Jasmine Flower Premier Screening
May 29, 2004
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Jasmine Flower (aka Mo Li
Hua Kai), famous Chinese photographer and director Hou Yong's film about a family of three generations of women, starring Zhang Ziyi,
Joan Chen,
Jiang Wen,
Lu Yi and
Liu Ye, will have its premier screening as Jasmine Women at the 7th Annual Shanghai International Film Festival in Shanghai, China. Based on Su Tong's novelette The Lives of Women, set in 1930's, 50's and 80's Shanghai, Jasmine Flower will compete with other domestic and foreign films for the festival's coveted Golden Goblet Award.
The 7th Annual Shanghai International Film Festival, the only international film festival in China and one of only two "A Category" international film festivals in Asia, will be held from June 5 through 13, 2004. For more information, including programming and tickets, contact festival organizers:
Shanghai International Film Festival
11/F STV Mansions, 298 Wei Hai Road
Shanghai, China 200041
Tel: 86-21-62537115
Fax: 86-21-62552000
Email: siff@public4.sta.net.cn
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Pictures From 2046 Cannes Screening
May 21, 2004
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Director Wong Kar-wai's long-awaited sequal to his
2000 art-house hit In the Mood for Love,
2046, starring
Tony Leung, Zhang Ziyi,
Chang Chen,
Gong Li,
Carina Lau,
Takuya Kimura,
Faye Wong and
Maggie Cheung
in a cameo role, among others, held its premiere screening to critical acclaim yesterday, May 20, 2004, with a competitive
viewing at the 57th Annual Cannes Film Festival in
Cannes, France.
The following select pictures are of the film's cast and director from the day's events. Many, many more pictures, including pictures
of Ziyi's arrival in Cannes, can be found posted on our Forum!
First, director Wong Kar-wai, Chang Chen, Takuya Kimura Tony Leung, Carina Lau and Zhang Ziyi at an afternoon press
conference/photo op:
Chang Chen, Chang Chen, Tony Leung, Gong Li, Takuya Kimura and Carina Lau at the film's Red Carpet screening later in the afternoon:
Images courtesy of SINA
Due to its positive screening, 2046 is currently in very strong competition for the film festival's top prize, the
Palme d'Or.
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2046 Screens to Accolades In Cannes
May 21, 2004
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Yesterday, Thursday, May 20, 2004 2046,
a visually ravishing, intricately plotted new film about memory, loss and desire, sequel to director
Wong Kar-wai's 2000 art-house hit
In the Mood for Love, premiered to
wide critical accolades at the 57th Annual Cannes Film Festival in
Cannes, France. The film, which has been in production off and on, and in various scripted incarnations, for the past four years,
stars Tony Leung, Zhang Ziyi,
Chang Chen,
Gong Li,
Carina Lau,
Takuya Kimura,
Faye Wong and
Maggie Cheung
in a cameo role, among others.
Synopsis:
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2046 is the sequel to 2000 Cannes Film Festival favorite In the Mood for Love. Set in 1962 Hong Kong,
In the Mood for Love tells the tale of journalist Mr. Chow (Tony Leung) and his beautiful neighbor, Mrs. Su (Maggie
Cheung). When they discover their spouses are having an affair, they begin meeting clandestinely. In spite of their
attraction, however, they decline to consumating their unspoken love for one another. The film ends with Mr. Chow divorcing
his wife and beginning a freelance writing career and Mrs. Su remaining with her husband, ultimately to raise their son alone.
2046 begins as an animation, moving to a film within a film and introducing several different story strands. Mr. Chow
has moved back to Hong Kong after his divorce and his break-up with Mrs. Su. The refined noble man of In the Mood for Love
has changed: Where once his personal interests included writing wuxia fiction (martial arts fiction), part of his freelance
writing now includes pornography among other things. He drinks heavily, picks up a string of women for one-night stands and
seeks the service of prostitutes.
After moving into a hotel vacated by a nightclub performer he once knew, he gradually crafts a science-fiction novel about
the future named after his room number, 2046, with characters that are thinly disguised versions of the hotel manager and
his daughter (Faye Wong), who has been suffering from severe depression since her father broke up her engagement to a
Japanese man (Takuya Kimura). The plot moves forward in one-year increments, from one Christmas Eve to the next, moving through
the 1960s.
One narrative strand follows Chow's tempestuous affair with a beautiful, bad-tempered call girl named Miss Bai (Zhang Ziyi).
Another concentrates on the hotel-keeper and his daughter. A third goes back in time to when he lived in Singapore and met a
tragic, mysterious woman in a casino (Gong Li). A fourth explores the world of his novel in a film within a film. More, though,
than a story about one man's romantic entanglements with different women, 2046 is about a gorgeously sustained mood of elegy
and melancholy, where experiences evoke memories, and the present is always coloured by the echoes of the past.
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Due to its positive screening, 2046 is currently in very strong competition for the film festival's top prize, the
Palme d'Or.
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Pictures From Shi Mian Mai Fu Cannes Screening
May 20, 2004
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Director Zhang Yimou's second
wuxia film,
Shi Mian Mai Fu (aka House of Flying Daggers,
aka Lovers), starring Zhang Ziyi, Andy Lau and
Takeshi Kaneshiro, held its first screening to rave critical
reviews yesterday, May 19, 2004, with a non-competitive viewing at the 57th Annual
Cannes Film Festival in Cannes, France.
