Hong Kong Showbiz Latest News and Updates

Pharrell Williams has unveiled his new single ‘Airplane Tickets’, featuring contributions from Swae Lee and Rauw Alejandro. Watch the song’s video below. The song received its public debut at Pharrell’s Louis Vuitton Men’s Pre-Fall 2024 Runway Show in Hong Kong on November 30.A new video for the song has now been released, directed by Maxime Quoilin and filmed on location in Hong Kong, including around the area’s Avenue of Stars.

Pharrell Williams has teamed up with Swae Lee and Rauw Alejandro on his new song "Airplane Tickets." Check it out below. In February of this year Pharrell was named Louis Vuitton Men’s Creative Director.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief China’s Linmon Media celebrated its tenth anniversary this week by unveiling 16 new shows for its 2024 production and release slate. The roster included seven Chinese period drama series, five contemporary shows and two more being made in Thailand. “We are not just a producer, we are a studio,” Zhou Yuan, co-founder and EVP of Linmon, told Variety on the sidelines of the company’s predominantly English-language presentation at the Asia Television Forum & Market in Singapore.

Silent Night UK release. This has been on my mind for a little while as the latest film from Hong Kong action supermodel John Woo has been out in the US since last weekend but there has been little to no hint about when the movie will hit British territory.

Creamfields has unveiled a new 30,000 capacity indoor main stage called APEX for its 2024 edition.The festival, which will take place over the August Bank Holiday weekend from August 22-25 next year at its usual site in Daresbury, Cheshire, is already sold out.The festival claims that APEX will be the largest indoor festival superstructure in the world, and promises it will be paired with “jaw dropping production”. The stage will also allow the festival to extend until 4am on Saturday night for the first time.The lineup for the dance festival’s 2024 incarnation has yet to be announced, although the organisers have confirmed that the arena hosts will include Teletech and techno promoters XXL.At the 2023 edition of Creamfields, the weekend was headlined by Calvin Harris, David Guetta, Fatboy Slim, Swedish House Mafia, Tiësto and Four Tet.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Wang Jianlin, the Chinese billionaire who previously sought to buy a controlling position in Hollywood, is preparing to complete his imminent exit from the film industry. The troubled conglomerate is facing debt repayment pressure.Wanda Film, which remains China’s largest cinema operator, Wednesday said in a regulatory filing to the Shenzhen Stock Exchange that Wang and his Wanda Investment vehicle expect to sell their remaining stake 51% in the company to China Ruyi Holdings. Ruyi, which operates across film, TV and online games, counts games, social media and streaming giant Tencent among its largest shareholders.

Naman Ramachandran Canadian conglomerate, Blue Ant Media has scored sales of some 550 hours of programming to Asia Pacific broadcasters, it was revealed at Singapore’s Asia TV Forum & Market (ATF). Content was sourced from across Blue Ant’s portfolio companies.

Naman Ramachandran Shows featuring Stephen Fry are popular in Asia as sales from Abacus Media Rights and Passion Distribution demonstrate. Abacus has sold more than 70 hours of scripted and unscripted programming broadcasters across Asia, it was revealed at Singapore’s Asia TV Forum and Market.

Bolis Pupul has announced his debut LP ‘Letter To Yu’ and has shared its lead single ‘Completely Half’. Check out the video below.‘Letter To Yu’ has been described as a love letter to his mother, who died in a traffic accident in 2008. Pupul was born to a Belgian father and a Chinese mother.

