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Veteran Chinese filmmaker Zhang Yimou will receive both the Lifetime Achievement Award and the 2023 Highest-Grossing Asian Film Award for his last feature Full River Red at this week’s Asian Film Awards.

The Asian Film Awards body has said the two awards are a “testament to Zhang’s extraordinary achievements but also to his continued success.” He was last feted by the awards body in 2021 when he picked up best director for One Second. In 2010 he was also handed the Asian Film Contribution Award.

Widely credited as one of the central figures of China’s Fifth Generation Cinema, Zhang made his directorial debut with Red Sorghum (1987). Since then, he has tackled a wide range of film genres in work like The Story of Qiu Ju (1992), To Live (1994), The Road Home (1999), House of Flying Daggers (2004), The Great Wall (2016) and Cliff Walkers (2021). Full River Red was released during the 2023 Chinese New Year...

Acclaimed Chinese filmmaker Zhang Yimou is to be feted with two honours at the Asian Film Awards on Sunday (March 10) in recognition of his career and recent box office success.

Zhang will receive the Lifetime Achievement Award and the 2023 Highest-Grossing Asian Film Award for Full River Red, which made $667m worldwide according to ticketing agency Maoyan following its release in January last year.

It marks a return to AFAs for the director, who won the Asian Film Contribution Award at in 2010 and best director in 2021 for One Second.

“Having been in the industry for over four decades, I am grateful...

Veteran mainland Chinese director Zhang Yimou is to be honored twice over at the Asian Film Awards ceremony on Sunday. He will be presented with a lifetime achievement award and a separate prize for directing the highest-grossing Asian film of 2023.

“These two awards are not only a testament to Zhang’s extraordinary achievements, but also to his continued success, having won the Asian film contribution award at the 4th AFAs in 2010 and the best director award at the 15th Asian Film Awards in 2021 for ‘One Second’,” Afa organizers said.

“I consider myself very fortunate to have chosen filmmaking as my lifelong profession. Having been in the industry for over four decades, I am grateful to everyone who appreciates my films [..] I will keep learning and strive to surpass myself. Always having anticipations for the future, I hope that my best film will be my next one,” said Zhang in a prepared statement.

“The pandemic has finally passed, and cinema has returned to normal, but the way people think has changed dramatically,” Chinese filmmaker Zhang Yimou concluded when quizzed by Deadline about cinema post-Covid 19 during a brief chat at the Tokyo Film Festival (TIFF).

“That is,” he continued, “people now value a peaceful and healthy life even more.”

Zhang, one of China’s most enduring filmmakers, is in Tokyo to receive the festival’s honorary lifetime achievement award. He picked up the gong Monday at the TIFF opening ceremony held at Tokyo’s Takarazuka Theatre.

“This is like a new start for me,” Zhang said, accepting the award. He added that he has traveled to the Tokyo Film Festival twice before, but the lifetime achievement award felt like the spark of a new chapter in his career. But with what Zhang described as a dramatic change in the mentality of audiences, has his approach to filmmaking changed?...

Chinese filmmaker Zhang Yimou has been set as the recipient of this year’s Lifetime Achievement award at the forthcoming Tokyo Film Festival (TIFF), running October 23 – November 1.

He will receive the award at the TIFF opening ceremony on October 23. After graduating from the Beijing Film Academy in 1982, he made his directorial debut with Red Sorghum (1987). Since then, he has tackled a wide range of film genres in work like The Story of Qiu Ju (1992), To Live (1994), The Road Home (1999), House of Flying Daggers (2004), The Great Wall (2016) and Cliff Walkers (2021).

Yimou’s latest work, Full River Red, was released during the Chinese New Year this year and is currently the highest-ranking 2023 Chinese film in the country. The film has also been selected as part of the Gala Selection section at this year’s TIFF. As part of his time in Tokyo, Yimou will take part in a keynote session co-hosted by the Japan Foundation.

The director of ‘House Of Flying Daggers’ and ‘Full River Red’ will attend the festival in October.

Acclaimed Chinese filmmaker Zhang Yimou is to receive the Lifetime Achievement Award at the Tokyo International Film Festival (TIFF) later this month.

The director of House Of Flying Daggers and more recently box office hit Full River Red, which will screen in the gala strand of TIFF, will be honoured in recognition of his career and long-standing contributions to the film industry.

