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For three successive years, the Taipei Film Festival has collaborated with Taiwan Creative Content Agency (Taicca) on “Top Talents” to present Taiwan’s best and brightest film and TV actors on the international stage. Today, we unveil the nine actors of “Top Talents” 2025, including Lee Kang-sheng, Audrey Lin, Mo Tzu-yi, Sandrine Pinna, Tseng Jing-hua, Regina Lei, Kent Tsai, Eugenie Liu and Chung Hsin-ling. The Taipei Film Festival and Taicca present video portraits of these top talents based on the concept of an audition tape that showcases their unique styles and versatility. The videos are set to premiere exclusively on TaiwanPlus Arts and Culture, a new YouTube channel run by TaiwanPlus, the first English-speaking public broadcaster in Taiwan. In addition, billboards of the nine actors will be displayed outside Taipei’s Zhongshan Hall, offering audiences a first look at the star-studded film festival that opens later this month.

“Top Talents,” a...

The 27th Taipei Film Festival is set to open on June 20. On June 6, the festival announced the highly anticipated host and presenter lineup for the Taipei Film Awards ceremony. Multitalented performer Esther Liu—renowned for her achievements in singing, acting, and hosting—will serve as the host. Five presenter pairings, each combining popularity and talent, were also unveiled, promising a glamorous and captivating night.

Taking on the role of host for a major awards ceremony for the first time, Esther Liu expressed her excitement: “It’s truly an honor to be the host, and I will give it my all!” Since her debut as a teen, Liu has continuously challenged herself throughout her career. She noted, “Hosting is like acting in a different form,” underscoring her unwavering passion for performing regardless of the role. With the focus of an actor and the charm of a host, she is set to...

The 27th Taipei Film Festival today (May 15) announced the nominees for the 2025 Taipei Film Awards during a press conference. The nominations were led by Dead Talents Society with 14 nods. Yen and Ai-Lee and Mongrel followed closely with 12 and 10 nominations respectively. Also revealed were the nominees for the Taiwan Film Marketing Awards, which recognize outstanding marketing efforts, and the contents of this year’s exclusive celebrity gift bags, filled with refined and practical goodies to thank the filmmaking community.

Known for its million-dollar grand prize, the Taipei Film Awards is Taiwan’s most prestigious competition dedicated to local cinema. This year, a total of 274 entries were submitted: 46 narrative features, 57 documentaries, 138 short films, and 33 animations. After an intense second-round jury deliberation, 32 works were selected for the final nomination list: 15 narrative features, 6 documentaries, 6 short films, and 5 animations. Dead Talents Society emerged as the frontrunner with nominations including Best Narrative Feature, Best Director, Best Screenplay,...

In the cold open for Dead Talents Society, the new film by director John Hsu (2019’s Detention), a young woman enters hotel room 414. Bizarre events quickly add up, including a whole wall that is suddenly plastered with glamour pictures of a woman. Then the closet door creeps open and the woman from the picture emerges. She slowly begins walking backwards down the hall before going into a bone-cracking back bend, scurrying on all fours towards her terrified victim.

Before the scare can even sink in, the action pauses, revealing that this is footage being played on a supernatural talk show. The scary woman is revealed to be Catherine (Sandrine Pinna), arguably the most famous ghost in the world thanks to her incredibly effective urban legend. The talk show is made for and run by dead people, who compose a whole other world: a “scare the living” world of entertainment with its own rules and hierarchy.

Chicago – The 19th Edition of the Asian Pop-Up Cinema (Apuc) kicked off on March 20th, 2025, with excitement for the Opening Night film “Dead Talents Society.” Appearing on behalf of the film were director John Hsu and Taiwanese star Chen Bo-Lin. Hsu sat down for a Podtalk, Chen was interviewed on the Red Carpet.

APUC19th is the first competitive festival in its 10 year history, will continue through April 13th. For tickets, schedules, films and information, click APUC19. For this weekend’s upcoming line-up, click on APUC19 Calendar.

Filmmaker John Hsu & ‘Bright Star’ Chen Bo-Lin of ‘Dead Talents Society’

Photo credit: AsianPopUpCinema.org

“Dead Talents Society” takes place in the after life, where a ghost’s value is determined by the fear they instill in the living. When ghost talent agent Makoto (Chen Bo-Lin) meets a rookie (Gingle Wang) with weak scaring abilities, he convinces his client – forgotten superstar Catherine (Sandrine Pinna...

Exclusive: Visit Films has acquired worldwide sales rights to Sundance premiere, Luz, starring French cinema icon Isabelle Huppert (The Piano Teacher), alongside Sandrine Pinna (Dead Talents Society) and Guo Xiao Dong (The Warlords).

The film follows an ex-con searching for his estranged daughter in China and a gallerist seeking connection with her stepmother in France where they cross paths in the VR world ‘Luz’.

