City Shanghai Showbiz Latest News and Updates

Jackie Chan has reassured fans that he is in good health after a picture of him with gray hair and a beard sparked concerns for his wellbeing.

Ben Croll In many ways, “Letters From Drancy” has hewed a prestigious if unremarkable path. The VR doc premiered at last year’s Venice Immersive before additional festival slots at the BFI London Film Festival, South by Southwest and now the NewImages Festival in Paris. In other ways the title is all too uncommon – as it was one of three films commissioned by the Illinois Holocaust Museum & Education Center, where it is now on permanent display.

The 2024 Formula 1 race season is heating up!

Formula 1‘s Charles Leclerc dons a white striped suit while attending the Rolex Monte-Carlo Masters held at Monte-Carlo Country Club on Sunday (April 14) in Monte-Carlo, Monaco.

The Formula 1 schedule for the 2025 season has already been revealed!

Annika Pham “I am a mother of young kids but, boy, I hope I’m a very different kind of mother than Eva,” says Danish star Birgitte Hjort Sørensen (“Borgen,” “Pitch Perfect 2”) about her character in the Danish psychological drama “Dark Horse,” showcased this week in Canneseries’ official competition. The story about a mother-daughter toxic relationship, set against the backdrop of addiction, turns on 17-year-old Anna and her mother Eva who move back to Eva’s small provincial Danish town from Shanghai.

Naman Ramachandran Kung Fu superstar Sammo Hung will deliver a masterclass on May 4 as part of the 12th Singapore Chinese Film Festival. He will also attend a mini-retrospective of his films.

EXCLUSIVE: Showrunner and screenwriter Trey Callaway (The Messengers) has taken on new reps at Independent Artist Group and Echo Lake Entertainment.

A former executive at Yoozoo Games was sentenced to death on Friday in the 2020 poisoning of the company founder. The Chinese gaming company has links to Game of Thrones and the new Netflix series, The 3-Body Problem.

Aaron Taylor-Johnson, born in England on June 13, 1990, has carved a niche with his versatile performances and undeniable talent. Taylor-Johnson’s career trajectory has been fascinating, from portraying a teenage superhero to embodying historical figures and delving into psychological thrillers.Taylor-Johnson’s journey into acting began at a young age, showcasing his talents in various films throughout his adolescence.

A new illusion museum that’s already popular in locations including Las Vegas, Shanghai and Dubai could be making its way to Manchester's city centre.

Manchester Airport has announced the launch of a direct route to Shanghai, the first service to operate to the Chinese city from the north. Juneyao Air has chosen Manchester as its first destination in the UK in a move that’s been hailed as “fantastic news” by regional leaders.

Murtada Elfadl “Night of Nights” throws the audience immediately into the action. A sick man in a wheelchair and his companion are stopped outside a hospital by a security guard. All three men are masked and speaking Chinese.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief “The Boy and the Heron,” the Oscar-winning animated feature film by iconic Japanese director Miyazaki Hayao, is finally to be given a release in cinemas in mainland China. The picture is scheduled to release in China on April 3, 2024, according to Alibaba Pictures. Tickets are already available on booking sites such as Maoyan and Alibaba’s Taopiaopiao.

A new direct route between Manchester Airport and Shanghai is set to launch this summer. Chinese airline Juneyao Airlines will operate three weekly services between Manchester and the Chinese city.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief “Escaping Man,” a Chinese drama feature about a man dragged into a kidnap plot, heads the FilMart slate of Hong Kong-based sales agency Autumn Sun Company. The protagonist is a man who spent 20 years in jail after being falsely accused of rape. After his release, he intends to confront the woman, but instead falls for her again — to the point that she is able to manipulate him into kidnapping the child for which she is the nanny.

Naman Ramachandran Taiwan-based anime distribution and licensing company Muse Communication has acquired Asian distribution rights for anime “Dan Da Dan,” it was revealed at Hong Kong rights market FilMart on Monday. Written and illustrated by Yukinobu Tatsu, Japanese manga series “Dan Da Dan” was serialized in Shueisha’s Shonen Jump+ app and website from 2021. The anime series based on it is due to bow in October.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Film projects to be produced by Andrew Lau (“Infernal Affairs,” “Initial D”) and Han Sanping, the former head of China Film Corp., are among the new in-development titles that grace the FilMart slate of Hong Kong studio Media Asia. The Peter Lam-controlled studio is also poised, at an event within FilMart on Monday, to detail its new alliance with China’s Alibaba Pictures Group. Lau is producing “Behind the Scene,” a book-to-film adaptation to be directed by Lee Kwong-yiu (“Insanity”) in which four friends uncover a meticulously planned murder that is carefully disguised as a kidnapping. Suspicions fall on a bank president who is involved in counterfeiting. Han is aiming to produce “Fading Tracks,” another crime title that is also adapted from a novel.

