Hong Kong Showbiz Latest News and Updates

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.

Welcome to Global Breakouts, Deadline’s fortnightly strand in which we shine a spotlight on the TV shows and films killing it in their local territories. The industry is as globalized as it’s ever been, but breakout hits are appearing in pockets of the world all the time and it can be hard to keep track… So, we’re going to do the hard work for you.

A mum used her talent for making health and beauty products to help her son who was going through gruelling treatment - and went on to establish a successful business.

Disney CEO Bob Iger confirmed that Frozen 4 is in the works, with the new installment joining the previously confirmed Frozen 3.

EXCLUSIVE: Peacock has acquired cutesy animated series Mittens & Pants and is planning a Q1 2024 launch.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Two independent management companies in the Asian music scene, MoFo Music and IAMAD, have merged to create a new music production and artist management group, MAD MoFo. The new entity will be led by Hong Kong-based Kelvin Avon and Sydney, Australia-based Philippe-Marc Anquetil. Both are both multi-award winning and multi-platinum selling international producers, songwriters and managers. At the same time, MAD MoFo has announced the launch of a Series A fundraising.

The Goldfinger is described as a Hong Kong crime epic and now it has a UK release date: December 30th in previews and than wider from 5th January.The Goldfinger stars Tony Leung (Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, The Grandmaster) and Andy Lau (The Wandering Earth II, House of Flying Daggers), teamed with Infernal Affairs co-writer Felix Chong (The Silent War, Overheard).The duo first collaborated more than 20 years ago on original 2002 box office sensation Infernal Affairs which earned international acclaim and paved the way for a hit trilogy as well as that 2006 Scorsese remake, The Departed.Cine Asia will distribute the film in the UK.Related: Trailer for The Goldfinger starring Tony Leung and Andy LauInspired by true events and set during the 1980’s, The Goldfinger follows the rise and fall of a multi-billion-dollar company and its chairman Cheng Yi-yan (Leung), who undergoes a major investigation led by an elite anti-corruption investigator (Lau). The result is a relentless and intriguing 15-year investigation in pursuit of the truth.Very much looking forward to this.

Caroline Brew editor Film Movement has acquired the U.S. rights to Maciek Hamela’s “In the Rearview,” following its Cannes Film Festival and Toronto International Film Festival premieres. Film Movement has a theatrical release and awards campaign planned with the documentary’s producers and Polish Film Institute, which co-financed the film.

Adele Lim, screenwriter of Crazy Rich Asians and writer-director of Joy Ride, talked about the realities of bringing Asian stories to mainstream global audiences in a panel, ‘Asian Rising Power in Hollywood’, on the second day of Taiwan Creative Content Fest (TCCF). 

IVE have announced the stops and dates for their upcoming 2023 to 2024 ‘Show What I Have’ world tour.Today (November 8), IVE announced the dates for the upcoming Asia, US, Europe, Latin America and Australia legs of their 2023 to 2024 ‘Show What I Have’ world tour. This comes just a month after they kicked off the tour in October with two shows in Seoul, South Korea.The K-pop girl group will kick off the Asia leg of their newly announced tour in November 2023, with two shows in Yokohama, Japan.