Archive for the 'Film' Category

American dude’s video diary of China

Published
by
Jason Li
on September 15, 2008
in Film, News and Television
. 6 Comments

Aricsqueen. He’s from America, but living in China. He video blogs a “Shanghai Diary.” His mission is to give an alternative and honest view on China. The news and views typically take a critical position on China; stories include how an American got jailed in China for, a watchdog piece on pre-Olympic changes, and a preview of five Chinese rock bands.

The citizen journalist format is interesting , but in this case, sometimes the white American dude point of view has its limits.

I’m late to the show, and Aric’s currently on a break from Shanghai/China.

Luckily, it’s still all online and hosted by Current TV: See episodes from the series here.

(Thank you Parisa from CurrentTV for sending this over, and Micah for correcting me on some details!)

A hip, British take on 西游记 (Western Journey)

Published
by
Jason Li
on August 4, 2008
in Art, Film, Meme, News, Translation and Video Clips
. 0 Comments

“With music by Damon Albarn, and imagery by Jamie Hewlett — the duo that brought us the Gorillaz — I am loving BBC Sport’s marketing campaign for the Chinese Olympics.”

Via Drawn.

global lifecasting: Justin.TV gets Chinese characters

Published
by
Lyn Jeffery
on July 21, 2008
in Blogs, Film, Podcasts and Virtual China
. 0 Comments

I’m doing some interviews with people who are playing with different reality media, and Justin.TV is a great example. The site recently got its one millionth user.  Most are like me, I’m guessing, and just sign up so they can navigate the site better.  But some are doing what Justin.TV is set up to do: broadcasting some or all of their lives, in real time, via a fixed or mobile webcam.  Many of these “lifecasters” also maintain a running chat with viewers, or have interactive games and contests.  Then there are what appear to be streaming TV channels, such as canal rcn colombia.

As of a few days ago, the site can be read in traditional and simplified Chinese characters.  A search for “China” reveals 22 hits, and a 中国 search, 0.  However, either I am missing the boat on how to get these things to play, or almost all the China channels are inactive, such as this from user “hello china” which as far as I can tell was done 9 months ago and has not been added to since then.

Let’s keep an eye on this and see 1) who the first Chinese lifecasters on Justin.TV will be; and 2) how lifecasting will show up on PRC websites, not on Justin.TV.  Probably some people are already doing it and I’m just not aware of it.

Chinese sharing movies for the world

Published
by
Lyn Jeffery
on September 26, 2007
in Film and Virtual China
. 1 Comment

I’ve always wondered when this would start–this is the worldwide web after all.  TV Links, a website in the UK, works as a linkfinder for streaming movies, TV shows, anime, cartoons, and documentaries. While some of the links are to sites like Veoh, Stage 6 (especially for material before 1990) and occasionally Google Video, for its current movies TV Links takes advantage of widespread free English-language content hosted on Chinese sites like Tudou, Youku, 56.com, and Ouou.  No need to visit these sites directly and do a search; TV Links has about 2000 movies all there for you.  And TVL has a big group of volunteers who scour the web for additional links.  Eventually this model might also work for MP3s, but mainstream musical tastes are different enough in mainland, US, and Europe that there’s just not enough musical overlap yet.

According to Alexa, TV Links has a traffic rank of 214 and nearly 40% of users are from the U.S.

Fifth_element_2

The foreigner experience in China

Published
by
Jason Li
on August 27, 2007
in Blogs and Film
. 0 Comments

Karl1

Karl2

Reporting from Shanghai.

This is Karl. Karl is an actor, model, MC and runs his own entertainment consulting business. He blogs about all this as well. For example:

"In my experience, and (I seem to say this often) especially in China, that schedules are often floating and you spend many hours waiting for the next shot.

In
the last movie I was filming, we had days as long as 16 hours, with
only 2-3 hours of actual shooting. Unfortunately that is typical for
the industry in China. Though, there is always something fun you can
occupy yourself with. Some people have games, some books, or even
sleep. Once you have memorized your script many times over, there is
still a lot of time you have to practice your basket weaving.

Though the danger of immersing yourself in a book or some other
activity is that when you are called up for your scene, you have to
quickly get back into character and remember the lines and the scene."

Blog: PlanetKarl

Ben1

Ben2

Reporting from Fuqing.

