‘Moonlight’

    THIS year’s Oscar best picture winner “Moonlight” could soon be brought to Chinese theaters. According to Deadline, A24, the production company behind the film, is working on a theatrical release for the drama in China, as well as an online release in partnership with China’s iQiyi.

    “Moonlight” from director Barry Jenkins follows the life of a young black man as he attempts self-discovery while growing up in Miami. The movie is also set to be screened at the Beijing International Film Festival this month.

    Box office failure

    “THE Summer Is Gone,” Zhang Dalei’s directorial debut and best film winner at the 2016 Golden Horse Awards, is playing in cinemas across the Chinese mainland. Like a lot of other arthouse films, it disappoints at the box office. On the first day of its screening, the box office earnings were only 718,000 yuan (about US$105,000). That number is less than 1 percent of the total box office earnings from “Kong: Skull Island,” which hit cinemas the same day.

    Set in the ’90s, the film details the tremendous changes that affect a family living in Hohhot, the capital of northern China’s Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region.

    Hero Hugh Jackman

    IN a recent interview with MTV News, Zac Efron said Hugh Jackman saved him from a burning set that got too out of control while filming their upcoming feature together, “The Greatest Showman.”

    “It started to get late, and some of the pyrotechnics got a little bit too hot,” said Efron. “We burst out of the building. It looked great on camera. We didn’t know it [during the stunt], but it was pretty intense. I watched playback, and he saved me from a burning building. It later exploded that night. It was a set, but it later burned down.”

    The film about P.T. Barnum (Jackman), founder of Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus, is due out Christmas Day.

    New movie

    “ONCE Upon a Time,” a fantasy starring actress Crystal Liu Yifei and actor Yang Yang as two star-crossed lovers, will hit cinemas July 21.

    This is another example of a popular TV series heading to the big screen. The TV series, titled “Eternal Love,” or better known in Chinese as “Three Lives Three Worlds, Ten Miles of Peach Blossoms,” was based on a popular online fantasy novel about the bittersweet romance between a fox princess and a dragon prince.

    (SD-Agencies)