The contemporary drama, written and directed by Hong-Kong born Chinese auteur Flora Lau (Bends), was on sale for Visit at the recent EFM. Pic is produced by Sinn Gi Joseph Chan (Wine Wars), Stephen Lam (Cold War), Flora Lau, and executive-produced by Yvette Tang. Visit is co-repping N. America with 2Am.

Lockjaw, Sabrina Greco’s first feature, screened at the EFM market ahead of its premiere at the Slamdance Film Festival.

The dark comedy follows a woman six weeks after a drunk-driving accident...

With an evocative opening-credits sequence as the camera swirls through a virtual landscape of neon signs and lights, one might think they are witnessing the beginning of the next Gaspar Noé film. Thankfully what follows in Flora Lau’s second feature Luz is less puerile and exasperating than the work of that enfant terrible, but it could use an inkling more bite. A mood piece above all else, the emotionally detached drama follows two disparate, vaguely connected stories of alienated individuals adrift in a world consumed by technology that may in fact be the only path toward healing.

We’re first introduced to Wei (Xiao Dong Guo), an ex-convict working as the heavy for a nightclub owner in the bustling, neon-soaked city of Chongqing, his only real connection seemingly with cam girl Fa (En Xi Deng), with whom he just wants to have a conversation. When he reveals that she’s his estranged daughter,...

Unbothered, Isabelle Huppert vapes while wearing a chic dress after a night out in Paris. The actress’ requisite ferocious grace this time is lent to Sabine, an ailing French artist who refuses to waste her final days bedridden. But she is only one of the four pieces that conform “Luz,” Flora Lau’s alluring narrative diptych on familial disconnection that moves between the French capital, the Chinese city of Chongqing and an interstitial realm of virtual reality, where her characters are meant to find common ground. The geographical divide between the two distinct storylines is bridged via the implementation of this space.

From the opening credits (the names of those involved appear as spinning neon signs floating) propelled by Mimi Xu’s propulsive score, Lau announces the visual originality she’s after, mining Chongqing’s fluorescent architecture to create dazzling, otherworldly frames. And there’s mesmerizing imagery galore in “Luz...

The Sundance Film Festival, held annually in Park City, Utah, is the perfect way to kick off the new cinematic year. The festival helps elevate the platform of some of the most exciting and fresh voices of independent cinema, such as Flora Lau, the writer-director behind the bold sci-fi drama Luz, a bifurcated story about a man's search for his daughter in Chongqing and a woman's relationship with her stepmother in Paris, as their lives collide in a virtual reality world. Along the way, a mystical deer reveals hidden truths, sparking a journey of discovery and connection. The film stars Isabelle Huppert, Sandrine Pinna, and Xiaodong Guo.

The risk of an ambitious experiment like Luz, which is part continent-hopping thriller, part Fortnite-style video game, is that the latter eventually becomes more captivating than the former. And while this doesn’t totally happen in writer-director Flora Lau’s intriguing second feature, the real-life part of the movie never quite convinces, making us further appreciate the artistry of everything occurring online.

Premiering at Sundance, the film constantly shifts between reality and virtual reality, as well as between China and France, as it follows a handful of characters looking for connection in a world that increasingly alienates them. If the multiplayer plot doesn’t exactly catch fire, the mesmerizing images foster an immersive experience — one that, ironically enough, would probably play best on the big screen.

Set partly in the LED-lit nightscapes of Chongquing, partly in a gray and neutral Paris and partly in the titular VR game, Luz...

In “Luz,” writer-director Flora Lau immerses viewers in the mystical world of a simulated reality game of the same name. Set in Chongqing, one of China’s largest cities, the film follows Ren (Sandrine Pinna), a gallerist who travels to Paris to visit her stepmother, Sabine (Isabelle Huppert). Sabine, long divorced from Ren’s father — a successful painter — has recently experienced fainting spells that have landed her in the hospital. Despite her serious health issues, she takes a laissez-faire approach, focusing instead on launching her new gallery. At the same time there is a parallel intervention happening as Wei (played by Xiao Dong Guo), a conman who does dirty work for a wealthy businessman, spends his off-hours watching his estranged daughter, Fa (En Xi Deng), livestream her home life on a social networking app where followers like him shower her with attention and cash. For much of the movie, the...

The characters in Flora Lau’s Luz fabricate their reality in different ways: Wei (Xiao Dong Guo) maintains an illusion of connection to his daughter, Fa (En Xi Deng), by watching her live streams, while Sabine (Isabelle Huppert) grapples with her terminal health condition by living as if unaffected by it and the arrival of her worried stepdaughter, Ren (Sandrine Pinna), in Paris. The film’s characters are united by their search for familial intimacy, and the idea that intimacy and connection may not take shape in the way that you want it to.

