By PING’AN JIEDAO
Entertainment Correspondent

Lieutenant Dashan of the Foreign Expert Squad poses for action, as a territorial slap-fight ensues

SHANGHAI (China Daily Show) – The first season of CSI’s much-anticipated ‘Shanghai’ spin-off has been cancelled, after scriptwriters failed to take into account the East Coast city’s complete absence of crime.

Plotlines involving corruption, sexual harassment and high-end ergotou were shelved after quality-control cadres for the State Administration of Radio Film and Television (SARFT)  cited an “insufficient suspension of disbelief” for viewers.

The news comes as a blow to fans, who had been hoping for a forensic examination of the infamous metropolis’s seedy underbelly. 

Instead, producers were forced to admit that it doesn’t exist.

Initially, expectations for the China-based crime drama had been high.

A pilot – featuring an arrogant British businessman foolishly attempting to molest a female kung-fu student – won high praise from critics and viewers alike.

“This is essential viewing for young, unemployed men. The exciting plot confronts a serious and very important criminal trend in China today,” wrote the People’s Daily TV critic. “Foreign criminals.”

“I liked the bit where she kicks the foreigner hard in the groin and runs into the arms of a nearby CSI inspector for comfort,” said CSI fan Ma Jingguo, 17. “That was particularly satisfying and realistic.”

The detectives at CSI: Shanghai prepare to investigate a high-level wok theft

Yet SARFT officials later lambasted producers, after details of the second episode – in which a city official forces a subordinate to dine at a Japanese restaurant with him – were leaked on an online BBS forum.

According to an internal SARFT memo, “The opening scene depicts the cadre leaving his duties to answer a personal phone call. He is then shortly after seen at a lunch banquet, drinking a light alcoholic beverage and encouraging his companions to do likewise.

“To depict top leaders’ behavior in such an unrealistic manner is hurtful to the image of the Party and offends the feelings of the Chinese audience,” the memo concluded with quiet fury.

It is believed that angry censors did not even bother viewing the next scene, in which the same Shanghai official sodomizes an unconscious male prostitute, before choking on his own vomit. 

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by DONG FANGHONG
Culture Correspondent

A scene from one of the new plots that may or may not be a scene from one of the old plots

BEIJING (China Daily Show) –Three new plots have been discovered in the national film archives, China’s Ministry of Culture announced yesterday.

The discovery was described as an “unprecedented leap forward for the Chinese entertainment industry” and brings the total number of acceptable storylines up to seven.

While anecdotes, legends and documented events from China’s lengthy historical annals are plentiful, the Party has struggled to find contemporary plotlines deemed to be of ‘Red Star Criteria’ for its national playlist.

“Many so-called ‘modern plots’ contain the kind of themes contemporary Chinese audiences just aren’t interested in,” snorted film critic Hu Jintao (relation) of the Central Party School’s Education Through Cinema Department. 

“Lesbian gangsters, bent cops and debauched politicians” are typical examples of boring Western obsessions, he said.

“Simply put, the Chinese have an insatiable appetite for three-hour epics about the Sino-Japanese war,” shrugged Hu.

The addition of a trio of new plots to the official canon is sure to propel China into the cinematic superleague, experts hope.

“Today is momentous,” remarked Ministry spokesperson Wu Laigang. “We have almost doubled our national artists’ creative capacity by graciously donating them these new stories.”

The three plotlines include the full range of genres and styles, Wu added, predicting that the first – in which two Shanxi schoolchildren use their father’s moonshine to burn down a Japanese official’s family home– will have Disney “running for the hills.”

The new storylines will see a 15% decrease in TV films based on squad combat in an unnamed forest circa 1930

The second is likely to replace Romeo and Juliet as the world’s favorite love story within six years, Wu says.

The plot is a “sizzlingly harmonious” love story, set during the Nationalist White Terror of the 1930s, in which the protagonists never meet. 

“We’re calling it White Heat,” said Wu. “It’s never been done before.”

Industry insiders say the third new plot may be the most original. 