Amber Liu, a member of K-pop girl group f(x), has announced new dates for her upcoming 2024 ‘No More Sad Songs’ world tour.Today (December 5), Amber Liu revealed the new Asia, Australia and New Zealand legs of her upcoming 2024 tour. It’ll feature four shows in Asia – in Japan, Malaysia, Hong Kong and Singapore – alongside two Aussie concerts and one New Zealand performance in February and March.In addition, the f(x) singer also announced that indie pop singer-songwriter Marielle Kraft will join her on the North American leg of the tour, which features eight shows across January 2024.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief China and Netherlands-based Fortissimo Films has picked up international sales rights to anticipated Chinese blockbuster movie “If You Are the One 3.” To be released on Dec. 30 in China, the picture is directed by Feng Xiaogang as the second sequel in his anti-romance comedy franchise, about a rich businessman and an air stewardess, which kicked off in 2008 and earned a follow-up in 2010.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Singapore actor and filmmaker Alaric Tay (“Zombiepura”), through his Very Tay Media company has joined forces with two Philippines companies Black Ops Studios Asia and PsyOps Studios to produce a slate of films aimed at international markets. The venture, that was facilitated by Hong Kong-based producer Mike Leeder, was announced on the eve of the Asia Television Forum (ATF) in Singapore. They aim to put together a combined slate across diverse genres, including action, sci-fi, horror and comedy and have suggested a timeline extending to the fourth quarter of 2026. The joint venture also includes partnerships with other Asian companies including Screen Ops (HK), Fly Entertainment, Causeway Media Productions and IAmCasting. “Singapore and the Philippines have the individual potential to execute projects with commercial appeal,” said Tay. “But by building stories together with like-minded visionaries beyond our own shores, we can elevate the types of projects that are being produced in our collective countries.” Tay was the star and executive producer of 2018 Singapore zombie movie “Zombiepura.” He was also co-producer and director of HBO Asia’s first comedy drama series “SeNT” and is best known for playing multiple characters on Mediacorp satirical series “The Noose.” Headed by director Pedring Lopez and producer Rex Lopez, Black Ops Studios Asia and PsyOps Studios focus on action films and series.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief I.E. Entertainment, the global distribution outfit founded and run by industry veterans Indra and Erlina Suharjono, has come on board to handle worldwide sales for Cathay Film Company’s “Coolie.” The TV miniseries is inspired by the little-known history of enslaved Chinese ‘coolies’ in Cuba in the 1860s.

Refresh for latest…: New global entry Queen Bey’s concert movie/documentary Renaissance: A Film By Beyoncé put a ring on a $27.4M global debut this weekend. Included in that is $6.4M from 2,621 overseas cinemas.

Jarvis Cocker played a Hong Kong show having broken his ribs shortly before taking to the stage – watch the footage below.The singer was performing with Pulp at the second 2023 edition of Clockenflap Festival, where they headlined alongside YOASOBI and Swae Lee (who replaced Joji last-minute).“This is a very unique concert,” he told the crowd, “because I fell down some stairs when I first arrived in Hong Kong. I had to go to the doctors so I do have two fractured ribs… so I’m not really sure what’s going to happen in the next hour.”In a social media post, he expanded upon the accident: “I broke 2 ribs when I fell down a staircase in Kowloon (swipe for evidence) but the hospital got me so I could still do the show,” he wrote.

Kaytranada, Jessie Ware and Vince Staples are among the first raft of names announced for next year’s edition of Sónar Barcelona. The music festival, which is known for highlighting dance and electronic music culture, is set to run from Thursday June 13 to Sunday June 15, 2024, and tickets are on sale here. Other names confirmed for the festival include Charlotte de Witte, who will bring her ‘Overdrive’ show to the site, Floating Points, Ben Böhmer live, Casisdead, Marie Davidson and Folamour.

Jordan Moreau If a picture is worth a thousand words, then John Woo‘s wordless action movie “Silent Night” is worth at least a thousand gunshots. Woo returns to Hollywood for the first time since 2003 to quietly deliver “Silent Night,” a blood-soaked, Christmas-themed revenge tale with zero spoken dialogue. It employs the same style of fast-paced, R-rated gun-toting that has become all the rage with action movies nowadays a la the “John Wick,” “Kingsman” and “Extraction” series.

Manchester’s Hotel Football has been recognised with a prestigious award naming it one of the leading venues in the world.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief CJ ENM (Hong Kong), a channels and content distributor that is part of the Korean CJ ENM conglomerate, has picked up pay-TV rights in parts of Asia to a handful of Korean series that were co-financed by streaming platform Tving and Paramount+. The deal was struck with Paramount Global Content Distribution. The productions are part of a global strategic partnership between CJ ENM and Paramount Global that was announced in December 2021. The deal was announced on the eve of the Asian TV Forum (ATF), which kicks off next week in Singapore. The series debut first on Tving in Korea and on Paramount+ in the U.S., Canada, U.K., Australia, Latin America, Brazil, Italy, France, Germany, Switzerland and Austria.

