Clarence Tsui

Clarence Tsui was South China Morning Post’s Film Editor (2005-2012) and now works as a freelance journalist.

From left: Rita Wong, Penny Lam, Mike Ao Ieong and Peeko Wong, all filmmakers in Macau.

Opinion

Why Macau’s filmmakers are struggling to make their mark

6 Dec 2018 - 3:12pm

Why there are still so few Chinese female directors: one woman is on a mission to change the narrative

Opinion

Why are there still so few Chinese female directors

23 Nov 2018 - 6:00pm 1

A well-attended masterclass by Korean director Lee Chang-dong (foreground left) at the Pingyao Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon International Film Festival in China’s Shanxi province. Pictures: PYIFF

Opinion

Art-house cinema: China festival cracks secret of how to draw young fans

8 Nov 2018 - 2:27pm

From Hollywood and France to South Korea and Japan, international filmmakers are keen to team up with those in China, but mixed results show unpredictability of mainland audiences and administrators

Opinion

No winning formula for Chinese film co-productions, yet

1 Nov 2018 - 4:40pm 3

Chinese Portrait, a film by director Wang Xiaoshuai, is an amalgamation of short clips shot over the past decade showing the country’s physical and sociological evolution

Opinion

China’s changing landscape subject of documentary at Busan festival

12 Oct 2018 - 1:02pm

Guan Xiaotong in Zhang Yimou’s new film, Shadow.

Opinion

China’s golden week: which film will rule the roost?

28 Sep 2018 - 11:49am

Filmmaker Simon Liu, Hong Kong’s sole representative at the 2018 Toronto International Film Festival.

Opinion

Hong Kong filmmaker’s Toronto showing reflects a global legacy

13 Sep 2018 - 9:35pm

A look at summer’s successes, as well as its biggest flops, reveals the changing tastes of mainland audiences

Arts & Music

The films that ruled the Chinese box office in summer 2018

31 Aug 2018 - 8:07pm

Huang Wenhai (standing) at the opening screening of the “Rejection/Determination” documentary film festival on August 3, 2018. Pictures: courtesy of Rejection/Determination documentary film festival

Arts & Music

Documentary festival gives voice to stifled Chinese filmmakers

16 Aug 2018 - 4:20pm

Exiled Chinese director Ying Liang, in Hong Kong. Picture: Xiaomei Chen

Arts & Music

Exiled Chinese filmmaker on seeing world like a Hongkonger

2 Aug 2018 - 1:57pm

Five-year-old Hopakuli is the central character of Kang Yuqi's documentary, A Little Wisdom. Picture: courtesy of Kang Yuqi

Arts & Music

The naughty child monks of Lumbini: documentary tells their story

19 Jul 2018 - 3:36pm 1

Jing Boran (left) and Zhou Dongyu in Us and Them, directed by Rene Liu.

Arts & Music

Female filmmakers in China taste blockbuster success in a man’s world

5 Jul 2018 - 11:48am

A still from Han Han’s romance Duckweed – a rarity in China last year when it made the list of top-grossing films.

Arts & Music

Goodbye testosterone, hello love: romance returns to Chinese cinema

21 Jun 2018 - 8:06pm

Hong Kong filmmaker Ruby Yang applauds the new regulations announced by the Academy and talks about her efforts to interest more Hongkongers in the genre, which is on the rise thanks to platforms like Netflix and HBO

Arts & Music

New Oscars rule to give Asian documentary filmmakers a boost

7 Jun 2018 - 7:32pm

At 90, feature filmmaker turned documentary director continues to find new ways to share her vision of the world; she regrets being too ill to attend a retrospective in Hong Kong, but has fond memories of visits in 1957 and 1989

Film & TV

Film icon Agnès Varda on being a feminist, and her Hong Kong visits

6 Jun 2018 - 6:39pm

Hong Kong film star Chow Yun-fat in ‘The Killer’ (1989), which features in Jia Zhangke’s ‘Ash is Purest White’ that will show at the Cannes Film Festival this week.