A cross between James Bond, a Rolex advert and the Quotations from Chairman Mao, the story relates an uncorroborated incident from the early life of Mao Zedong, in which the shirtless junior librarian garrottes the Kuomintang officer responsible for his second wife’s execution, using piano wire concealed in his Chinese wristwatch.

The plots will significantly bolster China’s four extant storylines, currently consisting of statutory rape in wartime; a rich girl marrying her boss; a platoon fighting in a forest; and a teenage boy dying a lonely virgin, as a result of a non-specific wasting illness.

While some have welcomed the additions, others say China will not be a true cultural powerhouse until it has at least 10 storylines.

Minister Wu was quick to reassure talent agencies, however, that there would be no change to the standard ‘three male, two female’ character stereotypes.

“Some things will never change,” Wu smiled. “Men can still pick from Saint, Traitor or ‘Fat ’n’ Funny,’ while women can be either Victim or Bitch.” 

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BY DAISY WU
Hollywood Correspondent

If 'Kung Fu Panda 2' doesn't win at least something, China's gonna be pissed. I'm telling you.

LOS ANGELES (China Daily Show) — It’s just over 24 hours to go until the stars begin walking down the red carpet at Hollywood’s Kodak Theater, and I, Daisy, start asking the really important questions – like, honey, what are you wearing?

But seriously, folks, forget The Artist. Forget Hugo. Forget George Clooney (I wish). The Iron Lady? I said – forget it!

I’m talking about whether our shorter cousins over the Pacific are in with a chance for an Oscar this year. I’m talking about China. Way I see it, they’ve got two shots: first up, summer bonkbuster The Founding of a Party, which– I’m told – is about some very old men in a room (yawn!) or The Flowers of Nanjing, which sounds like something a bit more for the ladies, starring dreamboat Christian Batman Bale and some other Chinese women.

To test the air, I hit the streets of LA for some old-fashioned “meet the public.”

Soon, I’m sitting in the bustling Hong Kim Seafood BBQ Restaurant, on Mei Ling Way, downtown LA, and let me tell you folks – it really feels like Chinatown here! Everybody is talking about one thing and one thing only –Jeremy Lin. But if they’ll just stop talking about basketball for one goddamned minute, it’s clear they also have one other thing on their minds: China!

“What do you think about China’s chances?” I ask one elderly diner. “For what?” he wonders, looking puzzled. It’s clear that no one’s told this senior about the big news this year. I slip him a dollar and move on.

“Are you excited about China’s chances for an Oscar,” I query a man calling himself “Josh” Wang, who’s smoking outside an office building. “Not really, I’m Taiwanese,” he starts to reply. Uh, what’s the difference, Josh?

Shaken by the somewhat bigoted – and often downright hostile – responses I keep finding on the street, I decide it’s time to talk to the experts. A short spin of my Rolodex (metaphorically, of course; these days I use an iPhone, made in… wait for it… yup, Hong Kong) and I’m in a cab heading over to the Hills for some top insider talk.

Sadly, when I arrive, I hit a wall: the reception is spotty, or something, because no one’s answering my calls. So step forward, Frank Marshall III Jr, who calls himself a “Sino-US Hollywood activist”. It sounds worryingly political! Frank invites me into his room, where he lays out the blueprints for an exciting proposal from the backers of that Founding of a Party movie, a company he calls “CCP.”

“We’d like to see them become investors in the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences and strengthen the bond between these two nations great, via harmonious cultural dialogue,” he explains over some jasmine tea. Hey, it all sounds like music to this reporter’s ears.

With a $5 billion sponsorship deal on the hook, the Academy would have to make a few changes – such as maybe renaming it the Golden Dragon Film Awards, maybe, that’s one possibility, there are others, cool it – but Frank insists the deal would in no way affect the impartiality of Academy members.

“They were already corrupt as hell before!” Frank laughs. “Don’t write that down. But seriously – Founding of a Party. That’s a great, great film. Did you see the bit with the Mao and the snowflakes? Pure movie magic.”

I haven’t, so I stay quiet. But I’ll watch anything with Christian Batman Bale, so it’s a dead cert I will at some point.

