Internet ventures into film and drama productions

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Zhou Xun plays a nail-clip eater in the first of four high-budget mini-movies released on sina

Internet series and movies are often synonymous with low-budget and poor-quality, but two new releases this month shows how Chinese internet companies are making big budget productions just for the computer screen.

This month, Tudou (China’s number one streaming site and the world’s most trafficked streaming site per day) released the first of three internet dramas it sponsored -  欢迎爱光临 That love comes starring Joe Cheng,  Li Fei’er and model Pei Bei. Though the plot is slow and cliched, the high budget is shown in the choice of the actors and the cinematography.  Meanwhile, Sina released the first of four short films by director Peng Haoxiang. The first film, titled 指甲刀人魔 nail clipper monster, stars Zhou Xun, and the second film, 假戏真作, stars Stanley Huang.

English trailers for 欢迎爱光临 That love comes:

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Tsui Hark and Zhang Yuqi attend Joe Cheng's Play

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I apologize up front for calling Design for Living Joe Cheng’s play, but he is probably the draw for a lot of people, and probably the person most people know, at least for those who come to this site. For the famous people in attendance however, the big draw was mostly Sylvia Chang, a veteran director in Taiwan. The director and one of the lead actresses of “Not All Women are Bad” were spotted attending the play Design for Living in Beijing. Taiwanese music mogul Jonathan Lee (Fusion’s management), and Chinese sixth generation director Tian Zhuangzhuang were also in attendance.

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Looks Like Someone Won Something at the Golden Bell Awards

Would you rather get a kiss from Joe Cheng or win Best Television Actress at the Golden Bell Awards? Some lucky people can have both. Yes, Ariel nabbed the highly competitive prize this year against the likes of Joe Chen Qiao En(heavily favored), Rainie Yang and Angela Chang.

Kind of lazy to post the pics, but more are here

Joe and Ariel's Press Conference for New Drama

Joe and Ariel had a little press conference for their new drama, “My Love Bread”, which was formerly known as Trillionare Bread, which I think I had translated as something totally off before. Whatever. They had finished all of the shooting in Taiwan in the last months three months, and have gone to the mainland for a 3-day shoot, in Hangzhou, so this may actually be airing quite soon.

Wu Jianfei, who got famous through the 2006 “My Hero” competition in China is going to be part of the cast as well, playing Ariel’s character’s ex. Wu Jianfei already has a budding career in Taiwan, with his latest CD being released there and having Selina (of SHE)’s sister star in his MV but to be honest, it’s not sold that well, and hopefully this will give him some more exposure. Unfortunate that he doesn’t act as well as he sings.

The curious thing about this is that Taiwan has, or at least had, a policy banning mainland actors being in Taiwanese movies or dramas. I wonder if this has changed gradually since Ma Ying-Jou has stepped into office and what this means for the future of collabs between the two. I think it would do both places some good actually because mainland dramas can be a little too serious at times, and Taiwan’s a little too silly.

Joe Cheng and Ariel Lin Brave Typhoons for Filming

October 1, 2008 | Posted in Taiwan,Television, Tagged ,

Joe Cheng and Ariel Lin of It Started With A Kiss fame have teamed up again for a new drama, My Millionare, where no one is actually a millionare it seems. The plot details are still a little fuzzy for me. They showed how hard actors need to work to reach deadlines by filming recently in the middle of Typhoon Jang Mi, which has already cost hundreds of millions of property damage for Taiwan. Maybe that’s why no one is a real millionare in the series.