The film runs on dual narrative tracks, augmented with the soft sci-fi aesthetics that one associates with virtual reality and its focus on how humans engage with technology. It jumps between a bustling, nocturnal Chongqing and a quieter, residential setting in Paris to craft parallel vignettes whose themes mirror each other thematically. But whereas Luz is visually and conceptually compelling,...

A visual marvel, Flora Lau’s “Luz” is likely to send you out of the theater in search of palpable reality: some grass to touch, maybe, or a hand to hold.

Nearly all of her characters are shatteringly isolated, divided even in their faltering attempts at connection. But they are bound, at minimum, through a mystical deer created by a celebrated Chinese artist before he died. The deer sits at the center of a giant painting in a seedy Chongqing club, where strangers escape into virtual reality alone and together.

The club’s most popular VR world — called Luz, which means both “Light” and “Separation” — also involves the deer, who has to evade participants hunting it. Among the players is young camgirl Fa (En Xi Deng), whose livestreams are persistently interrupted by Wei (Xiao Dong Guo), a middle-aged man claiming to be her lost father. Since she won’t agree...

“Dead Talents Society,” directed by John Hsu and co-written with Kun-Lin Tsai, is a refreshing and playful take on the horror-comedy genre that expertly blends elements of East Asian folklore with contemporary societal concerns. The film introduces us to The Rookie, a humble teenage ghost who is portrayed by Gingle Wang and who grapples with the existential prospect of being forgotten by her family age.

In a world where ghosts fight for visibility and importance, she must perfect the art of scaring the living to ensure her afterlife—a haunting license, if you will. This narrative concept sets the setting for a series of humorous misadventures and reflects our modern fixation with fame and social media.

As Hsu walks us through this strange afterlife, the film skillfully portrays modern youth’s pressures. It captures a generation grappling with the demands of visibility and the fear of obscurity, much like the...

The Brooklyn Horror Film Festival has unveiled its audience and jury award honorees for its 2024 edition, which ran from Oct. 17-24 at Nitehawk Cinema’s Williamsburg and Prospect Park locations.

Taking home the best film and best ensemble awards from the Dark Matter Jury was “Dead Talents Society” from writer-director John Hsu. The comedy horror, starring Bo-lin Chen, Sandrine Pinna and Gingle Wang, follows a ghost who joins a supernatural talent agency in hopes of becoming an urban legend.

Emma Benestan won best director from the Head Trip Jury, which honors films that deviate from the typical horror formula. Her film, “Animale,” follows a young bullfighter who begins noticing disturbing changes after a violent incident in the ring. Cast members include Oulaya Amamra, Damien Rebattel and Vivien Rodriguez.

For the Shorts Jury, Grace Rex’s script for “The Shadow Wrangler” took home best screenplay. Following an audiobook narrator tortured by...

Life after death proves to be equally competitive as the earthly one in John Hsu‘s barmy comedy “Dead Talents Society” in which ghosts fight each other for their right to exist. Their world is controlled by pretty much the same rules as those we live by – one has to be seen and acknowledged to gain respect, and the influencers dictate the trends. Even in the afterlife, there is too much work for anyone’s liking but possessing talent is everything. If you don’t have it, tough luck – you’ll be gone faster than you can say “second chance”.

Dead Talents Society is screening at Hawai’i International Film Festival

Hsu returns to the world of ghosts after his big cinema success “Detention” (2019), this time in a much different manner. He departs from being completely sinister to mock the entertainment industry and our addiction to it by referencing several...

John Hsu’s Taiwanese supernatural comedy Dead Talents Society has scored 11 nominations for the 61st Golden Horse Awards, followed by Tom Lin’s Yen And Ai-Lee and Geng Jun’s Bel Ami, with eight nods each.

Dead Talents Society and Bel Ami are among the five films competing in the best film category, along with Ray Yeung’s All Shall Be Well, Yeo Siew Hua’s Stranger Eyes and Lou Ye’s An Unfinished Film. The same five films are also running in the best director category.

They reflect the overall representation at this year’s Golden Horse Awards, with the participation of Hong Kong,...

John Hsu’s horror comedy Dead Talents Society heads the race for this year’s Golden Horse Awards with 11 nominations, including Best Narrative Feature, Best Director, Best Original Screenplay and Best Supporting Actress for Sandrine Pinna.

The film, set in a fictional underworld where ghosts can linger in the mortal realm by competing to haunt humans, is produced by Taiwan’s Activator Co, Sony Pictures International Productions and several other local companies.

It was followed in the awards race by Tom Lin’s Yen And Ai-Lee and Geng Jun’s Bel Ami, which both received eight nominations.

