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China’s Bona Film Group has unveiled an ambitious 26-picture slate to celebrate the company’s 15th anniversary, along with a strategic cooperation with Huaxia Film Distribution.

Bona Film Group founder and CEO Yu Dong said he expected the slate would gross a combined $1.6bn (RMB10bn) at the China box office. The slate announcement came just days after it emerged that Bona is trying to delist from the Nasdaq.

Speaking at the Siff Forum on Monday, Yu Dong said it wasn’t surprising that he wanted to take his company private again because “my audience and customers are in China – coming home is the wish of all our investors and partners.”

Bona, which floated on New York’s Nasdaq exchange in 2010, currently has investors including Studio 8 backer Fosun International and private equity company Sequoia.

The company’s new slate includes Ang Lee’s previously announced Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk, which Bona is...

Oliver Stone was characteristically outspoken on the second day of the Beijing International Film Festival (Bjiff), challenging China to rethink international co-productions and start making films that examine its past.

Speaking at the Sino-Foreign Film Co-production Forum, Stone said, “most international co-productions are bullshit”, due to their bad acting and casting, as expecting actors to use a second language usually doesn’t work.

“The international ballgame has gotten bigger and bigger with films like Iron Man 3 and Transformers,” Stone said, referring to the trend of incorporating Chinese elements into studio pictures. “I hope they use China well. But using Chinese actors in the background because you want money is not an artistic approach.”

Stone also said he’s “run into a wall” three times trying to make films in China about Mao Tse-tung, the Cultural Revolution and a documentary around the Beijing Olympics. “Three times I’ve made real efforts to coproduce and come up short...

Oliver Stone was characteristically outspoken on the second day of the Beijing International Film Festival (Bjiff), challenging China to rethink international co-productions and start making films that examine its past.

Speaking at the Sino-Foreign Film Co-production Forum, Stone said, “most international co-productions are bullshit”, due to their bad acting and casting, as expecting actors to use a second language usually doesn’t work.

“The international ballgame has gotten bigger and bigger with films like Iron Man 3 and Transformers,” Stone said, referring to the trend of incorporating Chinese elements into studio pictures. “I hope they use China well. But using Chinese actors in the background because you want money is not an artistic approach.”

Stone also said he’s “run into a wall” three times trying to make films in China about Mao Tse-tung, the Cultural Revolution and a documentary around the Beijing Olympics. “Three times I’ve made real efforts to coproduce and come up short...

Competition section includes six world premieres and titles from Koji Fukada, Jun Robles Lana and Lee Ju-hyoung.Scroll down for Competition list

The 26th Tokyo International Film Festival (Tiff) has announced its line-up with six world premieres in the Competition section including Hospitalité director Koji Fukada’s Au revoir l’été, Jun Robles Lana’s previous Haf project Barber’s Tales and the Kim Ki-duk-produced Red Family.

Those that are not world premieres are all Asian premieres including Aaron Fernandez’s San Sebastian entry The Empty Hours.

Chen Kaige, the Chinese director behind Farewell My Concubine, will head the competition jury. He will be joined by Korean actress Moon So-ri (Oasis), Australian producer Chris Brown (Daybreakers), Us director-writer-producer Chris Weitz (The Twilight Saga: New Moon), and Japanese actress Shinobu Terajima (Caterpillar).

Tiff is set to run Oct 17-25 with new festival head Yasushi Shiina putting an emphasis on showcasing homegrown productions and discovering Asian talent.

The newly launched...

Man of Tai Chi is not the only star vehicle this year for the next generation of Hong Kong action actor, Tiger Chen. The protege of Yuen Woo Ping's stunt team will also headline Kung Fu Man (aka Kung Fu Hero), an English / Chinese-language family action film directed by Ning Ying & Yuen Cheung Yan and produced by Keanu Reeves.In the film, Chen plays a Chinese "Kung Fu man" who protects a young boy from his kidnappers. Unlike other superhero films, there are no special effects or no stunt doubles, just pure genuine kung fu skills.The release date in China is on July 19th. You'll find the trailer embedded below....

[Read the whole post on twitchfilm.com...]...

It seems oddly fitting a movie ostensibly about mental illness should be one of the most schizophrenic releases of the past decade. Sadly this isn't meant as a compliment. Perhaps The Double Life's spastic tonal shifts, disconnected editing and its cast who seem as if they're acting in four or five different films each were intentional stylistic choices on the part of director Ning Ying (Perpetual Motion), but for the most part they're good for little more than (unintentional) hysterical laughter.

The narrative attempts to weave together two simultaneous plot threads; first a charismatic university lecturer in psychology, under pressure from his dean to curb his cavalier approach to education, has himself committed to an institution. Second, a security guard at that same institution discovers his ex-wife has also just been admitted as a patient (Zhang Jingchu, Beast Stalker, The Road, Jade Warrior, who can charitably be described as slumming...