Film & TV

The Hong Kong showbiz stars still relevant in Chinese cinema

18 May 2018 - 8:08am

Director Shen Di on the set of her film, The Storms in Our Blood.

Arts & Music

Us? At Cannes? Chinese directors’ disbelief, gratitude and a win

21 May 2018 - 10:28am

The Spy Gone North veers away from portraying North Koreans as scheming, cold-blooded killers and shows the need for peaceful engagement as characters from either side establish some kind of rapport as the story unfolds

Film & TV

This South Korean spy thriller shows North Koreans in a new light

25 May 2018 - 5:31pm

A still from the short film Sunset, directed by Aditya Assarat, part of Ten Years Thailand.

Film & TV

How Ten Years Thailand, inspired by Hong Kong hit, turns to politics

14 May 2018 - 5:00pm

Gao Guifang is the widow of one of the survivors of the Jiabiangou “re-education” camp interviewed by Wang Bing for his documentary Dead Souls.

Arts & Music

8-hour documentary reveals horrors of Mao's Chinese gulags

10 May 2018 - 3:32pm 35

Jia and Zhang couldn’t have had more different careers. Both started in independent cinema, before travelling down separate roads. Now both have films screening at the prestigious French festival

Film & TV

Two Chinese directors’ contrasting journeys to Cannes Film Festival

8 May 2018 - 3:30pm 1

A scene from Aditya Assarat’s Sunset, which is part of Ten Years Thailand, to be shown at Cannes Film Festival 2018.

Arts & Music

Thai adaptation of Hong Kong film Ten Years at Cannes Film Fest

27 Apr 2018 - 10:21am

One of a wave of students protests in 1968 Japan.

Arts & Music

French film fest channels radical, Mao-inspired spirit of 1968

19 Apr 2018 - 6:21pm 1

Han Geng (left) and Jéremie Elkaïm in a still from Looking for Rohmer, directed by Wang Chao.

Film & TV

Censors neuter first same-sex romance given official China release

19 Apr 2018 - 6:28pm 1

The Jungle Bunch (2017), directed by David Alaux.

Arts & Music

Why French filmmakers struggle for Chinese box office success

29 Mar 2018 - 9:19pm

The promise of staggering financial rewards makes getting an education in cracking the Chinese market an industry priority

Arts & Music

To make the grade in China, Hong Kong’s filmmakers go back to school

15 Mar 2018 - 7:50am

Director Lhapal Gyal’s debut, Wangdrak’s Rain Boots, is the latest minority movie to win acceptance from public, officialdom and critics

Arts & Music

Applause at Berlin festival bodes well for Tibetan filmmakers

3 Mar 2018 - 8:02am

Wang Yuwen, Liu Congxi, Zhang Yu, and Peng Yuchang star in An Elephant Sitting Still, one of three Chinese feature films receiving their premieres at the 2018 Berlin Film Festival.

Film & TV

Young Chinese filmmakers’ movies premiere at Berlin Film Festival

15 Feb 2018 - 1:13pm

Feng Xiaogang’s Sino-Vietnamese war drama proves a box-office smash by attracting the over-45 demographic

Arts & Music

Youth heralds a golden age for China’s silver-haired movie-goers

2 Feb 2018 - 6:34pm

Dutch retrospective the latest international showcase for Zhou Tao’s provocative videos

Arts & Music

Chinese artist’s disturbing imagery skewers a modern world out of balance

27 Jan 2018 - 8:01am

Hiroshi Abe (left) and Sandrine Pinna in a scene from Legend of the Demon Cat.

Arts & Music

With Legend of the Demon Cat flop, is China’s Fifth Generation done?

11 Jan 2018 - 1:12pm

Low-budget comedy sequel trumps bigger films with lavish effects over New Year holiday, continuing a trend that is likely to see directors who play for laughs winning the Lunar New Year holiday box office battle again

Film & TV

Comic films reign at Chinese box office – the more lo-fi the better

5 Jan 2018 - 5:45pm

Zhu Hongbo in a still from Stonehead, which could earn a cinematic release in China early in the new year.

