Hong Kong Disneyland Trims Losses to $308 Million in Closure-Hit Year

Vivienne Chow Jimmy Wang Yu, once a superstar of multiple Asian martial arts genres, died on Tuesday. He was 79.News of his death in a Taipei hospital was posted on social media by Wang’s daughter Linda, herself a former Canto-pop star of the 1990s.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau ChiefVeteran Hong Kong director Herman Yau has assembled a top-notch cast for “War Customised,” a high-octane action thriller that is one of the highest-profile commercial productions to emerge from the territory in the past couple of years.The cast is headed by Jacky Cheung (“Private Eye Blues,” “Bullet in the Head”) and Nicholas Tse (“Raging Fire,” “Gen-X Cops”), along with Karena Lam (“Inner Senses,” “July Rhapsody”) and Francis Ng (“Infernal Affairs 2,” “Bullets over Summer”). The supporting cast includes Liu Yase (“Limbo”), Michelle Wai (“Caught in Time,” “Triad”), Angus Yeung (“Raging Fire”), Melvin Wong (“Above the Law”), Ben Yuen (“Tracey,” “Anita”), Amanda Strang (“Final Romance”), and Brahim Chab (“Monkey Man,” “Vanguard,” “Ganopath”) as the villain of the piece.

translator Dylan Cheung. She did not indicate the nature of the disease.She added, “I believe his [1967 film] One-Armed Swordsman — that image of a dashing great swordsman — will remain forever in the hearts of film history and film fans alike.”Director Ang Lee told the China News Agency: “It’s with the deepest sorrow that we learned of his passing today.

Jimmy Wang Yu, a Taiwanese actor who was once one of the biggest stars of martial arts cinema, died Tuesday in a Taipei hospital from an undisclosed illness he battled for six years. He was 79 and his death was announced on Instagram by his daughter, Linda Wang.

Vivienne Chow Two Hong Kong protest-related films that are unlikely to ever be screened in their home territory will take center stage at the Taiwan International Documentary Festival, in the event’s Chinese independent documentaries section. The festival runs at multiple venues May 6-15, 2022.The eight-title Chinese independent documentaries section will give “Blue Island” by Chan Tze Woon (“Yellowing”) its Asian premiere and a world premiere to “The Grass is Greener on the Other Side” by Crystal Wong.The two films explore the fate of Hong Kong against the backdrop of the aftermath of the 2019 protests.

Cannes Film Festival says it is anticipating in-person industry attendance at its 2022 edition to be “much higher than last year”, with the vast majority of delegates set to make the trip.

After not airing the 2021 Oscar ceremony, China is believed to be sitting out this weekend’s event as well. The motivations behind last year’s move were understood to be related to specific films and filmmakers, and while China released fewer Hollywood movies than usual in 2021, the reasoning behind a decision to not to show the Oscars this year is somewhat unclear.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau ChiefNet profits at Tencent climbed by 41% to $35 billion at Tencent, China’s social media, games and streaming giant, in the year to December. Revenues were up by 16% to RMB560 billion ($87.8 billion).Despite the profits surge, the company’s management described 2021 as a “challenging year.”They were not being disingenuous.

