Hong Kong Protest Films Prominent at Taiwan Documentary Festival

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau ChiefThe Hong Kong International Film Festival will shift to new dates in August, having been postponed earlier this year due to the COVID pandemic.The 46th edition of the festival will take place Aug. 15-31, 2022, at multiple venues across the territory. Like last year’s HKIFF45, the hybrid festival will feature in-person and online screenings and events.The annual spin-off event, Cine Fan Summer International Film Festival, which usually takes place around the same time in August, will be shelved and likely return in 2023.The main HKIFF was scheduled to have started on March 31.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau ChiefChinese TV producer Linmon Media has filed an application for an initial public offering in Hong Kong. It is the third time that the eight-year-old company has sought a stock market flotation.The heavily-redacted draft prospectus, sponsored by Morgan Stanley and CICC, does not reveal how much fresh capital the company aims to raise, nor the company’s anticipated valuation.

Canadian actress Franchesca Wong came under fire for her role in the Hong Kong series “Barrack O’Karma 1968”.

Recently, Netflix has put out several popular documentaries, from fraud stories like Bad Vegan to dark serial killer tales like Conversations with a Killer: The John Wayne Gacy Tapes. Their latest documentary film is about an altogether different subject – a fashion scandal.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau ChiefYouTube, the Google-owned video streaming platform, has removed the account of John Lee Ka-chiu, the policeman-turned-politician who is poised to take over as Hong Kong’s next leader.All content on Lee’s YouTube page has been removed. In its place is a message that reads: “This account has been terminated for violating Google’s Terms of Service.”Lee’s campaign office said on Wednesday that it had been informed by Google that the removal of the account was in accordance with the company’s compliance with U.S. sanctions.“We find this very regrettable and completely unreasonable, but we think they can’t stop us from spreading our candidate’s message – our campaign’s message – to the public,” said Tam Yiu-chung, head of Lee’s campaign office.

EXCLUSIVE: UTA has signed Korean filmmaker Kim Yong-hwa, one of the most important figures in the Korean screen industry.

Video: Sienna Miller leads starry cast in Netflix's 'Anatomy of a Scandal' (Reuters)Clashes erupt at Al-Aqsa mosque during RamadanBrazil to require proof of vaccination for Rio's Sambadrome paradeGerman pilots deliver aid to UkrainiansPigeon sculptures send message of peace in DamascusEarliest evidence of Maya calendar found in GuatemalaBluebells bloom in Belgium woodlandPope Francis begins four days of Easter eventsMyanmar troops burn villages across heartlandA look at lives upended by Omicron surge in Hong KongAnalyst sees shift in Biden's additional military aid to UkraineDive into the secret lives of Galapagos rays'Europe's biggest' cannabis farm taken down: policeRussia releases video purporting to show Ukrainian marines surrenderingYellen urges China to help stop war in UkraineWorld’s oldest gorilla celebrates 65th birthdayMariupol mayor says Russia hid bodies with crematoriums The 40-year-old noted that while the show explores "familiar terrain", her character's way of dealing with the fallout of the scandal is "the absolute antithesis" of her way. "So, in a kind of twisted, tourism sense, I just wanted to see how it would feel to react differently.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau ChiefThe Far East Film Festival in Italy’s Udine has set Chinese-Italian co-production “The Italian Recipe” as the opening title of a revived, largely in-person event.The film, directed by Hou Zuxin, sees an unexpected series of events bring together a Chinese reality TV show contestant and a woman already resident in Italy. The collision of personalities, connections and chemistry between stars Liu Xun and Yao Huang resemble those of “Roman Holiday,” festival organizers suggest.

Elsa Keslassy International CorrespondentReims Polar, a new international festival set in Northern France and dedicated to police thrillers, has awarded Wen Shipei’s “Are You Lonesome Tonight?,” Adikhan Yerzhanov’s “Assault” and Lado Kvataniya’s “The Execution.” The selection of Reims Polar is curated by Bruno Barde, who is also the artistic director of the Deauville American Film Festival. “Assault,” a dead-pan thriller set fictional village in rural Kazakhstan and revolving around a school hostage situation, won the festival’s Grand Prize Award.

In the Apple TV+ series Pachinko, Solomon (Jin Ha) speaks Korean, Japanese and English. The show, based on Min Jin Lee’s book, traces four generations of his family from Korea and Japan (as Zainichi Koreans), so all three languages are involved. Ha does not speak Japanese and studied the different dialects with vocal coach Yu-Mi Kang.

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.

Zack Sharf Alicia Vikander opened up to Harper’s Bazaar about the importance of intimacy coordinators on set, revealing she has felt unprotected on sets in the past while doing nude scenes. The Oscar winner said that intimacy coordinators “should have existed at the beginning of my career,” and she described one instance where an actor performed a nude scene and then was left naked on set “for a couple hours” because no one showed up with a robe.“The only thing that can’t be improvised is an intimate scene — you have to make choreography and stick to it,” Vikander said. “It’s the worst thing ever to do those scenes.

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.

Leo Barraclough International Features EditorLimonero Films, a boutique distributor of factual shows and documentaries, based in London, has announced a string of sales ahead of MipTV.Make Waves Media’s “Thirties in Color: Countdown to War” has been sold to Japan’s NHK, Italy’s RAI, Spain’s RTVE and Germany’s RTL, which also licensed “Victorian Britain on Film” and “Wild Relations.”The wildlife title “Wild Relations” was picked up by KBS in Korea and Radio Television Hong Kong.“Framed in Miami: The Versace Connection,” Limonero’s first true crime series, was picked up by Discovery in Italy, and their food and travel show “Hidden Flavors of India: North East” by Discovery Asia.Andy Cohen’s “Beijing Spring,” about the Chinese cultural revolution of 1979, was licensed to Sweden’s SVT and Switzerland’s RSI.

EXCLUSIVE: Producers Andrew Bendel and Alistair Maclean-Clark of Blue Horizon Productions have optioned the memoir Sea Dragons, Yvonne Foley’s story of how she believed she had been abandoned in Liverpool by her Chinese father as a child only to find out many years later that he and other sailors had been deported.