Dead Talents Society and Bel Ami are both nominated for Best Narrative Feature, along with Ray Yeung’s All Shall Be Well, Yeo Siew-hua’s Stranger Eyes and Lou Ye’s An Unfinished Film. All five of these films are also nominated for Best Director.

Best Leading Actor nominations include King Jieh-wen (A...

John Hsu's Dead Talents Society is a cutesy and buoyant Taiwanese horror-comedy guaranteed to put a smile on your face. It's far funnier than frightening, with shades of Monsters, Inc., Beetlejuice, and The Influencer. John Hsu and Kun-Lin Tsai write the afterlife as a corporatized competition for virality, where your soul's worth is tied to its profit-grossing scare tactics. J-Horror influences inspire scare sequences, but the film is more interested in finding humor behind the scenes as "professionals" carefully architect each haunt's logistics. Imagine Sadako vs. Kayako but as a Christopher Guest sports comedy. Hsu values lighthearted entertainment over frights in a soulful way, which might not work for everyone, but ends with a climactic showdown event that brings everything together.

Gingle Wang stars as Cho Hsiao-lei, a novice spirit who is afraid of “glitching” into oblivion. If your living relatives forget your existence, you disappear like a bad...

Ghosts usually come with a fair bit of baggage in the movies: A tragic romance leading to an even more tragic suicide, maybe, or a howl for justice from a murder victim from beyond the grave. The protagonist of “Dead Talents Society” has no such tale attached to her untimely (and embarrassing) death, and this is where her problems begin. John Hsu’s frightfully entertaining Taiwanese horror-comedy imagines a world where the dead are just as beholden to the pressures of fame as the living, and an industry has grown around ambitious apparitions building their personal brands. Urban legends live forever, and forgotten ghosts literally disappear — so get out there and scare ‘em good, kid!

There’s obvious potential for media satire baked into the concept, and co-writer and director Hsu includes scenes of talk shows, ceremonies, and gala events where the undead stars come out to celebrate the afterlife awards season.

In a hidden corner of Mancheng, a profit-seeking drug cartel is unscrupulously causing countless people to fall into the abyss of drug addictions and tearing apart families. Zhang Yao was persecuted by the drug traffickers until his family met their ruin, so he secretly cooperates with the anti-narcotics captain An Du to seek revenge. The two join forces with a plan to ruthlessly eliminate the leaders of the criminal syndicate, Mu Kun and An Pei. But what they least expected is, behind all this, there is a carefully planned revenge game – are they bound by hatred for a common enemy or do they all have their own sinister agendas? In this staged contest, who is the chess player and who is the manipulated chess piece? When a crisis ensues, do you sink or swim? Above all else, please proceed with caution… [Source: Translated from Douban]

A crime action thriller directed by Marc Ma and starring Nick Cheung,...

The Toronto International Film Festival announced today the TIFF 2024 selections for the highly regarded Midnight Madness program, which will open with the North American Premiere of Coralie Fargeat’s anticipated horror thriller The Substance, starring Demi Moore.

From the press release: “One of the most beloved programmes of the Festival, this year’s Midnight Madness highlights the wild and the eerie, from body horror to time travel, supernatural comedy to martial arts action, eccentric thrillers to provocative satire, and found footage to horror-themed punk rock. Surrounded by like-minded fans late at night, Midnight Madness filmgoers face the unknown in the company of strangers. A number of TIFF and Midnight Madness alumni are returning this year, including Joseph Kahn (TIFF 2017 People’s Choice Midnight Madness Award winner), Timo Tjahjanto (who last attended in 2016), and Fargeat (whose debut feature premiered at TIFF in 2017).”

Here’s the TIFF 2024 Midnight Madness lineup:

Dead Mail

Joe DeBoer,...

Taiwan’s major awards body Golden Horse will have a consolidated presence at Cannes’ Marché du Film for the first time, under the umbrella ‘Golden Horse Goes to Cannes’.

With support from Taiwan’s Ministry of Culture under the ‘1plus4’ Taiwanese content plan, Taipei Golden Horse Film Festival Executive Committee and the Bureau of Audiovisual and Music Industry Development have collaborated to organize “Golden Horse Goes to Cannes” at the premier festival’s film market.

On May 16, the collaboration will present five upcoming projects, helmed by directors Chen Yu-hsun, Yang Ya-che, Huang Xi, Giddens Ko and John Hsu.

Paranormal comedy Dead Talents Society by John Hsu has already secured major investment from Sony Pictures International Productions alongside Taiwan’s Activator, with the former also acquiring worldwide distribution rights and global remake rights.

Hsu’s debut feature Detention topped the domestic box office with over $8 million and also won the Best...

The Taipei Golden Horse Film Festival is to showcase five upcoming Taiwanese projects at Cannes including features from Chen Yu-hsun, Yang Ya-che, Huang Xi, Giddens Ko and John Hsu with stars such as Wu Kang-ren, Gingle Wang, Kai Ko, Caitlin Fang and Karena Lam.