The following select pictures are of the film's cast and director from the day's events. Many, many more pictures, including pictures
of Ziyi's arrival in Cannes, can be found posted on our Forum!
First, Takeshi Kaneshiro, Zhang Ziyi, Zhang Yimou and Andy Lau at a discussion/photo op the night before:
Takeshi Kaneshiro, Zhang Ziyi, Zhang Yimou and Andy Lau at an afternoon press conference/photo op:
Cast members and director at another, larger afternoon press conference/photo op:
Last but not least, cast members and director at the film's Red Carpet screening later in the evening:
Images courtesy of SINA
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Shi Mian Mai Fu A Hit At Cannes!
May 20, 2004
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Yesterday, Wednesday, May 19, 2004 at 10:30 PM, Shi Mian Mai Fu
《十面埋伏》 (literally, "Ambush From Ten Sides" or "No Way Out" - aka House of Flying Daggers, aka Lovers) held its first screening to rave critical
reviews at the 57th Annual Cannes Film Festival in
Cannes, France. The non-competitive screening of director
Zhang Yimou's second wuxia film,
starring Zhang Ziyi, Andy Lau and
Takeshi Kaneshiro, has become an instant hit, further
fueling its highly anticipated international release planned for later this year.
Reuters: "The eye-popping fight sequences in House of Flying Daggers, including one set in a bamboo forest, were greeted with gasps of astonishment and applause by critics at the renowned movie showcase."
MSNBC: "Critics lapped up the movie, set in the ninth century Tang Dynasty, in which two police captains are assigned to seek out the leader of the 'House of Flying Daggers' rebel group."
Variety: "The tangled tale of love and disguise is awesome in its action sequences."
Screen International: "Beyond a doubt, the most visually ravishing film on offer at Cannes is Zhang Yimou’s return to the sword-fighting genre."
Zhang Yimou, following the screening: "Martial arts films are full of possibilities and I wanted to exploit them to the full. Every director in China is interested in kung fu films. Martial arts are an extremely interesting genre as you find a mixture of action and emotion. For each director, this is a challenge."
Officially released synopsis:
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House of Flying Daggers is set in the year is 859AD as China's once flourishing Tang Dynasty is in decline. Unrest is raging throughout the land, and the corrupt government is locked in battle with rebel armies that are forming in protest. The largest, and most prestigious of these is the "House of Flying Daggers", which is growing ever more powerful under a mysterious new leader.
Two local captains, Leo (Lau) and Jin (Kaneshiro) are ordered to capture the new leader and the two hatch an elaborate plan. Captain Jin will pretend to be a lone warrior called Wind and rescue the beautiful, blind revolutionary Mei (Ziyi), from prison, earning her trust and escorting her to the secret headquarters of the House of Flying Daggers. The plan works, but to their surprise, Jin and Mei fall deeply in love on their long journey to the House.
Danger lurks in the forest surrounding them, and the wind is still, as if sensing the tension in the air. What lies ahead for Jin and Mei, these star-crossed lovers? If this is true love, then why are there plots in their heads, and secrets in their hearts?
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As was reported last month, Columbia Pictures has purchased the North American
distribution rights to Shi Mian Mai Fu. The film will presumably be distributed through Columbia Pictures'
Sony Pictures Classics, the distributor of other succesfully marketed films worldwide, including
The Road Home and Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon
among others.
Shi Mian Mai Fu will have its grand premiere at
Worker's Stadium in Beijing,
China on July 10, 2004, followed by a nationwide release in China on July 16, 2004.
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New Shi Mian Mai Fu Cannes Posters
May 17, 2004
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In preparation for its non-competition screening at the 57th Annual
Cannes Film Festival, already underway in Cannes, France, three new promtional posters for director Zhang Yimou's
second wuxia film
Shi Mian Mai Fu (House of Flying Daggers, aka Lovers - "No Way Out") have been released. Each of the following three posters released features a star from the film: Zhang Ziyi, Andy Lau and Takeshi Kaneshiro, respectively.
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Left: "Identity is a mystery - The Dancer (Zhang Ziyi)"
Middle: "Too mysterious to know - The Hunter/Policeman (Andy Lau)"
Right: "Deeply hidden and not to show - The Archer (Takeshi Kaneshiro)"
On all posters: "Shi Mian Mai Fu Presented by Zhang Yimou in 2004"
Synopsis: A blind girl's journey through love and enmity, promise and betrayal...
First Screening: Wednesday, May 19, 2004 at 10:30 PM at Grand Théâtre Lumière in Cannes, France
Grand Premiere: July 10, 2004 at Worker's Stadium in Beijing, China
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Hero Opens New York Asian Film Festival
May 11, 2004
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The 2004 New York Asian Film Festival
will open June 18, 2004 with a screening of the Oscar-nominated Chinese epic
Hero at
Anthology Film Archives, 32 2nd Avenue, New York, NY 10003 USA. Advanced tickets go on sale Monday, May 17, 2004.
Call (212) 505-5181 for more information.
Hero, director Zhang Yimou's first
wuxia, starring
Jet Li,
Tony Leung,
Maggie Cheung,
Chen Daoming,
Donnie Yen and Zhang Ziyi, will be released
in North America on August 20, 2004 and in the United Kingdom on August 6, 2004.
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