The filmmaker will receive the award at the TIFF opening ceremony on October 23 and later participate in a talk as part...

Leading Chinese film director Zhang Yimou is to receive a lifetime achievement award at the Tokyo International Film Festival later this month.

The award will be presented to him during the festival’s opening ceremony on Oct. 23.

Later, Zhang will take part in a special talk session at the TIFF Loungeco-hosted by the Japan Foundation.

Additionally, his “Full River Red,” which was a box office sensation in China at the beginning of the year, will play as a gala selection during the Tokyo festival.

Zhang, consider to be among China’s “fifth generation” of filmmakers, has had an extraordinary career that he has sustained for over three decades. His first film as director was “Red Sorghum,” which he has followed with pictures in a wide range of genres, including “The Story of Qiu Ju” (1992), “To Live” (1994), “The Road Home” (1999), “House of Flying Daggers” (2004), “The Great Wall” (2016) and “Cliff Walkers” (2021).

He...

As he proved with the excellent, multi-awarded “Widow Of Silence”, Praveen Morchhale has a truly astonishing way of finding humor in the most extreme circumstances, eloquently commenting on situations and discrepancies of the system that can only be described as dramatic, in a fashion, though, that does not become melodramatic, or even worse, poverty porn. This cinematic approach finds its apogee in his latest work, “Behind Veils” a satire that seems to touch every aspect of the current system in India.

“Behind Veils” is screening at Vesoul International Film Festival of Asian Cinema

Ana, he US-educated, New Delhi-resident daughter of the recently deceased Sumanghal Sharma returns to the village he grew up in, in order to meet his family for the first time, as her grandmother ostracized him from their house years ago. At the same time, she wants to fulfill his last wish of building a library in the village,...

A Cliff Too Far: Yimou Navigates Tortured Times in Period Espionage Thriller

Arguably the most successful and prolific of the Fifth Generation of Chinese filmmakers, Zhang Yimou shows no signs of slowing down in nearly forty years of making films. While many of his cohorts from the Beijing Film Academy remain steadfast and relevant (including his Palme d’Or winning cohort Chen Kaige), the Golden Bear and two-time Golden Lion winner continues with a new spate of recent projects, including espionage period drama, Cliff Walkers (formerly known as Impasse).…...

You never really know what you’re going to get with a Zhang Yimou movie these days. Then again, perhaps that was always the case to a certain degree. Once a leading light of the so-called Fifth Generation of Chinese Filmmakers, Zhang graduated from the Beijing Film Academy with the vision and confidence of a well-established auteur; his debut feature “Red Sorghum” won the Golden Bear at the 1987 Berlinale, paving the way for an unimpeachable string of contemporary social dramas (“The Story of Qiu Ju”) and florid historical epics that examined the plight of the working people and raised the international profile of Chinese cinema even when they were banned from screening in the country’s theaters.

Frequently overlooked, however, is Zhang’s little-seen second film, a frivolous action thriller called “Codename Cougar” about an airliner that’s hijacked by terrorists from Taiwan. So it was hard to predict Zhang...

Zhang Yimou’s “Cliff Walkers” is kicking off a multi-territory release this weekend, with day and date outings in North America, New Zealand, and Singapore coordinating with the espionage thriller’s official launch in mainland Chinese theaters on Friday.

That makes it one of the first major Chinese pictures to take advantage of the improving theatrical conditions in the U.S. since the coronavirus sent movie distribution and exhibition industries into near lockdown. That has been a contrast with Chinese cinemas which have been operating largely normally since October, and which enjoyed a record box office at Lunar New Year in February.

The film is a showcase for Zhang’s ability to deliver spectacle with vast numbers of moving parts in different settings. He’s put on live theater performances with several hundred horse-riding extras at an altitude of over 3,000 meters, staged the opening and closing ceremonies of the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games,...

Few Chinese actresses have had as much worldwide success as Gong Li, who has captivated art house audiences worldwide with starring roles in films such as Raise the Red Lantern, The Story of Qiu Ju and Farewell My Concubine. Those led to turns in Hollywood with Memoirs of a Geisha and Miami Vice, among others.

Gong has been out of the spotlight for a while, making just five films this decade, none of which had the commercial, or critical, resonance of her earlier work. But her upcoming slate shows that she’s primed for a comeback, as she stars in two high-profile films that play ...