EXCLUSIVE: Cuban star Mario Cimarro and Hong Kong actress Nina Paw Hee-Ching are joining the cast of historical scripted drama series Coolie, produced by Meileen Choo’s Singapore-based Cathay Film Company.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Lightning International, the Hong Kong- and U.K.-based content distribution and solutions company, is expanding its staff ahead of the upcoming Asia TV Forum & Market (ATF) in Singapore. It has hired Eric Tan to be director of content sales Asia. He will be responsible for all aspects of channel and content distribution.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Television Broadcasts (TVB), long the dominant free-to-air TV operator in Hong Kong is to dismiss 300 staff, or 8% of its already reduced workforce, in a further cost cutting move. The company said in a regulatory filing on Monday that it will shed 200 staff from its program production operations, merge two of its five channels and reduce its Zstore e-commerce business, with the loss of an additional 100 jobs. The moves, some of which require regulatory approval, are the second staff reduction to be announced this year. In March, TVB cut 255 employees, taking its headcount to 3,600 as of June.TVB is proposing to merge its J2 channel (offering content and programs aimed at a young audience) with its TVB Finance, Sports & Information channel and to create TVB+.

A post shared by Blank Forms (@blankforms_)“In 2003, Hennix returned to producing computer-generated sound works, initiating a productive two-decade run. After a long hiatus from leading ensembles, she formed the Chora(s)san Time-Court Mirage in 2005 after meeting the trombonist Hilary Jeffery, and later led the just intonation group the Kamigaku Ensemble.

Peter Debruge Chief Film Critic If John Woo had permitted the characters in “Silent Night” to speak, chances are that audiences would laugh them off the screen. Instead, the director gets right down to business, opening with a wordless chase sequence in which a sad dad (Joel Kinnaman) in a corny Christmas sweater sprints after a pair of speeding cars.

Jennifer Lee, the Chief Creative Officer of Disney Animation, is teasing Frozen 3 and seemingly hints at a potential fourth film.

China-set drama Stonewalling, co-directed by husband-and-wife team Ryuji Otsuka and Huang Ji, won best narrative feature at Taiwan’s Golden Horse Awards, which is celebrating its 60th edition this year.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief The Taipei Golden Horse Film Festival drifted to a conclusion in midweek, with project awards presented on Wednesday, followed by Thursday’s festival closing events. These involved a screening of portmanteau film “Tales of Taipei” followed by a sit-down dinner-cum-ceremony with a breezy pair of speeches and no prizes. The film fortnight then sprang to life again on Saturday evening when the 60th edition of the Golden Horse Film Awards represented a new climax.

We’re getting some new details about the upcoming Frozen movies!

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Mirror, the Hong Kong boy band that shot to fame in 2018 but had its live career cut short by a tragic on-stage incident, will return to in-person live performances in January. The 12-piece band will play 16 shows at the Asia World Expo auditorium, one of Hong Kong’s largest venues, as part of their ‘Mirror Feel the Passion Concert Tour 2024.’ They will perform Jan. 15-17, 19-22, 24-27, 29-31, and Feb.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Marco Mueller, the veteran film festival curator and director, is set to launch a new festival and market in Macau. It will have its first edition in January. The Asia-Europe Young Cinema Festival, running Jan.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Producer and screenwriter, Darren Dale has been named as the new board chair of the Sydney Film Festival, following the retirement of Dianne Weir. He is a leading advocate for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander content and has been director of Blackfella Films since 2000.

Veteran film festival director Marco Mueller is working with the Macau government to launch a new film festival, Asia-Europe Young Cinema Festival, which is scheduled to take place in Macau from January 5-11. 

Taiwan’s Golden Horse Film Project Promotion (FPP) has wrapped with Lee Yi-shan’s debut feature Chewing Gum winning the Grand Prize, which comes with a cash award of $32,000 (TWD1M). 

Lea Glob’s documentary Apolonia, Apolonia earned a leading four nominations today as the IDA Documentary Awards revealed its nominees for the 39th edition of the prestigious event.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief EST Media, the Asian-focused film and video group, hatched by Jaeson Ma and former Vice Media executive Eric Tu, is now diversifying into publishing. It is launching EST Articles under its Eastern Standard Times journalism banner. The digital-only publication is “dedicated to exploring the voices and stories of the Asian and Asian diaspora communities through written medium to long-form, in-depth articles,” EST Media said.

Zack Sharf Digital News Director Action movie icon John Woo is not watching superhero movies, he recently told The New York Times in an interview ahead of the release of “Silent Night.” Woo, the Hong Kong director acclaimed for films such as “The Killer” (1989), “Hard Boiled” (1992) and “Face/Off” (1997), said he much prefers “real cinema” like Martin Scorsese movies. “I’ve never liked watching movies with big special effects, or anything based on comic books,” Woo told the publication. “I prefer Martin Scorsese’s movies, that kind of cinema.