“This is a story about young love,” Frank adds. “A love between a charismatic librarian and his future wife. Between a traumatized nation and its future overlords…” Hey, Frank: stop talking about the Republicans. Daisy out…

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By Ruan Shili
Cultural Correspondent

The new 'GI Wang' remake has left male critics "stunned, confused but excited"

BEIJING (China Daily Show) – The set-up may seem familiar to film fans: a pair of  femme fatales, vast riches and a villainous male standing in their way.

But the Sino-side update of crime classic Bound (1996) will  feature “Chinese characteristics”: the plot now revolves around a pair of rival sisters, whose exquisitely bound feet compete for the attentions of a wealthy Manchurian warlord in 1914 China.

“It’s a much more interesting story than the original, which was about lesbians, betrayal and the Mafia,” explained Hong Kong director Danny Chao, adding, “The new version features rampant calligraphy.”

Chao’s film is part of a cinematic renaissance spearheaded by the Chinese government, whose plan to make China “a socialist cultural superpower” was unveiled at the latest Central Committee plenum in late October.

Aftershock director Xiaogang Feng is already hard at work on The Towering Inferno (Safely Extinguished), which revisits the  downtown Beijing 2009 CCTV  fire and uncovers the tale of an upright government official (Andy Lau) battling to save office workers from a group of disgruntled Japanese fireworks salesmen.

Other potential hits include Citizen Kong – starring Chow Yun-fat as a dying Confucian scholar, desperate for a last tap of former mistress “Rosebud” – and Titanic, an epic weepie about a pair of doomed lovers who meet on an “uncrashable” high-speed train.

This is not the first time Beijing has plundered Hollywood’s back-catalog in search of inspiration to revive its own flagging film industry, however.

During the 1960s, the rights to a numbers of Oscar-winning classics were stolen and completely re-shot to incorporate a Maoist aesthetic: the James Dean hit  Rebel Without a Cause became Red Guard classic Public Servant With Noble Intention (1965) while the retitled A Rickshaw Named Contentment (1967) arguably speaks for itself.

Many of these remakes went on to become extremely popular in China. Harmony on the Bounty (1977), for example, proved a huge success with both the public and the censors.

“Pass the scurvy!” declared the People’s Daily film critic upon the film’s release. “For here’s emphatic proof that the US piracy in the motherland’s South China Seas is no longer a match for a crew of hardened seamen with socialist longings.”

But despite the most stringent re-branding efforts, some of today’s remake projects seem unable to shake off what officials once called the “spiritual pollution” of their origins.

An early cut of Zhang Yimou’s Mr Lin Goes to Zhongnanhai, for example, recast Frank Capra’s 1939 feelgood classic as a cautionary tale about the dangers of political reform, with Lin — played by a thoughtful Guo Degang — now a disillusioned peasant-with-a-petition, shown regretting his destabilizing ways as he languishes in a black jail. Censors eventually decided the film was too uplifting.

And the Huayi Bros production Some Like it Hot Pot (tagline: “Spice up your Spring Festival with a little transvestism in your hogwash oil!”) seems forever bound for the cutting-room floor, after star Ge You admitted in interview that he now preferred wearing his character’s female costumes in real life.

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And look for the following at your nearest Wanda Multiplex soon:

Shaft
Not to be confused with Blind Shaft, this Chinese remake of the 1970s hit hopes to launch a new genre – “Uighursploitation.” Shaft is a wisecracking private detective who won’t stop till he gets his man — but after investigating a series of ethnic arson attacks, he agrees he’s better off just leaving the case well alone. A sequel, Shaft in Africa, is in the works.

The Godfather
This line-for-line indie remake of the 1970s Oscar-winner stars renowned character actor Alec Su playing an unusually upstanding Yunnanese Tobacco Bureau chief.

The Grapes of Benevolent
Has there ever been a better time to revisit Steinbeck’s masterful tale of a migrant worker family, fleeing the West across a lush Jiangsu landscape into the arms of a group of benevolent Wenzhou money lenders?

