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The bond between a child and her mother is explored in Yaxing Lin's poignant short film “Playground.” This low-budget production, which includes support from the USC School of Cinematic Arts, utilizes the available funds and cast to create a dreamlike experience of survival in a reality where the world is indifferent to those struggling. Additionally, it presents the perspective of a curious little girl protective of her single parent.

Playground is screening at Osaka Asian Film Festival

In the story, a little girl named Jiajia wanders the streets at night, searching for her mother, Qun Lin. She happens upon the place where her mom works, which is an adult entertainment club. Shocked to see her daughter there but not wanting to send her back into the night, Lin lets her inside, so long as she allows her to work, and refers to her as “auntie” instead. Here, Jiajia is...

This fictionalisation of what happened when a plane’s windscreen shattered 32,000ft over Tibet ramps up the suspense in enjoyably predictable ways

This brazenly manipulative but undeniably effective disaster movie is as corny as an industrial-sized bag of week-old popcorn but proves that the Chinese film industry really has entered the late stages of capitalist aesthetic degeneration. Directed by Andrew Lau, who shepherded the glorious Infernal Affairs trilogy to completion, this based-on-a-true-story drama offers a suspenseful fictionalisation of what happened when the cockpit windshield on a Sichuan Airlines flight shattered unexpectedly while the plane was at 32,000ft over the Tibetan plateau.

Craggy-featured Zhang Hanyu anchors the story as the titular captain Liu Changjian, a terse, disciplined ex-air force pilot whose fortitude and quick reactions are tested by this sudden crisis. But the fun part is the way the film stays in the well-worn grooves of genre expectation with the supporting cast of characters,...

"This mission is a message to all terrorists." Well Go USA has released an official trailer for an action movie titled Operation Red Sea, made by Hong Kong filmmaker Dante Lam, who last made the action movie Operation Mekong. This sort-of-sequel is about the Chinese Navy's elite Jiaolong Assault Team who gear up and head into action when a terrorist plot to obtain nuclear materials is hidden under the cover of a violent coup. This pretty much looks if Michael Bay was from China, with all of his usual explosive touches. It also seems perhaps like a Chinese propaganda movie about how great their navy is. The huge cast includes Yi Zhang, Johnny Huang, Hai-Qing, Jiang Du, Luxia Jiang, Fang Yin, Yutian Wang, Jiahao Guo, and Henry Prince Mak. This also takes place mostly in the desert, despite the "Red Sea" part of the title. Here's the official Us trailer...