Earlier this month, new artist Xie Nan released her first mini-EP, titled The Best Between Us (最好的我们). Most known for being an anchorwoman for Enlight Media, China’s biggest privately owned media and entertainment distribution company, Xie Nan had hoped for the last five years to release a recording, and her persistence has finally paid off.

The EP, which contains three songs, is a testament to Xie Nan’s dreams, but also a way for her to express thanks to the friends who supported her during her struggles to get to where she is now. One of these friends is Happy Camp host, He Jiong, who makes a special appearance in the title track’s MV. He also attended the EP’s press conference to congratulate her, as did many of her other friends, such as Allen Su Xing, Li Yifeng, Ma Tianyu, and Fu Xinbo.

Watch the MV for “The Best Between Us”:

Source

When the ‘Happy Family’ produces an album, they spare no expense. With some of the best photographers and composers in the industry helping them, they released “Happiness. You understand it” a couple weeks ago.

Tracklist:

01.快乐你懂的
02.绽放的微笑
03.傻傻爱
04.以爱之名
05.白日梦
06.男人婆
07.思念的距离
08.为你歌唱
09.我的爱坏坏
10.啦啦歌

More gorgeous picture from the album below the cut.

Hong Mao Lan Tu Huo Feng Huang is the second movie of the franchise

Up against the fierce competition of the cute sheep and wolves of Pleasant Sheep and the Big, Big Wolf 2 (喜羊羊与灰太狼之虎虎生威) this New Year’s season is Hong Mao Lan Tu Huo Feng Huang (虹猫蓝兔火凤凰), another animated feature based on a popular cartoon series. While Xi Yang Yang aims for the funny and simplistic, Hong Mao is more of an intricate epic tale that appeals to the wuxia fan in everyone. The original series, which I feel like had a much better plot, tells of  seven legendary swordsmen whose children grew up and must discover their destiny and each other to defeat the evil clan in protection of the beautiful Zhangjiajie.

Both the new Hong Mao and the new XiYangYang movie are available on sohu hd. Which one do you like better?

Although pale in comparison to the likes of Pixar or Disney, Hong Mao is definitely a major success in recent Chinese animation. The artistic direction is excellent, and showcases the beautiful scenery of Zhangjiajie every scene. That combined with a good plotline that finally blurs the stark differences between adult and children animation makes the series one that perhaps shows the future of Chinese animation.

The Hong Mao series (虹猫蓝兔七侠传) was originally developed by Hunan-based HongMeng along with support from Zhajiajie tourism. The movie is dubbed by Hunan TV’s Happy Camp hosts Xie Na, He Jiong, Li Wei Jia, Wu Xin and Du Haitao.

I have realized, after the dozens of Top Combine/H.I.T-5 MVs that popped up out of Youtube (and since most of my site hits come from searching either of those two names), that the reason Chinese entertainment music was not more prolific was not because of the fact that they were Chinese, but rather because there were not boybands. Now that there are some, all the cpop fans have come out of the woodwork including posting Top Combine appearance on Hunan TV’s enormously popular Happy Camp, which apparently set something like a 12 year high for the show.

I say preface that with “something like” because the article doesn’t touch on that point elsewhere in the article except the title. Nevertheless it did get the highest time slot for that time in China. This show is already the most popular variety show in China due to its quintet of fantastic hosts, one of which keeps getting linked to the “New Meteor Garden” as Tsukushi/Shan Cai (Xie Na) and one as Domyjouji/ Dao Mingsi (He Jiong) despite both being way too old for the parts. Yeah, that’s how popular they are. Not only that but the one Korean member in Tom Combine whose Chinese is still not very good is the one fans are trying to suggest as a candidate for “New Meteor Garden” to make it a cross-cultural affair. I have a feeling if this series fails, it’ll be the fans who ruin it, by always joking about the casting. They need to stop saying “Ask Li Yuchun to be Tsukushi/Shan Cai!” because the producers are going to think they are serious and everyone is going to be sorry.

Happy Camp is so good that it actually has has good cameramen, as opposed to the first show Top Combine was on, Tian Tian Xiang Shang, which blinded you with their take on the boys’ Arrival dance.

Part 2 of the show (since part 1 doesn’t have Top Combine, just the hosts): Go to youtube to find the rest and thank the poor soul who decided to upload this:

[youtube="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2aW9bcimGPA"]

The best part, of this (shown in part 3)…which people who did not follow Super Boys/ Kuai Nan may not get:

After showing a clip of Xiao Mei, aka Liu Zhoucheng getting shot down for his singing on Super Boys by judge Yang, hostess Xie Na says she’ll sing before he sings, just to make him look good. Host He Jiong says, “Yes, here’s someone else who’s been burned by Yang judge too!”. Xie Na then replies, “what? I haven’t been hurt by him.” Then He Jiong says, “Didn’t he hurt you when he exposed your relationship with Zhang Jie?” Everyone gasps/laughs including Xiao Mei because Zhang Jie was a contestant on the show and Xie Na was a judge and they really got found out as couple. Xie Na then says…”I’ll pretend I didn’t hear that”. He Jiong pretends to go crouch down and say, “I shouldn’t have said that”, then gets up and says, “It’s okay. Judge Yang isn’t here and you guys are still together!” More laughter.

Actually, come to think of it, those two as the leads of Hana Yori Dango/New Meteor Garden/whatever wouldn’t be so bad. They’d make it extremely funny at least.