All articles by Stephen Cremin
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News
Taiwan enacts controversial "three strikes" copyright law
Taiwan’s legislature has passed an amendment to the Copyright Act to authorise a controversial”three strikes and you’re out” policy for online intellectual property violations.
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News
Thailand's Mono Entertainment returns to market after restructure
Thailand’s Mono Entertainment returns to Filmart this year under the banner of motif+ after a major corporate restructuring. The company is now divided into production division motif+, headed by successful director and producer Pantham Thongsang, and home entertainment division Command N, headed by Jirun Ratthanaviriyachai, managing director of Mono Entertainment.The ...
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News
Quickie Express wins best Indonesian film at JIFFest
Indonesian sex comedy Quickie Express and psychological thriller Fiksi. took top honours at the tenth edition of the Jakarta International Film Festival (JIFFest). A three-member international jury awarded Dimas Djayadiningrat's Quickie Express $2000 as the best Indonesian feature of the past year for 'its mixture of lively irreverent humour expertly ...
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News
Warlords wins best film anddirector at Golden Horse awards
Peter Chan's Warlords secured best film and best director at this year's Golden Horse Awards held in Taiwan on Saturday night (Dec 6). Chan's epic was a frontrunner with twelve nominations this year, securing three including best visual effects. Taiwan blockbuster Cape No. 7, the second most nominated film with ...
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News
Lin, Pan share top prize at Taipei projects market
Lin Yu-hsien's road movie 2menwalking and Pan Baochang's thriller Parkour Boys shared the $15,000 top prize at the fourth edition of the Film & TV Co-Production Meeting (formerly called the Taipei Film & TV Project Promotion) held from December 2-4. Lin's film is about a father and son who embark ...
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Features
Distribution - Warm embrace in Taiwan
Something is brewing in Taiwan. In the past 12 months it has become a more active buying market for international films, home to new distributors with deep pockets, while Hong Kong companies, such as Filmko, are launching local production offices to benefit from government subsidies and local talent. At the ...
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News
Warlords heads the pack forTaiwan's Golden Horse Awards
Peter Chan's The Warlords leads the race for the 45th Golden Horse Awards with nominations in 12 categories, including best feature film, best director and best actor for Jet Li. Also competing for the best film award are Feng Xiaogang's Assembly, Wei Te-sheng's Cape No. 7, Liu Fendou's Ocean Flame ...
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News
Wenders helps toturn First Page in Taipei
Wim Wenders formally announced his new project, First Page Taipei, in Taiwan's capital today. The German filmmaker, introduced as 'the master of road movies', will executive produce the debut feature of Taipei-born and San Francisco-raised director Arvin Chen. Wenders stated that he and his director have two things in common: ...
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News
Queens of Langkasuka tops Thai box office
Nonzee Nimibutr's fantasy action epic Queens of Langkasuka topped the box office charts in Thailand this weekend. The action-packed film has grossed 34.2m baht ($980,000) over five days in Bangkok, boosted by a public holiday on Thursday. The film has a chance to become the first local feature to break ...
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News
Cape No. 7 becomes Taiwan's top-grossing film of the year
Taiwan's Cape No. 7 has become the number one film at the Taipei box office in 2008, grossing over $4m. Wei Te-sheng's debut film surged ahead of The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor and The Dark Knight at the weekend, but figures were not immediately available as Taiwan endured ...
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News
Parking to open Taipei Golden Horse film festival
The Taipei Golden Horse Film Festival is stepping outside the art house for its 30th edition. Taiwan's main film festival will introduce crowd pleasers alongside award-winning art house titles from the Berlin, Cannes and Venice film festivals under new programming director Patrick Jia, formerly a senior marketing publicist at the ...
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News
Taiwan starts subsidy for film-makers with box-office hits
Taiwan's Government Information Office (GIO) has announced a new production subsidy for film-makers who score box-office success.The announcement follows the phenomenal success of Wei Te-sheng's Cape No. 7 which has made over $1.6m in Taipei and an estimated $3m nationwide after three weeks on release. Interest shows no signs of ...
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News
Serbia's The Trap takes top prize at Chungmuro fest
The 2nd Chungmuro International Film Festival in Seoul (CHIFFS) awarded its Grand Prize to Srdan Golubovic's Serbian thriller The Trap on Thursday night. The five-member jury headed by Michael Cimino also presented a Special Jury Prize to Aida Begic's Bosnian drama Snow and its Discovery Award to local director Hur ...
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News
Local comedy Cape No. 7 tops Taiwanese box office
On its third weekend on release, Wei Te-sheng's character comedy Cape No. 7 is the first local film in six years to climb to the top of the Taipei box office charts. Over the three-day weekend, the film grossed $240,000 representing a 77% boost on last weekend's numbers. It leap-frogged ...
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News
Hidden Fortress kicks off Korea's Chungmuro fest
The 2nd Chungmuro International Film Festival in Seoul opened last night with some of South Korea's biggest stars in attendance and the screening of Japanese director Shinji Higuchi's Hidden Fortress: The Last Princess. Local stars that climbed the red carpet included Jang Dong-gun, Ha Ji-won and Kim Jung-eun. Asian stars ...
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News
Taiwan selects Cape No. 7 as foreign-language Oscar entry
Wei Te-sheng's Cape No. 7 has received official notice that it is Taiwan's submission in the category of best foreign-language film at the upcoming Academy Awards. The character comedy and love story, set on Taiwan's southern coast, revolves around the forming of a local warm-up band to support a touring ...
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News
Taiwan's NDF to back Hou Hsiao-hsien's Assassin
Hou Hsiao-hsien's long-awaited martial arts fantasy The Assassin has become the first film to secure direct investment from Taiwan's National Development Fund. The script is based on a fantastical Tang dynasty (618-907 A.D.) short story about female assassin Nie Yinniang who can conjure horses out of folded paper and transform ...
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News
Chow teams with Cathay United Bank group on Taiwan fund
Hong Kong superstar Stephen Chow is advising Taiwan's Cathay Securities Investment Truston an investment fund which aims to pump $65m into listed film companies.The Cathay Global Entertainment Fund was announced at a seminar in Taipei on Friday (July 4) attended by Chow who is a senior advisor in the entertainment ...
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News
Taipei fest ups glamour but suffers from falling ticket sales
The tenth anniversary edition of the Taipei Film Festival (June 20 - July 6) ended Sunday with an attempt to reinvent itself as a competitive event for local films amid plummeting ticket sales. The festival, which has recruited several former staff of the Golden Horse Film Awards, upped the glamour ...
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News
Lionsgate, CJ Entertainment join forces for Korean Wedding
South Korea's CJ Entertainment has partnered with Lionsgate and Vertigo Entertainment, best known for re-making Asian films, on original cross-cultural comedy Korean Wedding. The project is based on the real-life experiences of scriptwriter Jason Filardi's cousin who married into a Korean family. The story, which will be predominantly shot in ...