This is Ben. Ben is American. Ben taught English for a year and a half. Ben worked a month at a barber shop. Ben sometimes writes stuff for Pacific Ethnography and Orbus Investor. He blogs about some of this as well. For example:

"What I found the most discouraging from a humanistic perspective was
that with the possible exception of Jiang who gets creative pleasure
out of designing hairstyles, I can honestly say that nobody in the
barber shop likes their job. Even Mr. Zheng, if presented with the
right opportunity, would leave the industry if he could. There is an
overwhelming sense of lack of self-actualization, and many of my
coworkers view their job as pointless, literally."

Blog: Ben’s Blog… 小本的博客

Link credits:
1) Danielle Engelman at the Long Now Foundation.
2) EastSouthWestNorth & Ken Erickson from Pacific Ethnography.

Uncertain Reality, Uncertain virtuality:Cao Fei

Published
by
Nan Yang
on July 31, 2007
in Film, Gender, Video Clips and Virtual China
. 0 Comments

China_tracy2

Here is the impressive Second Life documentary by China Tracy, an 29 year-old alternative female artist, from Guangzhou, China, who was also invited by iCommons to give a lecture on iSummit this year in June.
To watch the whole film, please check here.  You could also find this documentary on YouTube and many other websites. 

China_tracy

She runs a blog by the name of China Tracy’s Second Life Blog, while she writes a Real First Life blog named Cao Fei’s Blog. For more on her SL life, there’s an interview with her in English at New World Notes. Besides spending time living a Second Life in a virtual World, she pays attention to the Real world as well.

Here’s an interview (in Chinese) with her about some of her work, which was recently included in Yunnan New Film Series. In this interview, she discusses the fact that almost all of the directors taking part in this film series project are women, and most of them don’t have much experience in making films. Maybe it’s a signature of the revolution of new Chinese film and art period under the background of Creative Commons?

Sina videoblogging contest is rolling

Published
by
Lyn Jeffery
on May 23, 2007
in Art, Film, Video Clips and Virtual China
. 0 Comments

Sina_vblog

Chinese portal Sina.com, which has one of the "good," officially sanctioned video clip websites, is now holding a massive video blog 播客 contest which will end on July 15th.  According to the press release, actor Jacky Chan, directors Feng Xiaogang and Zhang Yuan, painter Fang Lijun, and the Asian Backstreet Boys aka the Backdorm Boys are among the judges, and of course there will be online voting. They are giving away prizes totaling more than 1 million RMB (~ US $128,000).  Prizes will be given in categories of self-made 自拍, short act 短剧, remix 改编, lip-synching 翻唱, animation 动画, and spoof 恶搞; and will belong to (excuse the Chinglish here, please) either Family Life 家庭生活, Creative Remix 创意改编, Situational Short 情景短剧, Accomplished Performance 才艺表演, or Social Documentary 社会纪录.

Entries will be accepted from individuals as well as from organizations.  Three top prizes will be awarded for "Best Original Video, Most Recommended Video, and Best Organization Video." CCTV will be airing some of the winners.   

Enough of the details!  Go see some of the submissions by scrolling to the bottom of this page (but there are no links to the Lip-synching videos, which I’m terribly interested in seeing).

The video with the most votes (over 3000), over 11,000 pageviews, and 40 comments, is an original drama titled "Memory 记忆" It’s a blockbuster in DV format at over 16 minutes, and explores nostalgia, regret, and lost love.  Lots of shots of a girlfriend hitting her boyfriend playfully, ice-skating, and I won’t spoil it, but there’s a red feather that floats down from above as well. If you’re a Chinese TV drama fan, you’ll enjoy it! 

more cellphone flix from Metroer

Published
by
Lyn Jeffery
on May 21, 2007
in Film, Mobile, Video Clips and Virtual China
. 0 Comments

Cellflix_2

Last spring we and others reported on the First Annual Cellphone Film Festival held by the Shanghai magazine Metroer.  Now you can check out the latest entries at the homepage of Metroer’s Third Annual Cellflix Festival (yes, I know, what happened to the second"? perhaps we were wrong last time!). They define cellflix as short pieces of a few minutes that are either captured via cell phones or can be directly downloaded and viewed on cell phones.