The new programme, titled Golden Horse Goes To Cannes, comprises works-in-progress projects and will be presented to industry professionals on May 16 at Palais K during the Cannes Film Festival. It marks Golden Horse’s first collaboration with the Marche du Film.

See below for full project list

The collaboration was initiated by Taipei Golden Horse Film...

Patriot Games

The Hong Kong government has licensed the broadcast rights to the Summer Olympic Games in Paris. It intends to relicense the rights to four TV broadcasters in the city – Tvb, ViuTV, Hoy TV and government-owned Rthk. While in most territories, broadcasters negotiate directly with the International Olympic Committee or its agents, the Hong Kong government previously intervened in bidding for rights to the Tokyo Olympics, held in 2021. It also organized large public screenings in shopping malls.

“By procuring the broadcasting rights for these two games in Hong Kong, members of the public will be able to enjoy the Paris Og and PG [Paralympic Games] on television free of charge, and to cheer for Mainland and Hong Kong athletes,” said Secretary for Culture, Sports and Tourism, Kevin Yeung.

While the cost of the rights was not disclosed, Yeung said that the fee was lower than the rights for Tokyo. If correct,...

John Hsu’s long-awaited Dead Talents Society is set for a summer release, with an official opening date scheduled for August 7 in Taiwan.

Starring Chen Bo-lin, Sandrine Pinna and Gingle Wang, the supernatural comedy is backed by Sony Pictures International, which also handles worldwide distribution, and Taiwan’s Activator. Taiwan is the first territory to be dated and will be released through Sony Pictures Releasing Taiwan.

The story follows how veteran ghosts need to train a newcomer to become the next superstar among the dead. “Every ghost is trying to be the best of the best in an over-populated and competitive society,...

‘Tales Of Taipei’ set as closing film.

The Taipei Golden Horse Film Festival (Tghff) is set to open with a double bill of Chong Keat Aun’s Snow In Midsummer and acclaimed art director Hwarng Wern-ying’s directorial debut Be With Me, with Bowie Tsang-produced omnibus Tales Of Taipei as the closing film.

Both opening films took part in Golden Horse Film Project Promotion project market in 2020 and will have their Asian premieres at Tghff. The world premiere for Snow In Midsummer will be at the Venice Days sidebar of the Venice Film Festival, which begins today.

Malaysian director...

The Taipei Golden Horse Film Festival has announced dual opening night titles, both inspired by faith and local memories, as well as its closing gala presentation.

The festival will open with “Snow in Midsummer,” directed by Chong Keat-aun, a former winner of the Golden Horse Film Awards’ best new director prize with “The Story of Southern Islet,” and “Be With Me,” by Hwarng Wern-ying, who previously won Golden Horse prizes for art direction, costume and makeup.

The festival, which runs Nov. 9-26, will close with the world premiere of “Tales of Taipei,” produced by Bowie Tsang and comprising ten stories by directors from East Asia.

The two opening films were both part of the 2020 Golden Horse Project Promotion, a project matching event. They both have their Asian premiere at the festival.

“Snow in Midsummer” is a story spanning nearly half a century about two generations of females, a troupe master and the Nyonya offspring,...

Luz

Stuck in what feels like a Terrence Malick post-production purgatory abyss, Hong Kong filmmaker Flora Lau‘s Luz has been a yearly no-show since 2019 and we still have zero clue as to the status of this project. Having preemed her debut film Bends in 2013 in the Un Certain Regard section, we are now at the decade between projects point here. A France-Chinese co-production, the highly anticipated sophomore project has Isabelle Huppert toplining with Sandrine Pinna and Xiaodong Guo as supporting players. Benjamín Echazarreta was the cinematographer on the project here – he has since worked on Memory House and Blanquita.…...

Exclusive: In yet another of a recent string of intriguing local-language projects, Sony Pictures International Productions is teaming with Taiwan’s Activator to co-produce paranormal comedy Dead Talents Society. Spip has also acquired worldwide distribution rights in addition to closing a deal for global remake rights.

Directed by John Hsu (Detention), the feature is based on his short film which he also wrote (check it out below). The premise centers around ghosts who strive to be the most successful and famous stars in the underworld through their scare tactics and performances amongst the living. The end goal is to become the spookiest of urban legends.

The film is set to start production in 2022 and slated for a theatrical release in Taiwan via Sony Pictures Releasing Taiwan in 2023.

Bolin Chen (In Time With You) and Sandrine Pinna (Yang Yang) are set to star. Award-winning Taiwanese filmmakers Lieh Lee, Aileen Li and...