Film & TV

The best of Chinese cinema in 2017: two schoolboys and a football

4 Jan 2018 - 2:48pm

Actor’s roles defeating foreigners nicely follow the narrative in an enormous market that welcomes Chan far more than Hong Kong does

Arts & Music

Box-office triumphs suggest Jackie Chan master of the China zeitgeist

4 Jan 2018 - 3:21pm 3

The Dreaming Man, starring Chen Bo-lin and Jelly Lin Yun, was previewed at Cannes and given big billing when it opened in China, but screenings were quickly cut back when the romantic comedy didn’t find an audience

Film & TV

Disney’s dismal debut – first China live-action co-production bombs

4 Jan 2018 - 2:56pm 1

Binhai was the setting for Hong Kong filmmaker Johnnie To’s 2012 narco thriller Drug War, starring (from left) Sun Honglei, Gao Yunxiang and Louis Koo.

Arts & Music

Sin city: in Chinese films, bad things only happen in Binhai

9 Dec 2017 - 9:53am

Liu Yifei and Emile Hirsch star in The Chinese Widow.

Arts & Music

Another international co-production bombs at the Chinese box office

23 Nov 2017 - 10:30am 2

New film festival in Pingyao, in his home province of Shanxi, crowns 47-year-old’s rapid rise from making gritty features for overseas audiences to bellwether of Chinese cinema who’s asked about anything but his next movie

Film & TV

Jia Zhangke has risen so far, filmmaking is almost an afterthought

10 Nov 2017 - 7:32pm

Filmmaker Jia Zhangke’s dream of launching festival in his home province of Shanxi comes true, with warm reception for cutting-edge Chinese directors, recent Cannes debutants and old hands like John Woo in Unesco heritage city

Arts & Music

China’s newest film festival a hit with the locals in provincial Pingyao

10 Nov 2017 - 1:16pm

The Chinese president’s war on poverty shines through newly released film Hold Your Hands. It won’t be the last film about Xi Jinping Thought, enshrined in the Communist Party’s constitution last week. Photo: Bloomberg

Film & TV

Obscure film’s extolling of Xi Jinping’s ideology pays off at box office

30 Oct 2017 - 7:08pm

A still from the Thai movie Bad Genius, a hit in Hong Kong and now in China.

Arts & Music

Young Chinese flock to Thai film that reflects their school-exam angst

26 Oct 2017 - 12:18pm

US auteur tells why he has no interest in making films about dead musicians, and instead focused on a rock icon and friend who is still very much alive

Film & TV

How Jim Jarmusch and Iggy Pop teamed up for Gimme Danger

23 Oct 2017 - 7:29pm

Fan Bingbing stars in the Chinese film Sky Hunter.

Arts & Music

How China’s military movie misfires highlight ideological battle

13 Oct 2017 - 6:00pm

A scene from Where Has Time Gone, a portmanteau of five films directed by Jia Zhangke, Brazil’s Walter Salles, Russia’s Aleksey Fedorchenko, India’s Madhur Bhandarkar and South Africa’s Jahmil X.T. Qubeka.

Arts & Music

Busan festival a crucial barometer of the state of Chinese cinema

12 Oct 2017 - 2:30pm

By granting director Wong Jing a lucrative release during the National Day holidays, Chinese authorities have signalled that Hong Kong gangsters can be seen in a patriotic light – if their stories are set before the 1997 handover

Film & TV

How did mobster movie get past China’s censors? By bashing the British

29 Sep 2017 - 6:01pm 11

In a market where publicity can make or break films, marketing gaffes show promoting a movie may be more difficult than making one

Arts & Music

China’s muddled movie marketers turn hits into misses

28 Sep 2017 - 1:27pm

Rights to show 2012 film The Expendables, starring (front, from left) Nan Yu, Sylvester Stallone and Dolph Lundgren, in China went for 3.4 million yuan but it made 216 million yuan – encouraging more distributors to take a chance on foreign films.

Arts & Music

How a bet on Sylvester Stallone unlocked door to China’s film market

14 Sep 2017 - 1:54pm