There you can see short pieces like The Time of Our Singing, by btr who also made last year’s memorable Shanghai Freak.  The Time of Our Singing showcases a number of different venues where Chinese people are singing, from subterranean pedestrian busker to karaoke bar.  Quite nice.

Cellflix

Here we see a pair of middle-aged women singing revolutionary songs from their youth. 

Not to be missed: "Marv’s" Back in the Saddle with group shakerees by a bunch of exercise enthusiasts on the street in China. 

Kung Fu Hustle online game, a China exclusive

Published
by
Jason Li
on May 11, 2007
in Film and Games
. 1 Comment

Sony Online Entertainment Taipei and Shanghai Northstar are teaming up to create an online game for Stephen Chow’s hit movie, Kung Fu Hustle.

The game will only be released in China, and it will be free to play… unless you wish to purchase extra lives and special items.

According to the press release, it’s a sort of "classic fighting game."

Also, "in Versus Mode, eight players can go head to head in all out multiplayer mayhem."

To try to predict what is to come: here’s an example of a casual, Tetris-like game developed by co-developer Shanghai Northstar called 无厘头快快 (Nonsense On Speed), which features some stock characters from Chow’s movies:

20070512_wulitou

But according to Joystiq, "the shots of this game [the Kung Fu Hustle one] that they showed us look pretty … painful"

According to a Sony spokesperson, Chow’s "an avid
video game player, with a strong sense of game design."

Via Game|Life.

top google video: sensationalist “Rape of Nanking”

Published
by
Lyn Jeffery
on February 25, 2007
in Film, History, Politics, Portals, Search, Translation and Virtual China
. 1 Comment

Jay Dautcher alerted me to the current number one video on Google Video.  It’s been seen over 280,000 times, almost 100,000 of those in the last 24 hours.  It’s a 77 minute video called The Rape of Nanking (Nightmare in Nanking), originally produced in English by a Dr. Rhawn Joseph and his Brainmind organization, and now voiced over in Mandarin. Dr. Joseph seems to have a fascination with the strange and macabre, and has produced such bizarre "classics" as Hitler’s Diaries, the Face and Pyramids of Mars, Alpha and Omega Antichrist, and a series of Brain Mind lectures.  You can find the English version of Nanking Nightmare in several parts on Youtube, where it has been viewed 135,000 times in the last 3 months.  The promo for the video has quotes such as this:

We had fun killing Chinese. We
caught some innocent Chinese and either buried them alive, or pushed
them into a fire, or beat them to death with clubs. When they were half
dead we pushed them into ditches and burned them, torturing them to
death. Everyone gets his entertainment this way. Its like killing dogs
and cats." –Asahi Shimbun, Japanese soldier, describing Japanese
atrocities during the Rape of Nanking.

This year is the 70th anniversary of the massacre. A quick Baidu search turns up a groundswell of attention in the last week or so for the film.  For instance, China Youth Daily editor Qiu Haiping wrote an impassioned post on his blog on Feb 22, rallying Chinese viewers to see the film and to show it to their children as well. It was immediately reposted at forums, such as here at Tianya on the same day. Some comments on the Tianya repost:

The Americans see Sino-Japanese relations warming up
so they deliberately put out this film. Bush says to Japan,
look, you’ve got so much hatred with China,
China is not going to let it go.  Just be good and let me piss on you.
That evil American government, there’s nothing they won’t think of.

The best teacher for Chinese youth’s anti-Japanese education is Japan itself! The Chinese government has actually been suppressing anti-Japanese sentiment inside China. In 2005, the explosion of anti-Japanese demonstrations was led by the Internet’s development in China.  Thanks to the Internet, which has allowed us to understand more truths, and led us to throw away those ridiculous fantasies!

Actually, those Chinese who are familiar with the Japanese atrocities all hold a strong desire for revenge, and hope that China will punish Japan for it one day. Many Chinese don’t want to see any more propaganda from Chinese officials about "Sino-Japanese friendship."  We are looking for an excuse for the second Sino-Japanese war.  The short-sightedness, bullying and shameless nature of the Japanese are an opportunity for Chinese to get revenge!…

Watch this movie not to make us remember hate, not to make us take revenge, but to make us study history, so that both countries can peacefully coexist.

No matter what the U.S. does, they’re still different from Japan because they are still human.  The Japanese will always be beasts.