Chinese movie producers are still hoping to lure back to the cinema the local audience who became choosier in the second half of 2016. It resulted in box-office earnings growing by almost four percent only last year.
Lunar New Year Offerings
China.org listed 20 films to watch out for in 2017, including three that already opened as part of the offerings for the Lunar Festival. The three are “Journey to the West:Demons Strike Back,” “Duckweed” and “The Village of No Return.”
Those opening in the first six months of 2017 are: “The Summer is Gone” on March 24, “Extraordinary Mission” on April 1 and “Battle of Memories” on April 28.
Directed and written by Dalei Zhang in his directorial debut, “The Summer is Gone” is the story of a 12-year-old boy (Kong Weiyi) who lived in the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region in 1994. The movie is his memories of his father, whose job was affected by the transitioning of state-owned enterprises to private companies, and the family. Kong Weiyi got the Best New Performer and the movie the Best Feature Film awards at the 2016 Golden Horse Awards.
2nd Half of 2017
Movies to open in the second half are: “Brotherhood of Blades 2” in July, “Wu Kong” on July 13, “Wolf Warrior 2” on July 28, “The Founding of an Army” on Aug. 1, “City of Rock” on Sept. 30, “Fang Hua” on Oct. 1, “The Thousand Face of Dunjia” on Oct. 2 and “Kukai” on Dec. 22.
“Brotherhood of Blades 2” is a prequel to the martial arts drama in the Ming Dynasty period of the same title. The critically acclaimed movie, starring Chang Chen and directed by Lu Yang, mixes genres of wuxia, secret agents, detectives and action elements.
Films listed as opening in 2017 but with no definite play date are: “Exorcism,” “A Rain Cloud in the Sky,” “The Great Escape,” “Evil Minds,” “Evil Minds: City Light,” “The One” in summer and “Bleeding Steel.” The Jackie Chan-starrer, “Bleeding Steel” was shot in Sydney, Australia, for 32 days, in Taiwan for 40 and Beijing 41 days. Produced by Heyi Pictures and Village Roadshow Pictures Asia, one scene showed Jackie Chan climbing up the Sydney Opera House and then he went into a hand-to-hand combat with a woman holding a knife in each hand, Strait Times reported.