Lower than a decade in the past, the Shanghai Worldwide Movie Competition was the preeminent annual hotspot for Hollywood and European dealmakers decided to forge alliances and carve out a foothold in China’s then-booming business movie sector. Within the post-pandemic period, nevertheless, because the Chinese language trade continues to mature and the Hollywood hype over the nation’s market potential way back gave technique to grim actuality, the competition has transitioned right into a considerably extra inward-facing event.
That home focus is on show within the Shanghai occasion’s 2024 lineup, which options 10 Chinese language films among the many 25 titles of the 2 major worldwide competitors sections (and never a single movie from the U.S. or South Korea). For worldwide movie buffs, the Shanghai competition is now greatest seen as a chance to take inventory of present traits in Chinese language filmmaking — and on that entrance, the occasion’s 2024 lineup is wealthy with potential.
The twenty sixth Shanghai Worldwide Movie Competition runs June 14 to 23. Vietnamese-French director Tran Anh Hung (Cannes’ greatest director winner final 12 months for The Style of Issues) is the president of the occasion’s major competitors jury this 12 months. Beneath, The Hollywood Reporter picks 5 can’t-miss Chinese language movies from the competition’s 2024 choice.
A Man and a Girl, directed by Guan Hu
Native hitmaker Guan Hu is undoubtedly the director of the second at this 12 months’s Shanghai Worldwide Movie Competition. Simply final month, the 55-year-old, sixth-generation filmmaker triumphed on the Cannes Movie Competition by successful the occasion’s prestigious Prix Un Sure Regard together with his visually beautiful offbeat drama Black Canine. Starring an achingly cool Eddie Peng as its rebel-without-a-cause protagonist, Black Canine solely releases theatrically throughout China on Saturday, however Guan is already arriving in Shanghai with one other accomplished function. A Man and a Girl stars native A-listers Huang Bo and Ni Ni within the title roles of two strangers who land in Hong Kong on the identical switch flight throughout the pandemic and find yourself stranded in side-by-side rooms in the identical quarantine resort. Greatest recognized for his motion blockbusters like Mr. Six (2015) and The Eight Hundred (2020), Guan is making one other thrilling departure with A Man and a Girl, because the movie’s refined story activates a rising bond between the title characters as they share cigarettes and dialog on their adjoining resort balconies, ready for Hong Kong’s fabled skyline to blink again to life.
Don’t Fear, Be Pleased, directed by Wei Shujun
Wei Shujun is the one post-Nineteen Nineties Chinese language director to have landed within the Cannes Movie Competition’s official choice 3 times — together with his offbeat debut Striding into the Wind (2020), follow-up drama Ripples of Life (2021), and final 12 months’s noir thriller Solely the River Flows (2023) — and he’s impressed worldwide critics with every outing. The rising expertise’s newest effort, Don’t Fear, Be Pleased, is about to premiere in Shanghai’s major competitors. A household drama, the movie follows a mentally challenged younger man who has a particular bond together with his caring mom. However the household is quickly shook to its core when the mom is identified with most cancers, prompting the protagonist to consider he might help via the ability of constructive vitality, whereas his elder brother, a physician, makes an attempt to treatment right here via standard means. The movie stars Huang Xiaoming, Monyca Lu, Zu Feng and native arthouse hero Jia Zhangke.
‘Don’t Fear, Be Pleased’
Shanghai Worldwide Movie Competition
The Royal Cat, directed by Cao Liang
Chinese language animation has been buoyed by the worldwide success of the Boonie Bears franchise ($1 billion in field workplace income from 10 movies, to date) and by spectacular technical advances, as seen just lately within the story of historic poets, Chang’An (which earned $250 million at China’s field workplace final 12 months). So there are excessive hopes for Beijing Movie Academy graduate Cao Liang’s debut function, The Royal Cat. Cao, who minimize his enamel on Chinese language tv, additionally units his movie in historic China. The movie follows a human-stray cat duo who staff as much as examine the unusual case of an emperor’s son who has changed into a cat. Chinese language distribution is being dealt with by the aptly named native outfit Jiang Su Jing Ling Cat Tradition Expertise.
Ms Hu’s Backyard, directed by Pan Zhiqi
Golden Horse Award nominee Pan Zhiqi (24th Avenue) is a part of a era of Chinese language documentarians following the lives of strange folks whose very private tales replicate wider social points in China. Right here, the filmmaker is presenting us with the story of Ms. Hu, one of many nation’s ubiquitous city rubbish collectors who has apparently used that garbage to construct a backyard she hopes will carry some shade into folks’s lives, not least her son, who — like as many as an estimated 35 p.c of Chinese language residents — suffers from melancholy.
Princess Iron Fan (1941), directed by Wan Laiming and Wan Guchan, digitally restored in 4K
Talking of Chinese language animation, there’s a uncommon likelihood to see the movie that began the whole lot, restored by the wonders of 4K digital know-how to all its glory. The Wan brothers — Laiming and Guchan — had been pioneers of the artwork type in Asia, producing the area’s first full-length animated function in 1941, as struggle raged round their studio – and the world. The story is taken from the pages of the nation’s favourite classical novel, the 16th century epic Journey to the West, serving to gasoline an trade obsession with the story of the Monkey King that continues to at the present time. The world premiere of this superbly remastered model comes via a collaboration between the China Movie Archive and cellular players Arknights.