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Stars: Zhang Yu, Song Jia, Wang Yanhui, Lee Hong-Chi | Written by Xin Yu | Directed by Xiaofeng Li

Outside of a few horror movies, my experience of Chinese movies is seriously lacking and it is something I should definitely try to change in 2023. Back to the Wharf feels like a great choice to start with that.

An escaped convict comes back to his home town after the death of his mother, fifteen years after he left. He soon learns that the past is still haunting him and gets mixed up in the seedy underbelly of the city and the reasons he left.

This slow-burn Chinese drama looks fantastic. Especially when the city and streets have rain showering down on them and the street lights are glowing. Many of the driving scenes featured this and I loved them. Two driving scenes feature crashes that look realistic and manage to shock without blood or gore.

Universal’s keenly anticipated animation “Minions: The Rise Of Gru” debuted atop the U.K. and Ireland box office with £10.4 million (12.5 million), according to numbers released by Comscore.

Warner Bros,’ “Elvis,” which had debuted in pole position last week, slid down a place to second with £2.9 million for a total of £10.1 million. Paramount’s Tom Cruise vehicle “Top Gun: Maverick” continued its strong flight at the U.K. box office with £2.6 million in third place and now has a total of £67.9 million after six weekends.

In fourth place, Universal’s “Jurassic World: Dominion” collected £1.8 million in its fourth weekend for a total of £30.4 million. Rounding off the top five was Disney’s “Lightyear” with £864,035 in its third weekend for a total of £8.5 million.

Picturehouse Entertainment’s Cannes and multiple Australian Academy of Cinema and Television Arts Awards winner “Nitram” debuted in 10th place with £41,909.

In another reminder of the territory’s continuing appetite for documentaries,...

The third feature from director Li Xiaofeng, following “Nezha” and “Ash”, “Back To The Wharf” is a classic noir exposing some of the modern China’s worst plagues. The film had its premiere at the Shanghai Film Festival.

“Back to the Wharf ” is screening at Udine Far East Film Festival

It’s 1992 and bright, diligent student Song Hao (Zhou Zhengjie as a teenager and Yu Zhang as an adult) is waiting to hear if his well-earned automatic university place is finally confirmed. Hao‘s father Song Jianhui (Wang Yanhui) is a mid-level official of a coastal port city who has placed on the boy’s shoulders all his hopes for a better future and a social retribution. However, the headmaster announces that Hao will not have the university grant as he is good enough to get a place in the regular way and that “to prioritize the collective over the...

The Shanghai International Film Festival, China’s longest-running major cinema event, is set to return with a sizable in-person edition in June.

The festival, which shifted to a curtailed online offering last year amid the pandemic, unveiled both its 2021 international competition jury and full selection this week.

The jury will be led by Chinese producer Huang Jianxi as president, with the rest of the panel made up by Singaporean filmmaker Anthony Chen, Chinese actor-director Deng Chao, Chinese actor Song Jia, former Venice festival chief Marco Mueller and China-based French producer Natacha Devillers. Unlike in most years, there are no established ...

After shifting last year to an online format, the Shanghai International Film Festival will return for its 24th edition later this month. The festival will play as an in-person event, while the market sections will be hybrids of in-person and online activities.

The TV festival runs from June 6, while the film festival runs from June 11-20. A prize ceremony for its Golden Goblet awards will be held on June 19.

The jury that will select the competition winners includes: Chinese producer Huang Jianxi as president; Singapore filmmaker Anthony Chen; Chinese director and actor Deng Chao; Italian film festival selector Marco Mueller; Shanghai-based French producer Natacha Devillers; and Chinese actor Song Jia.

Organizers said that the festival was being in the spirit of “strong recovery and leading momentum of Chinese films in the world, with three-fold focuses on Asia, attention to China and support for new talent.

Main Competition

“Amateurs”

Dir. Iwona Siekierzynska (Poland)

“Barbarian Invasion”

Dir.

Author: Competitions

To celebrate the release of acclaimed martial arts movie The Final Master from Cine Asia, we have an awesome kung fu DVD double bill up for grabs including Ip Man and Young Bruce Lee, to get you in the mood for action.

Don’t miss The Final Master making its long-awaited arrival in the UK! In 1930’s China, Wing Chun master Chen She (Fan Liao, Assembly, Chinese Zodiac), arrives in Tianjin, a city famous for martial arts. With plans to open his own kung fu school, he must first train a student to defeat eight of the city’s masters, legitimising himself as a teacher. But when he is caught up in local politics and an underworld power struggle, Chen finds himself at odds with dangerous people and will fight to protect what he holds most dear.

Written and directed by Xu Haofeng (The Grandmaster) and co-starring Jia Song (Shock Wave Tunnel,...

Attempting to explore more traditional terrain, writer/director Xu Haofeng decides to explore one of his own novellas for his third directorial outing after the acclaimed efforts ‘The Sword Identity’ and ‘Judge Archer.’ Employing a more recent stage for his period-set martial arts drama, ‘The Final Master’ or released under the original title ‘Shi Fu,’ allows him to go for a realistic touch to the martial arts.

Buy This Title

Desperate to open a new studio, martial arts master Chen Shi (Fan Liao, from “Black Coal, Thin Ice”) yearns to introduce Wing Chun, a relatively new martial arts style, into Chinese territories. When told by Grandmaster Zheng (Shih-Chieh King, from “Brotherhood of Blades”) that such a practice is not allowed, he and his wife Zhao Guohui (Jia Song, from “Red Cliff”) find a way of getting around the circumstances by signing a protegee and selecting Geng Yiangchen (Song Yang, from...

The Bodyguard – Sammo Hung, Andy Lau, Pei-yan Chen, Jiayi Feng, Qinqin Li, Shaofeng Feng, Yuchen Zhu, Eddie Peng, Jun Hu, Tsui Hark, Carl Maka, Tean Shek, Jia Song, Yuen Biao, Qiu Yuen, Wah Yuen, Yuen Bo

Synopsis –The Bodyguard follows a retired bodyguard (Hung) who has settled in the dark and unknown corner of the world where China, Russia and North Korea meet. Suffering from the beginnings of dementia, the bodyguard is befriended by a young girl whose life is threatened when her father (Lau) falls in with the local crime world. When the girl and her father disappear, the bodyguard must call upon his long forgotten skills to save the life of his young friend.

English subbed trailer also available via Filmsmash

Source : Filmsmash...