Martin Scorsese’s Boston gangster movie “The Departed” was loosely based on the thrilling Hong Kong crime epic “Infernal Affairs” that starred Asian superstars Tony Leung and Andy Lau. Well, the pair of actors are reuniting for a new thriller, “Goldfinger,” aka, “Once Upon A Time In Hong Kong,” that will be written/directed by Felix Chong, who penned the “Infernal Affairs” trilogy.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau ChiefProfits at Tencent Music Entertainment, China’s largest online music group, dropped in a year of regulatory turmoil and market evolution.Revenues at the company managed a 7% year on year increase, reaching RMB31.2 billion ($4.90 billion) from RMB29.15 billion in the same period of 2020, the company said in a filing on Tuesday. Net profit attributable to equity holders in 2021 was RMB3.03 billion ($475 million), down 28% compared to net profit of RMB4.16 billion in 2020.The company also reported figures for the three months from October to December, showing revenues of RMB7.61 billion ($1.19 billion), a decrease of 8.7% year-on-year.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau ChiefColleen Kwok’s “The Stars The Sun The Moon” won the top prize for a Hong Kong-produced in-development project at the Hong Kong-Asia Film Financing Forum. Mainland Chinese title “Not Found” by Huang Ningwei won the equivalent prize for the best non-Hong Kong project.A total of 14 prizes were announced at a virtual ceremony on Wednesday, with “Silent Ghosts,” another local project, directed by Hang Yeng, collecting the top work in progress award.HAF organizers said that this year’s online platform hosted more than 900 private meetings between filmmakers and potential backers, a figure that was almost double the level of activity in 2020, when COVID forced the project market into a virtual format for the first time.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau ChiefHong Kong’s broadcasters and streamers were active buyers of content ahead of this week’s FilMart. Pay-TV platform, Now TV picked up a nine-title package of factual content from All3Media International.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau ChiefAfter “Parasite” and “Squid Game” struck planet-wide notes with their critique of elitism, Trevor Choi’s “Smashing Frank” is a timely Hong Kong twist on the revenge-against-the-rich theme. It is being pitched at the Hong Kong-Asia Film Financing Forum (HAF) that this week runs alongside the FilMart rights market.“This is a comedy-drama about four millennials who form a squad to rob the rich. During the course of the crime, they are outraged as they gradually realize that the older generation will never change their ways.

The last few years have seen an uptick in the number of genre films directed by women, and it’s been interesting to see the impact of that on such a traditionally male-dominated field. Directed by Irish-born actress Antonia Campbell-Hughes, It Is In Us All, which had its world premiere in the Narrative Feature lineup at SXSW, is one of the strangest yet: a gore-free body horror that manages to be completely unnerving without conforming to any of the usual expectations that come with the territory. A very rough comparison would be David Cronenberg’s 1996 psychodrama Crash (or, more specifically, the much darker source novel by J.G. Ballard), but the sense of dread here is much less tangible, even though car accidents feature prominently.

Vivienne Chow Hong Kong’s ongoing anti-COVID restrictions are forecast to cost the city’s cinemas HK$1.5 billion ($192 million) in lost box office receipts and cause the unemployment of thousands of people in the cinema business.The Hong Kong Theatres Association, which represents the city’s cinema operators, says that the damage to the industry in 2022 will be worse than in the past two years.Cinemas have been ordered to remain closes from Jan. 7 until at least April 20, 2022 (a minimum of 104 days) reflecting the course of the virus’ fifth wave in the city, which has turned out to be by far the most deadly.Hong Kong cinema are certain to lose both the Lunar New Year and the Easter holiday seasons, two of the peak viewing periods.

Vivienne Chow After a film career spanning more than three decades, production-costume-art designer Tim Yip has achieved plenty, including winning an Oscar and a BAFTA award. But he is only now launching his most uncompromising production, which he calls a “living film project,” and which he hopes will challenge the tradition of cinema.“I want to make a film that is infinitely long,” Yip told Variety.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau ChiefScripted formats are enjoying increasing success in Asia. But what makes them successful varies from case to case.French producer, Harold Valentin of Mother Production (“Call My Agent”), Akehi Yuki (“Mother”), business director at Japan’s Nippon Television, and Hong Kong’s Tommy Lo, executive producer and script supervisor of the Hong Kong version of “Ossan’s Love” joined Content Asia’s Janine Stein on Tuesday at FilMart to discuss.Valentin: “We were very surprised that [‘Call My Agent’] began travelling really after season two, because initially Netflix didn’t know what to do with the strategy. The mixture of drama and comedy had disappeared a bit in U.S.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau ChiefFree Stone Productions has added a quartet of new Japanese film titles to its sales slate for this week’s virtual edition of Hong Kong FilMart. The female-led company is selling romance “Leave in Summer” and drama film “Yes, I Can’t Swim” both of which will release later this year.Directed by Igashi Aya, “Leave in Summer” is a tale of a lost soul and his spiritual guide. It depicts a man washing up in a seaside town at the end of the season and seeking to stay so that he can reconnect with his recently deceased wife.