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Why you can trust SCMP

It may have lost the rights to keep you entertained with English Premier League football, but PCCW can at least help you get off the couch and into a cinema.

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Website www.yp.com.hk/movies - a portal that lists films showing in Hong Kong and Shenzhen, in which cinemas you'll find them, when they screen and whether they are any good - was introduced last month as an extension of the recently relaunched Your Portal, the internet concierge service created by PCCW's Yellow Pages directory pro- vider. Available in Chinese and English, the site is easy to navigate and provides the location of theatres and maps pointing to nearby dining, banking and transport facilities. It also has a social-networking forum, on which users can post their comments on films. Available for each release are a synopsis, a cast list, a video trailer, box office statistics and a 'professional critique'.

Lindsay Servian, managing director at PCCW's advertising and interactive-services unit, says the site includes contributions from eight professional critics, mostly from the Hong Kong Film Critics Society, including Kevin Ma, Ted Hassan and Siu Heng, who tell us interesting things such as: 'Those who are not that experienced in love (and those who can forget their complicated love history for a good two hours) will certainly be moved by [Twilight's] dating scenes and Edward's sacrifices for Bella.'

On each movie-preview window there is a CityLine link through which users can buy tickets for UA Cinemas and another to Your Portal's 'What's On' listings, which include those for concerts, museum exhibitions and sporting events.

'We are delighted that literally thousands of reviews, comments and ratings have been made in such a short time span on our movie social forum,' says Servian, who adds that improvements in the user experience, especially in the English-to-Chinese search translations, are being in put in place.

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