Few Chinese actresses have had as much worldwide success as Gong Li, who has captivated art house audiences worldwide with starring roles in films such as Raise the Red Lantern, The Story of Qiu Ju and Farewell My Concubine. Those led to turns in Hollywood with Memoirs of a Geisha and Miami Vice, among others.

Gong has been out of the spotlight for a while, making just five films this decade, none of which had the commercial, or critical, resonance of her earlier work. But her upcoming slate shows that she’s primed for a comeback, as she stars in two high-profile films that play ...

Cannes Lens 2019: Kering Presents the Fifth Women in Motion Award to Actress Gong LiThe Young Talent Award will be presented to director Eva Trobisch.

François-Henri Pinault, Chairman and CEO of Kering, Pierre Lescure, President of the Festival de Cannes, and Thierry Frémaux, Festival General Delegate, will present the Awards at the official Women In Motion dinner on Sunday May 19, 2019.

Gong Li, an iconic figure of Chinese cinema, has established a truly global renown during a remarkable, most singular career. She is the first Chinese actress to have achieved success at the major international festivals, such as Berlin, Venice and Cannes, where her performances have won great critical acclaim. Her prominence in the movie industry and her strong personality have also led to her presiding at many of the world’s film festivals.

She has played central leading roles, bringing life and success to the works of famous directors such as Zhang Yimou,...

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...

It is a time of turmoil for “a great walled city” (any resemblance to China is completely not coincidental) in some undefined long-ago era. Three clans fight for control of the territory; two team up to defeat the third. Then a warrior for one of these last dynasties standing, the Yan, severely wounds the Commander (Deng Chao) of their rivals, the Pei. They now own the city. The Pei military higher-ups want war. Their king (Ryan Zheng), who is definitely paranoid and may or may not also be batshit crazy,...

A nuanced film examining the consequences of China’s one-child policy, “Baby” follows a woman abandoned at birth trying her utmost to save an infant girl left to die by her parents. Devastating yet brimming with tender compassion, the film is a veiled critique of the rigidity of Chinese state welfare, discrimination of women and the disabled, and how kindness nonetheless survives in a harsh world. Writer-director Liu Jie’s vérité style captures China’s new working-class milieu, imbuing the gripping plot turns with gritty authenticity.

With “Baby,” Liu completes his trilogy of litigation-themed films — preceded by “Courthouse on Horseback” and “Judge” — which explored the discrepancies between the letter and the spirit of the law. As in those two earlier features, Liu bases his screenplay on real-life characters. The social background dates back to the late ’90s, when the steep rise of orphans (the majority being girls or babies with...

Whatever you think of his checkered oeuvre, Zhang Yimou is undeniably a maestro of modern Chinese cinema. Few could match the international acclaim or box office success earned by the 66-year-old director, whose artistic path mirrors the breathtaking steps made in Chinese history and film industry. While his early works helped catapult Chinese cinema to the global festival spotlight, his middle phase led the way in commercial blockbusters with Chinese characteristics.

Zhang will receive the Jaeger-LeCoultre Glory to the Filmmaker award in Venice ahead of the out-of-competition screening of “Shadow”on Sept. 6.

The allure of Zhang’s filmmaking often comes from the screen divas and captivating female roles he cultivates. Gong Li, who collaborated with him nine times, remains the most luminous presence. So good is he at plucking talent out of obscurity that every time a new project is announced, the media eagerly awaits the next “Mou Girl.”

Born in 1950 in Xi’an,...

Zhang’s new film Shadow will play out of competition at the event.

Chinese director Zhang Yimou will receive the Glory to the Filmmaker award at the 75th Venice International Film Festival (Aug 29- Sept 9).

The award, which is given to ‘a figure who has left a particularly original mark on contemporary cinema‘, will be presented on September 6 at the Palazzo del Cinema, before the world premiere of Zhang’s new film Shadow, screening out of competition.

He is a two-time winner of the Golden Lion for best film in competition at Venice, for The Story Of Qiu Ju (1992) and...

China’s master of the big spectacle, Zhang Yimou, will receive the Jaeger-LeCoultre Glory to the Filmmaker award at this year’s Venice Film Festival. The award celebrates a filmmaker who is considered to have made an original contribution to innovation in contemporary cinema.

