Chinese performance comes of age as Paul Andreu’s egg finally hatches.
Paul Andreu’s vision has become reality. His masterpiece, The National Center for the Performing Arts, or NCPA, the giant silver dome west of Tiananmen Square, has been brilliantly lit for its December debut and ticket sales are ... Read More
First time filmmaker David Harris goes inside the Public Kingdom for Teens.
In an industry clouded with pretension and delusions of grandeur, David Harris is a breath of fresh air.
The New Zealand-born director, who has been honing his craft for only a few years, says he learned everything he ... Read More
The Shanghai Short Film Festival, now in its sixth year, traces its origins back to "90-Day Visa," a film about a Chinese-American who comes to Shanghai in search of his roots. It was a collaborative effort among friends who just wanted to see if they could pull it off. In ... Read More
Finding Dao in the nexus of fun and functional.
After traveling half-way around the world, hitting major world capitals on the way, Droogs have arrived in Beijing and no one is quite sure what they want.
Droog design (“Droog” is Dutch for “dry” as in “dry wit”) from the Netherlands ... Read More
Latvian-born violinist Gidon Kremer has proven time and time again that in addition to being one of the leading classical artists on the world stage, he’s also one of the most compelling personalities. Winner of both the prestigious Paganini and Tchaikovsky Competitions in the late 1960's, Kremer vaulted ... Read More
There’s something cringeworthy about most of the international acts who’ve made their way to Beijing. Foreign bands, prized above all others, come into this country with the swagger of Mick Jagger on a five day bender without the talent or gonads to back any of it up. This ... Read More
Lu-Chin Mischke walks impatiently across the Lido Hotel Starbucks. She stands over the glob of phlegm, just discharged on the ground by a Chinese businessman, and hands the offending party a card detailing the harm done by public spitting. The man, stunned, stands dumbfounded for a moment, but then reaches ... Read More
Seventy years after the serious pre-Second World War combat between the Chinese and Japanese, the events of 1937 continue to provoke intense emotion and sour Sino-Japanese relations. The most infamous episode of Japan’s Chinese campaign was the Nanking Massacre, commonly known as “The Rape of Nanking,” in and around ... Read More
Are closet-like karaoke rooms holding you back? Are the dim lights obscuring your star? Are rattling woofers muffling your inner song? If the answer’s yes, watch for your chance at the big time when “Mamma Mia!” comes sashaying down Shanghai and Beijing theater aisles this July and August.
Acclaimed ... Read More
As the house lights dim, a headless man appears at the door of a little girl’s room. Minutes after the stranger is invited in, an impatient audience watches in awe as the home’s interiors—and parents—are flown off and suspended in mid-air, making way for the fantastical ... Read More
One of the most anticipated books of the summer is Khaled Hosseini's “A Thousand Splendid Suns.” And with the movie based on his first novel, “The Kite Runner,” due out this November, 2007 promises to be a big year for Hosseini.
Growing up in Afghanistan, Hosseini says he always ... Read More
For Beach Beauties
Queen of Babble in the Big City
By Meg Cabot
The “Queen of Chick Lit” Meg Cabot brings more misadventures of Lizzie Nichols to the bookshelves just in time for whiling away the lazy summer days on a chaise lounge, cocktail in hand. This time, it seems ... Read More
The Gobi March is the first event in the epic 4 Deserts outdoor racing series hosted annually by RacingThePlanet. The ultra-marathon event takes competitors to three deserts—the Gobi in Asia, the Atacama in South America and the Sahara in Africa—before culminating in a 250 kilometer trek in the ... Read More
Glastonbury, Woodstock and now Haidian Park. Upwards of 60,000 live music fans will converge in Beijing from May 1-4 to be entertained by some of the most famous names in Chinese and overseas rock music. Bigger and better than ever, the eighth instalment of the Beijing Midi Music Festival ... Read More
The tragic story of Carmen, the gypsy seductress who is murdered by her former suitor for falling in love with another man, is returning to Shanghai this April as part of 2007's Spring International Music Festival, 25 years after its premiere performance on the mainland. Conducted by internationally renowned ... Read More
It was bound to happen; the question is why it took longer to start than some of the other musical genres that have saturated China's eastern cities. Granted, rock will always equal cool, electronic will always sell and jazz will always be sophisticated, but in a place so rich ... Read More
Bob Marley - Catch a Fire
Hands down the must-have in any collection, much less a reggae one. With the first four politically charged tracks (“Concrete Jungle,” “Slave Driver,” “400 Years” and “Stop That Train”), not to mention the now famous “Stir It Up,” this album tops every list, no matter ... Read More
Four young Brits dressed in sharp black suits step onto a brightly lit stage. The quartet have hardly picked up their guitars or drumsticks before the crowd erupts into a rock-fueled standing roar. It's the inaugural Shanghai Red Flag Rock Festival and groupies scream with wild abandon as Coldplay ... Read More
Fuji Rock Fest, Niigata, Japan
July27-29, 2007
This three-day international rock fest with over 200 acts on 10 stages is touted as an Asian Woodstock and will be at the Naeba Ski Resort. Last year saw The Strokes, Red Hot Chili Peppers and The String Cheese Incident. Early bird tickets ... Read More
Italian movies often conjure up images of sun drenched fields, dusty roads, cool evening shadows and the azure Mediterranean. No other country makes its physical presence so apparent on film as does Italy, and whether the film itself is shot in the intertwining back streets of Rome, the porticos of ... Read More
The Sweet Life
Federico Fellini, 1960
As Federico Fellini’s best known movie, the 1960s “La Dolce Vita” is the famed Italian writer/director at his prime. The story accounts a week in the life of Marcello (Marcello Mastroianni), a society gossip columnist who spends his days and nights in ... Read More
As the Year of Italy in China comes to a close, it is time to set aside the pizza puns and Marco Polo references and have a look back at the fruits of that little cultural exchange. Starting in the spring of last year, a bit of vintage Italy was ... Read More
1937
The Building of Cinecitta
Founded by Mussolini in 1937, and bombed by the Allied forces in World War II, the Cinecitta film studio was used by Hollywood until it became the studio of Federico Fellini.
1952
Last of the Neorealism Pictures
Post-war Italian cinema is dominated by the film ... Read More
The Great Wall had been conquered; the book and promotional tour finished. The journey came to its end in 1987. Then, four years later, a package arrived. William Lindesay curiously opened the letter, revealing a note from Marjorie Hessel-Tiltman, a grand dame of literature in England. “I fear this has ... Read More
Ready, set, go! The race is on and this time Asians aren’t going to miss the boat. Coasting on the coattails of the 10th season of “The Amazing Race,” comes the first-ever Asian edition of the four-time Emmy award winning reality competition series. “The Amazing Race Asia” has 10 ... Read More