Much has been made in recent years regarding groundbreaking studies on disassociative identity disorder, or what was more commonly known in the past as multiple personality syndrome. Basically, it’s where people are thought to have developed multiple personalities within themselves as a result of a need for survival or just as a result as their own mental capacities. The concept has been transported to films, most notably with M. Night Shyamalan’s “Split”, and is now given a technological bent from director Aozaru’s Shizo’s “Plurality”, which arrives on digital platforms July 19th from Signature Entertainment.

After a bizarre bus accident, Ming Ze (Tony Yo-ming Yang) awakens from a coma to find himself under the care of Detective Wang (Frederick Lee) and Dr. Shen (Sandrine Pinna), workers at a government facility intending to ask him questions about the incident. During the questioning, he discovers that his mind now...

It seems to be the season for confusing film narratives, though in the case of Plurality there is at least a half-good reason for that. The set-up is interesting. A bad guy – we don’t know who, that is all part of the mystery – is kidnapping children and murdering/mutilating them. For reasons not entirely clear, the murderer boards a bus containing approximately four other passengers. Though hang on to your hats because even that “hard” fact may be just a trick of your perception.

Only then the bus is involved in an accident and all die in the ensuing conflagration. Their bodies are incinerated. Now they’ll never find the latest victim. Short film! But wait. Mum-cum-scientist, Dr Shen (Sandrine Pinna), whose son has been kidnapped also runs a facility researching consciousness and related metaphysics. She has the technology to rebuild them. Or rather, before they snuff out from existence one.

"Your body contains multiple minds." Signature Ent. in the UK has released the official UK trailer for a sci-fi action thriller from Taiwan called Plurality, made by the Taiwanese filmmaker Aozaru Shiao. The film already opened in Taiwan and Hong Kong earlier this year (but didn't get great reviews) and is arriving on VOD in the UK this summer. Though there's no US release set yet. A man who wakes up from a coma to find himself uploaded with the minds of four dead serial-murder suspects. These "minds" hold the only clues for the police to track down the last surviving victim. "The truth lies in his head." Starring Tony Yang Yo-ning as Ming Ze, with Sandrine Pinna, Frederick Lee, and Duncan Lai. It looks like a mess of a film that is trying to be smarter than it is. And if it was actually any good, I think we'd have heard more by now.

WarnerMedia has set up two Chinese-language series that will debut later this year. Period drama series “Legacy” hails from mainland China, while crime drama “Trinity of Shadows” is a three-way venture involving partners from Taiwan and Hong Kong.

“Legacy” is a 1920s-set drama that chronicles the lives of the wealthy Yi family and three sisters who vie to inherit their father’s shopping mall business. In a time of upheaval and uncertainty, the three sisters set aside their differences to keep the business afloat and save their family.

Zheng Yu, director of the smash hit series “Yanxi Place,” is credited as creator of the show which is produced by Huan Yu Entertainment.

Together, they have re-assembled several key cast from “Yanxi Palace” including Qin Lan, Wu Jinyan and Yuan Nie. The series also stars Han Geng (“Ex-Files”), Liu Jun (“All is Well”), Miao Pu (“The Rise of the Tang Empire...

Legacy involves talent from Story Of Yanxi Palace, while Trinity Of Shadows is co-produced with Taiwan’s Catchplay and Hong Kong’s Viu.

WarnerMedia has unveiled two new HBO Asia original series, both Chinese-language productions – Legacy and Trinity Of Shadows – at the ongoing virtual Apos conference.

Legacy involves several talents from popular Chinese drama, Story Of Yanxi Palace, while Trinity Of Shadows is a co-production with Taiwan’s Catchplay and Hong Kong’s Viu TV.

Set in the 1920s, Legacy revolves around a wealthy family and its three sisters who vie to inherit their father’s shopping mall business.

The...

Lame humor and incoherent plotting are among the shortcomings of “The Rookies,” an initially engaging but increasingly tedious Chinese action-comedy-thriller that not even kick-ass movie queen Milla Jovovich can breathe much life into. Undemanding genre fans might go for this Budapest-set hodge-podge about rookie secret agents tackling a deranged billionaire, but there’s not much here for anyone else. After flopping in Chinese cinemas way back in July 2019 it seems very strange for “The Rookies” to be receiving limited U.S. theatrical release on April 16, 2021.

Working six years after his impressive action spectacular “Firestorm,” writer-director Alan Yuen hasn’t lost his knack for well-staged mayhem and destruction. But along with co-writers Lei Xu and Kong Yun-cheung, Yuen falls short of the mark when injecting comedy into the mix. that extinguishes suspense and makes it hard for audiences to care about such silly, one-dimensional characters.

Things at least kick off on an exciting note,...