“Zhang Yimou is not only one of the most important directors in contemporary cinema, but with his eclectic production, he has represented the evolution of global language of film, and at the same time, the exceptional growth of Chinese cinema,” Venice artistic director Alberto Barbera said in a statement.

Zhang’s period martial-arts film “Shadow” will screen Sept. 6 at Venice out-of-competition ahead of its Sept. 30 release in Chinese theaters. The action drama re-imagines an epic story from China’s Three Kingdoms period, and is visualized in the style of a Chinese ink-brush painting.

Zhang has been in competition on the Lido four times, with “Raise the Red Lantern...

The Venice International Film Festival will present veteran Chinese director Zhang Yimou with this year's lifetime achievement award, the Jaeger-LeCoultre Glory prize.

Zhang, a regular at Venice, is a two-time winner of the festival's Golden Lion award for best film. He received it for The Story of Qiu Ju in 1992 and Not One Less in 1999.

He will present his latest movie, the martial arts period drama Ying (Shadow), in an out-of-competition slot at the Venice festival. Zhang will receive his award in the Italian city on Sept. 6, just before the film's world premiere.

Arguably ...

The Venice International Film Festival will present veteran Chinese director Zhang Yimou with this year's lifetime achievement award, the Jaeger-LeCoultre Glory prize.

Zhang, a regular at Venice, is a two-time winner of the festival's Golden Lion award for best film. He received it for The Story of Qiu Ju in 1992 and Not One Less in 1999.

He will present his latest movie, the martial arts period drama Ying (Shadow), in an out-of-competition slot at the Venice festival. Zhang will receive his award in the Italian city on Sept. 6, just before the film's world premiere.

Arguably ...

Dear Danny and Kelley,What a joy this time of the year to reconnect with old cinephile friends, and to meet new ones. The film festival I’ve been to more times than any other, Tiff seems to grow more personally important with each new visit—as a locus of discovery, an escape from the routine, a sanctuary and a labyrinth, exhausting and intoxicating. Could even a vérité master like Frederick Wiseman capture all its contradictions? The cinema and people I encounter during my ten days here comprise a refuge, a reminder of sublime possibilities in the midst of brutish realities. Art keeps the beast at bay, or so they say. Indeed, the very first film I saw, Alain Gomis’ Félicité, opens with just such a clash. In a roisterous Congolese bar, various squabbles hush up as a woman steps up to the microphone for a fierce, gorgeous song. As...

Back in 1992, China’s most renowned director (internationally, at least) and its most famous actress (ditto) teamed up to make an offbeat portrait of maniacal tenacity. The Story Of Qiu Ju—it was the fifth consecutive collaboration between Zhang Yimou and Gong Li—stars Gong as a hugely pregnant peasant who stubbornly works her way up the country’s justice system, rung by rung, seeking redress for her husband, who got kicked in the nuts by their village chieftain. Doesn’t sound like a potential franchise, but here, nonetheless, comes I Am Not Madame Bovary, a remarkably similar one-woman-vs.-the-system tale helmed by China’s most commercially successful director, Feng Xiaogang (Aftershock, Assembly), and starring its most popular actress, Fan Bingbing (who’s such a megastar that the Chinese release of Iron Man 3 included extra scenes in which she appears; she also played Blink in X-Men: Days Of ...

From the late 80’s until the early 00’s, Chinese cinema has been a mainstay at A-list film festivals worldwide, picking up trophies left and right. Things changed, however, as the Mandarin film market experienced an exponential growth in the last decade, inspiring many award-winning “underground” filmmakers to go “mainstream.” While making movies for a mass audience is in itself a perfectly valid pursuit, the drastic decline in quality of these auteurs’ commercially-oriented work has been more than disheartening. Golden Bear (Red Sorghum) and two-time Golden Lion (The Story of Qiu Ju; Not One Less) winner Yimou Zhang, for example, has given us splashy CG-extravaganzas like House of Flying Daggers or Curse of the Golden Flower that are a far cry from his earlier work in terms of subtlety and insightfulness. Palme d’Or winner Kaige Chen (Farewell My Concubine) crashed and burned with the much-maligned Sacrifice; and Cannes Granx Prix...

