up to the event.

Tiff will open on September 10 with Jean-Marc Vallée’s Demolition starring Jake Gyllenhaal and Naomi Watts.

Tiff 40

Key: Wp = world premiere; Nap = North American premiere; IP = international premiere; Cp = Canadian premiere.

GALASBeeba Boys (Canada), Deepa Mehta, WPDemolition, Jean-Marc Vallée WPDisorder (Maryland) (France-Belgium), Alice Winocour NAPThe Dressmaker (Aus), Jocelyn Moorhouse, WPEye In The Sky (UK), Gavin Hood WPForsaken (Canada), Jon Cassar, WPFreeheld (Us), Peter Sollett, WPHyena Road (Canada), Paul Gross, WPLolo (France), Julie Delpy, NAPLegend (UK), Brian Helgeland, IPMan Down (Us), Dito Montiel NAPThe Man Who Knew Infinity (UK), Matt Brown, WPThe Martian (Us), Ridley Scott, WPMiss You Already (UK), Catherine Hardwicke WPMississippi Grind (Us), Ryan Fleck, Anna Boden CPMr. Right (Us), Paco Cabezas WPThe Program (UK), Stephen Frears, WPRemember (Canada), Atom Egoyan, NAPSeptembers Of Shiraz (Us), Wayne Blair, WPStonewall ([link...