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By XING CHOUWEN
Entertainment Correspondent

Hannigan said alcohol will play a key role in bringing his vision to the screen

BEIJING (China Daily Show) – After taking full advantage of a 2-for-1 special on Mojitos at a downtown Beijing bar, self-defined freelance artist Brian Hannigan, 27, informed friends and onlookers that he would commence shooting on his eagerly anticipated China movie, starting first thing Monday morning.

“It’ll open on the subway, with this foreigner – played by me – looking all lost and confused?” the former steel welder-turned-cinematic auteur asked a rapt audience of wait staff.

“There’s, like, beggars and prostitutes everywhere. But everyone avoids eye-contact… which is weird.”

The specifics of how Hannigan’s narrative continues were unclear at press time, but vignettes colorfully drawn in red pen across several napkins were shown to bar staff and patrons at the impromptu preview.

Among planned scenes were insightful shots of an overturned bicycle, an old woman scavenging through garbage, sleeping security guards and what Hannigan said was his favorite motif, a paper bag blowing through Tiananmen Square.

Hannigan was at pains to insist that the film would be “a total departure from the usual indie crap you see out here,” and would instead “really get to the bare bones of China.”

Film student and occasional collaborator Forrest Vincent, 25, said he hoped the fledgeling director would choose his proposed title – Red, White and Yellow: A Reel American in Real China – over Hannigan’s own tentative moniker Fuck All This Shit.

His arm around the waist of girlfriend Dolphin’s slight waist, a visibly intoxicated Hannigan said the film as a whole was intended as an indictment of both China and those foreigners who visit the country, behave badly and pronounce themselves expert Sinologists during their brief sojourn.

“Losers who come here to get laid and make snap cultural judgments about a culture they have no insight into, basically,” Hannigan explained. “Hey, man, another Mojito,” he added.

Despite having lived in Beijing nearly four years, Hannigan has declined to take up a now-dwindling number of job offers, ruling them “another form of Communist slavery.” He has also refused to learn Chinese, insisting that such a decision would “play right into [the government’s] hands.”

“English has power out here,” he told our rapidly tiring reporter. “Nobody responds to Chinese. It’s all, like, censored. If you want to get through to the migrant workers, the peasants and the grassroots artists, use the lingua franca. English. What Chinese person will turn to Chinese-language film as a source of inspiration? Would you?” he asked a bemused passer-by, mopping spittle from the bar.

Questioned as to how he intended to fund his magnum opus, Hannigan remained tight-lipped but close friends have hinted that a close relative, Michael Hannigan, a retired company head, is said to have expressed an obligation to show interest in the project.

“Make no mistake, after I pick up my friend Josh’s camera first thing tomorrow, things are going change in the Middle Kingdom,” Hannigan emphasized. “A hard wind’s a-blowing.”

As of 3pm Monday, however, Hannigan was still asleep on friend and executive producer Mitch Trader’s couch, after watching a succession of episodes of The Wire as part of his ongoing background research.

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By MEI YISI
Entertainment Correspondent

BEIJING (China Daily Show) — In an effort to rake in international film profits, SARFT has announced its intent to produce the most expensive film of all time.

The sure-fire blockbuster, to be directed by legendary Chinese director, Zhang Yimou, will star “all of China’s most famous actors, Brad Pitt, Angelina Jolie, Tom Cruise, you name it,” an optimistic SARFT spokesperson said Tuesday in a press conference, and will cost “exactly $1.3 billion dollars.”

The script has yet to be penned, but migrant workers in Hebei province are already constructing the world’s largest 3D “CHIMAX” movie screen, which spans the entire length of the Great Wall of China. Premier ceremonies will take place on the moon.

Zhang Yimou will direct the film while in orbit aboard the rocket, Shenzhen IV, using the world’s largest megaphone.

“This can show our power and techknowledge to the world!” said lunar gaffer, Wai Xingren.

Sources close to the production have leaked the film’s working title: The Monkey King.

Agatha Holmes contributed to this story.

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Chinese film god, Zhang Yimou, shows his enthusiasm for the project.