Once upon a time, the filmmaker Zhang Yimou and his then-muse Gong Li collaborated on some of the most momentous works of new Chinese cinema. The films they made were diverse. They included lush, ruthless period dramas like Ju Dou and Raise the Red Lantern, as well as a neo-neorealist tale of bureaucracy gone haywire, The Story of Qiu Ju. Though ostensibly apolitical, these films nevertheless painted vivid portraits of a society where the status quo — whether it consisted of the traditionalist mores of the past, or the state machinery of the present — was forever stifling. (Their masterful 1994 collaboration To Live actually got Zhang banned from filmmaking for two years by China’s state censors.) The pair — also romantically linked for a while — eventually went their separate ways, though both continued to grow in stature. Zhang became a state-approved filmmaker of (admittedly still pretty great) historical epics like Hero and The House of Flying Daggers,...

Cannes, France (AP) — The Associated Press is all over the Cannes Film Festival — from its glitzy premieres to the celeb parties and quirky moments in between. Here's what reporters have seen and heard: ___ Lupita Nyong'o Stuns at Calvin Klein Glowing Oscar-winning actress Lupita Nyong'o shone bright at the Calvin Klein celebration of Women In Film event in Cannes. She wore a shimmering blue Calvin Klein strapless dress with a slashed bodice styled with silver sandals. To complement that look, the "12 Years a Slave" star wore enviable teardrop cut out crystal earrings. During the exclusive event, she hung out with fellow Wif attendees Julianne Moore, Rooney Maara and Naomi Watts. — By Thomas Adamson ___ Paramount Buys Adams Sci-Fi Thriller One of the hottest properties in Cannes has been acquired by Paramount Pictures. Paramount has purchased the North America and China distribution rights for "Story of Your Life," a sci-fi thriller to star Amy Adams.

Chinese Couples Turn Out In Droves For Valentine’s Day Chinese Valentine’s Day was a big box office draw for couples, FilmBiz Asia reports. The Tuesday holiday set a record with $22.9M in takings. That was largely down to three films: Pacific Rim, which added $5.74M; sequel Tiny Times 2 with an extra $5.6M: and Fan Bing ringing up a further $4.7M in One Night Surprise. The films were up 81%, 105% and 156%, respectively, compared with Monday, Fba said. Zhang Yimou Eyeing Screen Reunion With Gong Li? Also in China, veteran director Zhang Yimou is tipped to be prepping a reteam with actress Gong Li. During a financial conference this week, Le Vision Pictures CEO Zhang Zhao reportedly said the director will shoot Return, “a Cultural Revolution story,” in the fourth quarter of the year. “He has made commercial films for 10 years, and has got fed up. Now he wants to come...

Not too long ago the small outfit Wreckin Hill Entertainment picked up Us rights [1] to Zhang Yimou's new film The Flowers of War. That's the film in which Christian Bale plays a roguish American who ends up taking responsibility for a group of girls and women who take refuge in a church during Japan's siege of Nanking during World War II. The film is China's entry for this year's Best Foreign Language film (it is also the most expensive film produced in China) and has an Oscar-qualifying run set to begin December 21 in New York, with openings on Dec 23 in La and San Francisco. To promote that Oscar run there is now a Us trailer for the film, and it is far more coherent and story-oriented than the sales trailer [2] we saw some time ago. It still shows off the film's wartime scope, but it also foregrounds the narrative so...

Zhang Yimou

Chinese film producer and director Zhang Yimou will be the 2011 recipient of the Fiapf Award for Outstanding Achievement in Film in the Asia-Pacific region. It was announced by the Asia Pacific Screen Awards (Apsa) and Fiapf-International Federation of Film Producers Associations announced on Tuesday.

The awards will be given at the fifth annual Asia Pacific Screen Awards ceremony on Australia’s Gold Coast on November 24.

As the recipient of the Fiapf Award, Zhang Yimou will be inducted into the Asia Pacific Screen Academy, joining fellow Fifth Generation filmmakers Tian Zhuangzhuang and Chen Kaige.

Zhang Yimou began his filmmaking career with Red Sorghum, starring legendary Chinese actress Gong Li in her first leading role. It won a Golden Bear for Best Picture at the 38th Berlin International Film Festival in 1988. In 1990, Zhang’s film Ju Dou became China’s first Academy Awards nomination in the Best Foreign Film category.

Zhang Yimou’s The Flowers of War, starring Christian Bale, was going to be released in China long before it would hit state side, that was a given. The film is scheduled for a December 16th release. But there was no American distributor willing to pick it up.