I should have known better considering I’ve seen two Alan Yuen films before: a directorial effort in Firestorm that forgets its unwavering severity in the third act to deliver farcical chaos and a screenwriting effort in Monster Hunt wherein the lead is a pregnant man with the salvation of monster-kind cooking in his belly. I should have known the American trailer for his latest work The Rookies was manipulated beyond its desire to pretend Milla Jovovich was its star. While that was obviously not the case (a common ruse studios use to shield audiences from realizing they are walking into a foreign language film—although this one being fully dubbed was a surprise), the Chinese James Bond aesthetic did at least seem real.

If I had gone back to remember those previous films, however, I would have at least been prepared for how wrong that assumption proves. Because while...

Milla Jovovich stars in the exhilarating new thriller The Rookies, opening in select U.S. theaters and in home theaters on digital and on demand everywhere April 16, 2021 from Shout! Studios. To celebrate, we've got an exclusive clip from the action flick.

Daredevil and extreme sport lover Zhao Feng (Alu Wang) has always lived life on the edge. But when he gets caught up in an illegal trade scheme, he realized he is in way over his head. When he crosses paths with deadly and mysterious Special Agent Bruce (Milla Jovovich), she recruits him into the shadowy Order of the Phantom Knighthood, which is dedicated to fighting evil in all its manifestations. Fleshed out by a scrappy police officer, a scientist and an unemployed doctor, this ragtag outfit becomes the Order's newest and most unlikely crime-fighting unit. Led by Agent Bruce, these four rookies are charged with defeating die-hard terrorists in this action-packed adventure.

Beijing-based sales agency is also handling war epic Sacrifice and Vincent Zhao’s Counter Attack.

Beijing-based sales agency Blossoms Entertainment is launches sales on three new productions from leading Chinese studio Huayi Brothers at Filmart Online, headed by historical war epic Railway Heroes.

Starring Zhang Hanyu (Operation Red Sea) and Fan Wei (One Second), the film follows a group of Chinese railway workers during the Sino-Japanese War, who attempt to sabotage the enemy’s vital transport links whilst evading arrest. The film, directed by Yang Feng, is currently in production for release over China’s National Day Holidays in October.

"Whoever's the boss makes the rules." Shout Factory has debuted a new US trailer for the upcoming release of the Chinese action movie The Rookies, which originally opened in China way back in 2019. Set partially in Hungary, the action thriller also co-stars Milla Jovovich in addition to a mostly Chinese cast. Extreme sport lover Zhou Feng got himself wrapped up in international illegal trade by accident. So he had to follow an international special agent Bruce to Budapest. Together with a crappy police officer, a non-professional scientist, and an unemployed doctor, these four rookies start a fight with the terrorists. The cast features Wang Talu, Sandrine Pinna, Xu Weizhou, Liu Meitong, Alan Wan, Björn Freiberg, plus Jovovich and David Lee McInnis as Iron Fist. This looks fun, but it also looks like an utterly ridiculous Kingsman ripoff, and someone needs to turn down the color saturation, my goodness. Not so sure it's worth the wait.

Luz

Produced by Sinn Gi Joseph Chan, Stephen Lam, Flora Lau

Directed by Flora Lau

Written by Flora Lau

Starring: Isabelle Huppert, Sandrine Pinna, Xiaodong Guo

Cinematographer: Benjamín Echazarreta

Release Date/Prediction: Luz has been delayed for so long that it could play just about anywhere. We think this might be a Berlinale comp title or Locarno if it’s a Cannes no-show.

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Luz

Hong Kong filmmaker Flora Lau finds her sophomore film Luz headlined by none other than Isabelle Huppert. Produced through Ama Productions, the Chinese-French co-pro also features the work of Chilean Dp Benjamin Echazaretta (who lensed Sebastian Lelio’s Gloria and A Fantastic Woman) with production design from Mila Preli. Few details have been released but Sandrine Pinna and Kung Fu star David Chiang are also in the cast. Lau’s 2013 debut Bends premiered in Un Certain Regard at the Cannes Film Festival.…...

Luz

Hong Kong filmmaker Flora Lau finds her sophomore film Luz headlined by none other than Isabelle Huppert. Produced through Ama Productions, the Chinese-French co-pro also features the work of Chilean Dp Benjamin Echazaretta (who lensed Sebastian Lelio’s Gloria and A Fantastic Woman) with production design from Mila Preli. Few details have been released outside of casting calls through September 2018 (Sandrine Pinna also stars), where the film completed the French leg of its shoot in Trouville. Lau’s 2013 debut Bends premiered in Un Certain Regard at the Cannes Film Festival.…...

Taiwanese director Doze Niu has been accused of sexually assaulting a female crewmember working on his latest film Pao Ma. Production of the film, starring Richie Jen and Sandrine Pinna, has been suspended after a police report was filed.

