China market turns frosty for Taiwan books, as tensions rise

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Patrick Frater Asia Bureau ChiefChina on Monday announced strict new rules that will ban children from playing online games during weekdays and limit them to just three hours per week.The rules were unveiled by the National Press and Publication Administration in order to curb gaming addiction among teenagers, state news agency Xinhua reported.Gamers aged below 18 will be limited to one hour of online game play, between 8 p.m. and 9 p.m.

BEIJING -- China is banning children from playing online games for more than three hours a week, the harshest restriction so far on the game industry as Chinese regulators continue cracking down on the technology sector.Minors in China can only play games between 8 p.m. to 9 p.m.

Harry Potter, Jurassic Park and Kung Fu Panda film franchises feature heavily, along with the Minions from the “Despicable Me” movies.Beijing's historic sites have long drawn tourists.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief“Free Guy” grabbed a convincing win at the top of the China box office, marking the end of a Hollywood drought and was earned despite difficult conditions.The family-friendly comedy earned $23.8 million in three days, according to data from Artisan Gateway. That was fully 56% of the nationwide theatrical haul between Friday and Sunday.It earned $3.77 million of its total from Imax screens.

Refresh for latest…: One of the only Hollywood titles to recently be granted a China release date, Disney/20th Century Studios’ Free Guy flew into the market with a $23.9M start. This is a solid launch in the Middle Kingdom, particularly in the current climate, and helped push the Ryan Reynolds-starrer past $100M at the international box office. The full offshore weekend was $37.3M in 47 markets, a slight 23% drop from last session, and the total overseas cume is now $100.3M for $179.6M global.

After a two-month blackout period in China for Hollywood movies, Disney/20th Century Studios’ Free Guy is looking to lead all pics in the country at the weekend B.O. with a $18M+, possibly $20M take. That’s a promising start for one of the first big movies from Hollywood after a long-hiatus, besting the $15M opening weekend of A Quiet Place Part II, and the $7.8M first weekend of Peter Rabbit 2: The Runaway. 

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau ChiefChina announced further steps to control celebrity fan culture, which regulators say has become “chaotic.” The moves came as one of China’s most prominent stars Vicki Zhao Wei was scrubbed from the internet and another star, female actor Zheng Shuang was embroiled in a tax scandal.The Cyberspace Administration of China on Friday issued a pair of connected notices.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau ChiefHollywood film franchises such as “xXx,” “Warcraft” and “Resident Evil” used to be largely sustained by their box office performance in China, which significantly exceeded their North American hauls and drove global grosses. Frequently, Hollywood titles would dominate the Chinese box office charts during most weeks.But in recent years, that tide has been turning.

Music Business Worldwide (MBW), the country’s Ministry of Culture and Tourism has announced that from October 1 any music that breaches a fresh set of government rules will be scrapped from karaoke bars.Among the contraventions include music that “violates the state’s religious policies or promotes cults and superstitions,” “insults or defames others” or “endangers national security or harms national honour or interests”.A Reddit user posted a direct translation of the new government rules in

Rebecca Davis editorDisney’s “Luca” is the first Hollywood picture to get a release in China in weeks, but its opening figures didn’t make that big of a splash — at least, not close to enough to douse the continued reign of Donnie Yen action film “Raging Fire.”The animation directed and co-written by Enrico Casarosa swam to a $5.1 million China opening weekend, according to consultancy Artisan Gateway.

Disney’s 20th Century Studios’ Ryan Reynolds movie Free Guy is getting a China release date of Aug. 27.

Rebecca Davis editorMarvel Studios president Kevin Feige addressed Chinese fans’ most pressing concerns about the upcoming “Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings” in a recent interview.Feige held an exclusive 14-minute-long interview in English with the well-regarded veteran Chinese film critic Raymond Zhou on the day of the film’s U.S. red carpet premiere (it’s out widely on Sept.

Rebecca Davis editorThe toppling of powerful men by #MeToo accusations in Hollywood and beyond has be­­come a familiar phenomenon to Americans in the post-Harvey Weinstein era, but in China, such reckonings remain rare.

Crazy Rich Asians duo Jon M Chu and Jimmy O Yang are readying themselves for another cinematic collaboration. The director and star have The Great Chinese Art Heist in the works at Warner Bros – an adaptation of Alex Palmer's 2018 GQ article, according to The Hollywood Reporter.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau ChiefMartin Lau, president and executive director of China’s tech and entertainment industry leader Tencent, on Wednesday explained the positive outcome from the maelstrom of new regulation that the Chinese government is currently imposing on the internet.In less than a year, regulators from multiple departments and ministries have besieged the country’s leading private sector companies.

Rebecca Davis editorThe Chinese government has taken a stake and one of three board seats in a key subsidiary of TikTok owner ByteDance, reports said Tuesday, reviving debate about whether the popular short-form video app poses a national security threat.Chinese authorities now own a 1% stake in Beijing ByteDance Company, a firm that owns key licenses to operate Chinese platforms Douyin, the country’s version of TikTok, and the popular news app Toutiao.

Last week, it was revealed that The Criterion Collection would add a new disc format to its release schedule, announcing its first batch of 4K UHD titles. And in November, the first wave of those titles, as well as a highly-anticipated box set, aim to lighten your wallets.