‘Black Dog’ Review: A Resonant, Visually Resplendent China-Noir About Taming the Mad Dog Within

Thousands of candidates are standing to be an MP at the general election on July 4 with some political parties standing in almost every seat in Britain. The Conservatives, Labour, the Lib Dems and the Greens have the highest number with Reform UK close behind.

Martin Lawrence is shutting down speculation that there is cause for concern about his health. The actor debunked rumors following his appearance at the “Bad Boys: Ride or Die” LA premiere.Last week, a clip went viral showing Lawrence and co-star Will Smith on top of a bus and greeting fans.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Two foreign-made animation movies opened on top of the mainland China box office over the latest weekend. Japanese film, “Doraemon the Movie: Nobita’s Earth Symphony” landed in first place, ahead of “The Garfield Movie,” though the match-up was not like-for-like. According to data from consultancy Artisan Gateway, “Doraemon” earned $12.6 million (RMB89.5 million) over the three days from its Friday release.

Marc Malkin Senior Editor, Culture and Events Will Smith and Martin Lawrence arrived at the Los Angeles premiere of “Bad Boys: Ride or Die” on Thursday night atop a double decker bus, where they were greeted by cheering fans lining Hollywood Boulevard. “It’s not just here,” Smith told Variety about the fans who continued to support him, even when his reputation faltered in the wake of the Oscars slap. “It’s all over the world.

Costco has become one of the most well-known warehouse stores in the world!

It’s not all doom and gloom at the global box office as a handful of films reached milestones this week. 20th Century Studios/Disney’s Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes has topped $300M worldwide, while Paramount’s IF and Sony/Alcon’s The Garfield Movie crossed the $100M mark.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief “The Last Frenzy,” a comedy film about a dying man’s last hurrah, retained the top spot in mainland Chinese cinemas for the third weekend of its four weeks on release. Other signs of theatrical malaise were plentiful. “The Last Frenzy” earned $5.8 million (RMB41.5 million) between Friday and Sunday, according to data from consultancy firm Artisan Gateway.

It's a beautiful Friday evening in Manchester city centre and the bars and pubs are overflowing with people enjoying the warm weather. But just yards from the sun-drenched beer gardens, others are having their lives turned upside down.

Jeremy Clarkson’s televised trials and tribulations working the land have already found a huge audience in his home nation, now it appears he’s also conquered the east.

Chinese director Hu Guan’s drama Black Dog won the top Cannes Un Certain Regard Prize on Friday evening.

Guy Lodge Film Critic With the Cannes Competition jury set to announce their awards tomorrow, tonight the spotlight falls on the festival’s second-most prestigious strand, Un Certain Regard. Chinese director Guan Hu’s “Black Dog” has taken the top prize in the section from Xavier Dolan‘s jury, with big wins also going to Boris Lojkine’s “The Story of Souleymane,” Rungano Nyoni’s “On Becoming a Guinea Fowl” and Roberto Minervini’s “The Damned.” This page will be updated with a full report.

Alex Ritman Is Messi’s reign as cinema’s current top dog over? The Palm Dog — Cannes’ annual celebration of on-screen canine performances which was last year won by the blue-eyed border collie from “Anatomy of a Fall,” the first step in a dramatic bound toward furry fame — has crowned a new champion. The 2024 Palm Dog, presented at a special event on May 24, has been given to Kodi, the senior stray at the heart of acclaimed Swiss-French comedy “Dog on Trial.” The Un Certain Regard title from director and star Laetitia Dosch sees Kodi — believed to be a blonde Griffon cross — plays Cosmos, an aggressive pet who’s taken on as a client by a defense lawyer in story exploring the status of dogs in society.

K.J. Yossman Former Warner Bros. Discovery EMEA boss Priya Dogra has joined Comcast-owned Sky in the newly-created role of chief advertising and new revenue officer.

Anita Gou is no stranger to the festival circuit. Her L.A.-based Kindred Spirit banner saw a raft of its first projects debut at Sundance (think Lulu Wang’s Mandarin-language comedy The Farewell, which made $23M worldwide, Shia LaBeouf-starrer Honey Boy and Sam Levinson’s Assassination Nation) but, more recently, her co-production Silent Twins was selected in Un Certain Regard in 2022, while Dominic Savage’s Close To You premiered in Toronto last year. The company’s Mubi-acquired doc The Last Year of Darkness, which explores the lives of alternative Chinese youth, was awarded a Special Mention prize in the Next:Wave section at the Copenhagen International Documentary Film Festival last year.

Diane Garrett “Madagascar” writer-director Eric Darnell knew he wanted to adapt Chinese folklore about a magic paintbrush for modern audiences from the moment he came across the ancient tale while at DreamWorks, initially developing an animated film inspired by it, then a VR project for Baobab Studios, where he has served as chief creative officer since 2015. But his vision was first realized in decidedly analog form — a children’s book for middle readers.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief “The Last Frenzy,” a comedy film about a dying man’s last hurrah, returned to the top spot in mainland Chinese cinemas in its third weekend of release. “Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes,” which a week earlier had been the biggest title, slipped to fourth place. In another China disappointment for Hollywood, “The Fall Guy” opened outside the Chinese top ten.

Chris Pratt and Katherine Schwarzenegger snap a photo with a life-size version of his character at the premiere of his new animated flick The Garfield Movie held at TCL Chinese Theatre on Sunday (May 19) in Hollywood.

Rebecca Rubin Senior Film and Media Reporter Disney and 20th Century’s “Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes” conquered the international box office again with $40.6 million in its second weekend of release. So far, the fourth chapter in the “Apes” reboot franchise has generated $136 million overseas and $237 million globally. It currently stands as the fourth-highest grossing movie of the year, behind “Kung Fu Panda 4” ($533 million), “Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire” ($561 million) and “Dune: Part Two” ($710 million).

Refresh for latest…:  After starting early offshore release on John Krasinski’s IF last weekend, Paramount expanded the imaginary friends film to another 56 international box office markets this session. The overseas frame was worth $20M, bringing the international running cume to $24M. With domestic’s $35M debut, the worldwide total is now $59M.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief First-time feature director Constance Tsang makes a splash in Cannes with “Blue Sun Palace,” the first U.S. film in Critics Week that is in the Mandarin Chinese language. Set in a massage parlor, staffed with Chinese immigrants, in Queens, New York, the melodramatic film tells of how the romantic relationship between a man and a woman is disrupted by a sudden disappearance. Tsang was careful to avoid stereotypes and to be true to the community that she grew up in and observing. But the feature effort was also a big step up from the short films she cut her teeth on. Underlining that point, she amassed a powerful cast of leading Chinese-speaking actors, including Lee Kang-sheng (“What Time Is It There” and a dozen Tsai Ming-liang films), Wu Ke-xi (“Nina Wu,” “The Road to Mandalay”) and rising Mainland China star Xu Haipeng.How did you jump from a succession of short films into your first feature? I would say that jumping into the feature is exactly what happened.