Woman Gets TRAPPED At Blind Date's House As China Initiates Sudden COVID-19 Lockdown!

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief“The Battle at Lake Changjin II” passed the $200 million landmark at the China box office at midday local time on Thursday, the film’s third day of release. Data from Alibaba’s Beacon data tracking service showed the film lying comfortably on top of the mainland Chinese box office chart with RMB166 million (26.1 million) earned on the third morning of the Lunar New Year holidays.

Naman Ramachandran Producer and financier Anton (“Greenland,” “The Night House”) has hired Leslie Chen as senior VP, international distribution and sales and has elevated consultant Louis Balsan to executive VP, international distribution and acquisitions. They will be part of Anton’s German office and will report into Paris-based Cécile Gaget, president of international production and distribution.

Qimai. Grindr has also been banned from Android app stores run by Chinese phone makers like Tencent and Huawei, reports Bloomberg.Representatives from Grindr confirmed to Bloomberg and The New York Post that the company removed its app from the Apple store in China of its own accord, citing difficulties with complying with the country’s Personal Information Protection Law.New regulations went into effect at the end of 2021 that limit personal information stored in apps and require data transferred between China and other regions to be approved by the Chinese government, prompting some companies to remove their apps from Apple and Android stores in China. Several foreign Internet services, including Yahoo, Microsoft Corp.’s LinkedIn, and Epic Games Inc.’s Fortnite, pulled out of the Chinese market last year because of difficulty complying with burdensome regulations aimed at restricting or censoring certain types of content.Grindr’s removal from online app stores comes just days after the Chinese government announced a month-long campaign aimed at policing online content to “create a civilized, healthy, festive and peaceful atmosphere for online public opinion” as the nation prepares to host the Winter Olympics.Among the government’s goals during that time period are to crack down on online violence, pornography, the spread of rumors about the Olympics or the government, and take steps to curb “the spread of bad Internet culture,” which means rooting out online behavior that the government dislikes or finds distasteful. While the announcement didn’t specifically mention dating apps or homosexuality, LGBTQ people in China have found themselves targeted by the government in the past.

Dr. Jeremiah Stamler was a doctor whose research proved that cardiovascular disease was linked to our diet and lifestyle.Stamler began studying cardiovascular disease in the 1940s, after serving in the U.S. Army.

Gardeners have been warned to 'think twice' before putting a common plant in their gardens, after it caused over £100k worth of damage.

The Battle At Lake Changjin II (aka Water Gate Bridge) led the Chinese New Year box office on day one today, coming in at an estimated RMB 657.6M ($103.4M). While that’s certainly an enviable single-market one-day score — and is the second-biggest CNY opening day ever — it’s about 35% below the record-breaking debut day of last year’s CNY release Detective Chinatown 3. What’s more, across all movies today, the total was down 12% to RMB 1.49B from RMB 1.69B last year, per Maoyan estimates.

In just a few days the Winter Olympic Games begin in Beijing, a massive event China will use to present an idealized image of itself to the world.

Leo Barraclough International Features EditorMunich-based world sales company Global Screen has closed further deals in major territories for the family entertainment adventure “School of Magical Animals,” the most successful German film at the local box office last year. Global Screen will also be selling the sequel, it announced Tuesday.Deals have been closed for China (A-Quest Culture Media), Japan (Fine Films), Latin America (Discovery), Hungary (ADS), Serbia and Croatia (Investacommerce), and Portugal (NOS).

Omicron Covid is likely to have originated in mice, according to a new study.

has died from COVID-19 at the age of 40 — just two days after texting his brother and revealing his regret at not getting the shots. Cabrera — who has left behind a wife and a 3-year-old son – succumbed to the coronavirus at a California hospital on Jan. 15 after the disease developed into pneumonia.The funnyman was best known by his stage name “Chinese Best Friend” and boasted more than 115,000 followers on Instagram.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau ChiefChina Media Group has launched CCTV-8K, an 8K ultra-high-definition TV channel, to broadcast the upcoming 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics, state-owned news agency Xinhua reports.To deliver the channel, CMG had to accelerate development of its nascent 8K production, broadcasting and transmission operations, said the Asian Broadcasting Union.CMG has started to install giant 8K screens in public places across the country, starting with four railway stations in Beijing and Olympic venue Zhangjiakou.Other media novelties this year include Kuaishou, a short video and live-streaming platform, being set as an official broadcast partner. Kuaishou claims more than a billion downloads of its app and to be catching fierce rival Bytedance (which owns both TikTok and its Chinese equivalent Douyin.) Along with streaming platform Tencent Video, Kuaishou sub-licensed the China rights to last year’s Tokyo summer games and the 2022 Beijing Olympics from China Central Television.The games are set to go ahead in an ultra-strict anti-COVID bubble.

Zack Sharf “Fight Club” author Chuck Palahniuk has shared a surprising reaction to this week’s news that China censored the ending of David Fincher’s 1999 movie, which is based on Palahniuk’s 1996 novel of the same name. As reported by Variety, “Fight Club” was uploaded to Tencent Video, China’s largest video streamer, with an entirely new ending that is the exact opposite of Fincher’s finale.In the 1999 original, Edward Norton’s narrator character kills off his alter ego Tyler Durden (Brad Pitt) before watching the city burst into flames in apparent confirmation that his plan to destroy civilization has worked. The new ending in China cuts the film to black before the city erupts in films.

Fight Club author Chuck Palahniuk has responded to the news that Chinese streaming platform Tencent Video has amended the film’s ending.In the final scenes of the original, The Narrator (Edward Norton) kills off his imaginary alter ego Tyler (Brad Pitt) and watches on as numerous buildings explode.In the version released on the Chinese streaming platform Tencent Video, however, the original’s anarchist ending is replaced with a black slate, captioned: “The police rapidly figured out the whole plan and arrested all criminals, successfully preventing the bomb from exploding.” It also adds that Tyler was sent to a “lunatic system” for treatment.Palahniuk, who wrote the 1996 novel the film is based on, gave a sarcastic response to the altered ending in his newsletter on Substack.Have You Seen This Sh*t?This is SUPER wonderful! Everyone gets a happy ending in China! https://t.co/saVA2yro9B pic.twitter.com/20UzTi1nyI— Chuck Palahniuk (@chuckpalahniuk) January 25, 2022“Tyler and the gang were all arrested. He was tried and sentenced to a mental asylum.

Are films ever safe from the dicey scissors of Chinese or international censors? It appears not. A new version of David Fincher’s 1999 cult classic “Fight Club” has been released online in China and, in something of a surprise, has gotten a much happier ending.

Two top Republican members of the House Energy and Commerce Committee have fired off a letter to NBCUniversal, calling for them to answer questions about their concerns that China’s ruling communist party may influence the upcoming coverage of the Beijing Winter Olympics.