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"I used to think the case is over when it's cracked, and the culprit's arrested... But later I realized cases never end." Cmc Pictures has unveiled an official trailer for a revenge thriller from China titled Hovering Blade, formerly known as either Hesitation Blade or Blade of Hesitation as well. It just opened in China a few weeks ago, and also opens in US theaters this June. "If a teenager who has committed a heinous crime can be given a second chance to reform, then how can my deceased child be saved?" After his daughter is raped and murdered by a group of underage individuals, single father Li Changfeng resolutely embarks on the path of revenge. During this journey, he becomes entangled in a deadly cat-and-mouse game with both the perpetrators and the police. The pursuit of justice and vengeance collide as emotions clash with the law in the ultimate showdown.

Chinese auteur Lou Ye is on a mission to finish An Unfinished Film, which he is presenting as a Cannes Special Screenings, in a way that he set out to make before the Covid pandemic changed its course. It will exist as a separate film.

He describes the new untitled project as “organic, made in a casual and personal way on a modest budget”. It exists as a separate project to the Cannes title and will contain old and mostly unseen footage from his previous films including Spring Fever, which won best screenplay in Cannes in 2009; Mystery, which premiered in...

Drama stars Hu Ge, from Diao Yinan’s 2019 Cannes Competition title ’The Wild Goose Lake’.

Beijing-based Rediance has acquired worldwide rights to Chinese director Liu Jiayin’s All Ears, a drama starring Hu Ge and executive produced by award-winning filmmaker Cao Baoping.

Rediance will launch sales on the feature at the European Film Market (EFM) this week.

Hu, from Diao Yinan’s 2019 Cannes Competition title The Wild Goose Lake, plays a mediocre screenwriter who turns to writing eulogies to make ends meet. As he listens to the life stories of the ordinary deceased people from their families, he finds a new footing in life.

Connections made in strange lands have an inimitable character. There is that unique shared sense of not belonging and trying to find one’s place at the same time in a country that could be a newfound home or just a temporary escape. Knowing that you’re not alone in this kind of peculiar quandary, however, is the simple but indispensable truth that one reaffirms from Li Gen’s debut feature “Before Next Spring,” an entry to this year’s New York Asian Film Festival.

Before Next Spring is screening on New York Asian Film Festival

The movie is based on Li’s experience as a foreign exchange student in Japan. It is this lived experience which gives the film an authentic feel, stripped of overwrought drama or any contrived pull-and-push of emotions. It is simply an unadorned, heartfelt unfolding of the everyday interactions of Li Xiaoli, who plays a Chinese student,...

Song Fang’s The Calming, produced by Jia Zhangke (who has Swimming Out Till The Sea Turns Blue also in the Main Slate of the New York Film Festival) begins with documentary filmmaker Lin Tong (Xi Qi) visiting Tokyo for the first time. She remarks on how green it is, even in winter. Greenery and travel form the skeleton of this soothing film, which deals with the aftermath of a breakup. Lin meets up with an older Japanese acquaintance, the man who had introduced her to the ex-boyfriend Guiren whom we never see. “We met because of you, I thought it’s better to tell you,” she says. He doesn’t really know how to react.

The real-life clumsiness, the awkward pauses in human interactions are captured attentively; these are the most precise moments of the film. Before leaving on a short trip to snowy Niigata in central Japan, Lin reconnects.

Production is under way on “The Whistleblower,” one of the biggest Australian-Chinese co-production movies ever made. The film is a thriller about a Chinese expatriate who discovers a conspiracy at the firm he is working for.

The film is directed by Chinese woman director Xue Xiaolu, who achieved a critical breakthrough in 2010 by putting Jet Li in a drama role in “Ocean Heaven.”She achieved commercial success with 2013 romance “Finding Mr Right.”

The cast is headed by Lei Jiayin (“Guns and Roses”) and “Lust, Caution” and “Finding Mr Right” star Tang Wei, with Xi Qi and John Batchelor (“Red Dog”). Dialog is in Mandarin and English.

The official co-production film has a gross budget of some $39 (A$55 million) before rebates and incentives. At least $28.5 million (A$40 million) is being spent in the state of Victoria, where the Dockyards Studios are being used. Filming continues through October.

Production is by Australia-Chinese joint venture company Perfect Village,...

Marion Cotillard, Rust and Bone The Guardian‘s Peter Bradshaw on Jacques Audiard‘s De rouille et d’os / Rust & Bone, starring Marion Cotillard (who’s already getting Oscar buzz) and Matthias Schoenaerts: "What could have been simply bizarre, sentimental or contrived here becomes an utterly absorbing love story; Rust and Bone is a tale of a miraculous friendship which evolves into an enthralling and moving romance, wonderfully acted by Marion Cotillard and Matthias Schoenaerts. … This is early days in the festival, but Rust and Bone has to be a real contender for prizes, and, the odds will be shortening to vanishing point for Cotillard getting the best actress award." Time‘s Mary Corliss Rust & Bone: "For all the grit of its milieu and the stark cinematographic contrasts of blinding brightness and midnight murkiness, this is a movie of the old school; Kings Row and An Affair to Remember leap to mind.