According to a detailed report in Taiwan's United Daily News, a female crewmember working on Niu's new film was sexually assaulted by the director in late November at his home. The United Daily News reports that Niu canceled a scheduled production meeting on that day and messaged the woman's supervisor to bring along the woman to his home to talk....

Taiwanese director Doze Niu has been accused of sexually assaulting a female crewmember working on his latest film Pao Ma. Production of the film, starring Richie Jen and Sandrine Pinna, has been suspended after a police report was filed.

According to a detailed report in Taiwan's United Daily News, a female crewmember working on Niu's new film was sexually assaulted by the director in late November at his home. The United Daily News reports that Niu canceled a scheduled production meeting on that day and messaged the woman's supervisor to bring along the woman to his home to talk....

China’s online entertainment service company iQIYI is giving a sales push to its inhouse productions at Busan’s Asian Film Market. It is the company’s third year at the Busan film market as a sales agent.

Titles include romantic comedy “Atm,” Vincent Zhao’s latest martial arts actioner “Warriors of the Nation” and animated feature “Spycies,” for which it launched sales at Cannes in May.

Directed by Zha Mu-chun, “Atm” is a Chinese-language adaptation of the 2012 Thai blockbuster “Atm: Er Rak Error.” Starring Zhu Ya-wen (“The Witness”) and Taiwanese actress Sandrine Pinna (“Touch of the Light”), “Atm” is set to be released in the first quarter of 2019.

“Warriors” is a story about Wong Fei-hung, a martial artist and folk hero of Cantonese ethnicity. Martial artist Vincent Zhao, who is best-known for his role as Wong in “Once Upon a Time in America,” plays Wong again in “Warriors.” The...

This year’s Asian Film Market (Oct 3-6) worked hard to address developments transforming the pan-Asian film industry but compared to previous years, business appeared to be slow.

Although the market claimed an increase in exhibitors – 208 compared to 198 last year – foot traffic in the Bexco exhibition hall was quiet and many sellers were packing up by lunchtime on the last day.

An oft-cited reason was the fact that the market is clashing with Mipcom and preceded by holidays in both China and Korea.

The number of Hong Kong-Chinese sellers was down on previous years, although companies such as Toei, Nikkatsu and Gaga made the trip from Japan.

As in previous years, the busiest booths were the Korean sales companies and European Film Promotion (Efp)’s umbrella stand, which was packed with meetings for the first three days. Some of the region’s more prominent sellers also had back-to-back meetings and reported some sales.

“The best way...

This year’s Asian Film Market (October 3-6) worked hard to address developments transforming the pan-Asian film industry but compared to previous years, business appeared to be slow.

Although the market claimed an increase in exhibitors – 208 compared to 198 last year – foot traffic in the Bexco exhibition hall was quiet and many sellers were packing up by lunchtime on the last day. An oft-cited reason was the fact that the market is clashing with Mipcom and preceded by holidays in both China and Korea. The number of Hong Kong-Chinese sellers was down on previous years, although companies such as Toei, Nikkatsu and Gaga made the trip from Japan.

As in previous years, the busiest booths were the Korean sales companies and European Film Promotion (Efp)’s umbrella stand, which was packed with meetings for the first three days. Some of the region’s more prominent sellers also had back-to-back meetings and reported some sales.

“The best way...

“Touch of the Light” sees Taiwanese director Chang Jung Chi adapting his 2008 award winning short “The End of the Tunnel” into a full length feature, produced by Wong Kar Wai’s Jet Tone Films. Based on a true story, the film follows the real life experiences of piano prodigy Huang Yu Siang, here played by himself, with award winning French-Taiwanese actress Sandrine Pinna, also known as Chang Yung Yung (“Miao Miao”) in the female lead role, both of whom featured in the original short. The film was a big hit with the critics, winning Best New Director for Chang at the Golden Horse Awards, as well as being selected for Taiwan’s official entry for the Best Foreign Language Film category of the 85th Academy Awards. The film begins with Huang Yu Hsiang preparing to leave the small town where he lives with his parents to study music at a university in the big city,...

Though limited by notoriously tough censorship, the horror genre is slowly but surely finding its feet in Chinese cinema, with directors coming up with new and occasionally creative ways to work around the restrictions. “The Chrysalis”, marking the directorial debut of ad director Qiu Chu Ji, is a great example of this, a film which though clearly of the horror genre, also works in enough grounded psycho drama to keep things from straying too far into taboo supernatural territory. While this approach in itself is common in Chinese chillers, Qiu here seems to have been making more of an effort to combine the film’s horror and dramatic elements rather than simply using one to justify the other. Taiwanese-French actress Sandrine Pinna (“Miao Miao”) stars as Wenxin, the film opening with her having been kidnapped by love rival Annie (Christa Yan) on valentine’s day. The film flashes forward three months,...