But Wrekin Hill Entertainment in conjuction with Row 1 Productions have stepped up to the plate and will give The Flowers of War a limited release late December just in time for a Academy qualifying run. Eventually The Flowers of War will get an extended release in January.

In The Flowers of War, Christian Bale plays a priest in Nanking who must defend his church and it’s students from the Japanese forces who threaten them. You can check out the trailer here.

Here is the official press release

Los Angeles, CA (November 7, 2011) — Chris Ball, President and CEO of La-based film production and distribution company Wrekin Hill Entertainment,...

The Chinese release of Zhang Yimou's WWII film The Flowers of War is imminent in China, where the film will open on December 16. But its fate has been undecided in the States. Now Wrekin Hill Entertainment, in association with Row 1 Productions, will release the movie in a limited late December Academy qualifying run, and give the movie a wider release in early 2012. In The Flowers of War, which is set in 1937, Christian Bale plays "a salty mortician who apparently has come to town to bury the priest of a cathedral in Nanking," and ends up taking over for the priest when invading Japanese forces threaten the students of a girls' school that is also housed in the cathedral. We saw a Chinese sales trailer [1] not long ago, but with distribution set for the movie we can probably expect a trailer for Us audiences in short order. The press release is below.

Zhang Yimou.S The Flowers Of War - China.S Oscar Entry – Goes To Wrekin Hill In Association With Row 1 Productions

Epic Starring Christian Bale Will Open In Late December 2011

Following Its Wide Release on Dec. 16 in China

Chris Ball, President and CEO of La-based film production and distribution company Wrekin Hill Entertainment, announced today that his company, in association with Row 1 Productions, have acquired the North American distribution rights to award-winning Chinese director Zhang Yimou.s (Raise the Red Lantern, Hero) and producer Zhang Weiping.s The Flowers Of War starring Academy Award® winning actor Christian Bale (The Fighter, The Dark Knight). The film has been selected as this year.s official foreign language entry for China at the Academy Awards. Wrekin Hill, in association with Row 1, will open the film in New York, Los Angeles and San Francisco in late December 2011 and the film will then expand through...

After months of speculation that went hand-in-hand with talk of Oscars, the U.S. distribution contest for Zhang Yimou‘s The Flowers of War has ended a tad anticlimacticly. A press release announces that Wrekin Hill — the company recently behind Hesher, The People vs. George Lucas, and The Way Back — have picked up the Christian Bale starrer for an opening later this year. With Row 1, they’ll release it in New York, Los Angeles, and San Francisco “in late December 2011,” rolling it out to other markets at the start of next year.

Awards hope isn’t completely dissipated by this news — but it could very well be hurt. Wrekin Hill is a very small distributor who couldn’t find the proper method to support Peter Weir‘s The Way Back, a film that could have easily earned a nomination for something more technical — cinematography, perhaps — so long as it had the proper backing.

Los Angeles, CA (November 7, 2011) — Chris Ball, President and CEO of La-based film production and distribution company Wrekin Hill Entertainment, announced today that his company, in association with Row 1 Productions, have acquired theNorth American distribution rights to award-winning Chinese director Zhang Yimou’s (Raise the Red Lantern, Hero) and producer Zhang Weiping’s The Flowers Of War starring Academy Award® winning actor Christian Bale (The Fighter, The Dark Knight). The film has been selected as this year’s official foreign language entry for China at the Academy Awards. Wrekin Hill, in association with Row 1, will open the film in New York, Los Angeles and San Francisco in late December 2011 and the film will then expand through early 2012. The Flowers Of War will have a wide release in China on December 16th following three premiere events in Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou. Based on a screenplay by Heng Liu (The Story of Qiu Ju...

The backers of Zhang Yimou's The Flowers of War, a tough period drama set during the horrific 1937 Nanking Massacre, are heaving sighs of relief. China has chosen the film as its official Oscar entry. It is due for December 16 release in Asia and was for sale at the recent Toronto Film Festival, where I saw a stunning 20 minutes of footage. This means that a buyer is now more likely to step up to qualify the film at year's end for a Christian Bale Oscar campaign, knowing that The Flowers of War may wind up a foreign Oscar nominee. (There's just enough Chinese in the English/Mandarin dialogue to qualify.) Based on a screenplay by Heng Liu (Assembly, The Story of Qiu Ju), The ...