A Chinese woman who tried British Chinese food for the first time has given her verdict - and it's very positive.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Indian director and cinematographer Jatla Siddhartha has assembled several of the biggest names in world cinema in service of “In the Belly of a Tiger.” The film has its premiere next week at the Berlin Film Festival. Pitched as a blend of surreal horror and selfless love, the film is a fictionalization of reportedly real events in rural India, in which a couple arranges to be eaten by a tiger in order to ensure their family’s financial security.

The guessing game on Masked Singer UK has reached a fever pitch, and fans are buzzing with speculation about the mysterious celebrity behind Maypole. With each episode, viewers eagerly await clues and performances, and some eagle-eyed fans are convinced that Maypole is none other than Pussycat Dolls singer Melody Thornton. Taking to social media, fans meticulously dissected the clues, connecting the dots that point to Melody Thornton as Maypole.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Iconic Hollywood musical film “La La Land” is to re-release (again) in South Korean theaters from Wednesday. Distributed by Pancinema, it will play at the country’s Imax cinemas for a one-week limited run with tickets costing upwards of KRW15,000 ($11.25) for adults. The film was directed by Damien Chazelle and stars Ryan Gosling (newly Oscar-nominated for his role as Ken in “Barbie”) and Emma Stone, and holds the box office record for movie musicals with global box office of $470 million. It recently re-released in cinemas in China in time for the Christmas peak season.

Giggs, Chase & Status, Rico Nasty, Skream, Benga and more.Yesterday (January 23), the electronic music promoters and livestream platform announced the second edition of its world tour, which will make stops in 25 cities across the globe, including Amsterdam, Bogota, New Delhi, Lagos, London, Mumbai, New York, São Paolo, Seoul, Shanghai and Toronto. A full list of the confirmed dates on the world tour can be found below and on Boiler Room’s official website.A post shared by Boiler Room (@boilerroomtv)Alongside the world tour’s dates, Boiler Room has also announced the first wave of acts who will play for the events.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief First-time mainland Chinese director Lin Jianjie (aka JJ Lin) makes a splash this weekend with the premiere of his “Brief History of a Family.” Asking questions about family in the era since the end of China’s ‘One Child Policy,’ while also borrowing genre tropes such as the idea of the intruder and blood, it is a polished and ultra-modern fable that sees a teenage schoolboy ingratiate himself into another boy’s family.Variety spoke to biologist-turned-filmmaker Lin on the eve of his Sundance debut.How did you get from zero to making your first feature?[After graduating in biology] I did two short films at film school. I went to Tisch Asia, which had a campus in Singapore. We also had an exchange program with Tisch in New York.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Once banned in China, Stephen King’s “The Shawshank Redemption” had its much-anticipated debut as a stage play in the country’s tech capital Shenzhen on Jan. 4. Adding to its unusual status, the play is performed in Chinese by a cast of Western actors who are based in the Middle Kingdom.

Reports are surging out of Shanghai Disneyland after a child guest reportedly got injured on the new Zootopia-theme ride less than a week after being officially opened to the general public.

If you’re anything like me, you are still reeling, not over, and have not forgiven Hong Kong filmmaker Wong Kar-Wai for what he did with his Criterion Collection 4K boxset remasters of all his original films (he may be an auteur, one of the true grandmasters of cinema, but his aesthetic revision there is akin to a cinematic crime that rivals what George Lucas did with the “Star Wars” prequels, worse actually).

Christopher Vourlias While the war in Ukraine has upended global geopolitics and ratcheted up tensions between Russia and the West, the impact has been especially profound across Eastern Europe and Central Asia, where many inhabitants have themselves been the victims of Moscow’s aggression in the past. In Kazakhstan, which shares the world’s longest land border with Putin’s rogue state and was the last of the former Soviet republics to achieve independence, the past two years have not only seen the disruption of traditional political and economic ties but accelerated a process of uncoupling from Russian language and culture.

Lucinda Chua has shared a surprise EP called Reclaiming the Rose, her first follow-up to her debut studio album, March’s YIAN. The three-track tape follows its predecessor’s glacial, haunting aesthetic, adding spoken-word poetry to the London artist’s already-rich palette.

The Formula 1 season for 2023 may be over, but race fans will only have to wait a few more months until the 2024 season!