https://www.scmp.com/rss/6042/feed After 20-odd years spent peddling and polishing words in Hong Kong, Stephen McCarty now resides in Britain, from where he scribbles, daydreams and laments the state of the world. en https://assets.i-scmp.com/static/img/icons/scmp-meta-1200x630.png https://www.scmp.com Charmaine Chan,Stephen McCarty Charmaine Chan,Stephen McCarty Forty years ago, a building rose above Central district that would rewrite the rules of architecture. The Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation (HSBC) Main Building – a tower so radical in its conception that it made every high‑rise built before it look timid – remains as startling today as the day it opened. To mark the anniversary, we tell its story in two voices: those of architect Norman Foster, who, as he returns to the city, reflects on the inspiration behind the building that defined... https://www.scmp.com/postmag/design-interiors/article/3348811/norman-fosters-hi-tech-hsbc-masterpiece-turns-40?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/postmag/design-interiors/article/3348811/norman-fosters-hi-tech-hsbc-masterpiece-turns-40?utm_source=rss_feed Fri, 03 Apr 2026 08:00:09 +0000 Stephen McCarty Stephen McCarty First, there was Action Man. Then, there was Ash Dykes. The explorer, extreme-sports athlete, triple world-record holder and Sinophile recently spent two months filming in northern China following the Yellow River, going from “source to sea: kayaking, paragliding, rock climbing – you name it”, he says. Before that came his expedition to the Amazon River, involving a trek of its full length and a search for its origins. And he is already planning “something similar to the Yellow River, in the... https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/entertainment/article/3342634/explore-great-wall-foot-bike-and-underwater-ash-dykes-his-new-bbc-show?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/entertainment/article/3342634/explore-great-wall-foot-bike-and-underwater-ash-dykes-his-new-bbc-show?utm_source=rss_feed Sun, 08 Feb 2026 07:15:08 +0000 Stephen McCarty Stephen McCarty For his latest small-screen starring role, Japanese actor Tomohisa Yamashita went deep: emotionally and literally. “I went to 15 metres [underwater],” he says. “It was a hard shoot, but I think it helped.” Yamashita is in London discussing the forthcoming second season of Apple TV’s Drops of God, a multilingual thriller set in the international wine world that draws on French vinicultural expertise and is based on the Japanese manga series of (almost) the same name by Tadashi Agi and Shu... https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/entertainment/article/3338716/apple-tvs-drops-god-stars-tomohisa-yamashita-and-fleur-geffrier-go-deeper-season-2?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/entertainment/article/3338716/apple-tvs-drops-god-stars-tomohisa-yamashita-and-fleur-geffrier-go-deeper-season-2?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 05 Jan 2026 08:31:34 +0000 Stephen McCarty Stephen McCarty Welcome to China’s latest, greatest wilderness: Guangdong. Yes, you read that right: the country’s most populous province, with roughly 128 million citizens, is a wildlife wonderland, a refuge that places its animal residents not at some distant remove from its human occupants, but in many cases alongside them. The makers of China’s Wild Guangdong kept things close to home, with only 47 filming days required to produce its three instalments – each an hour long. No camping in an ice field for six... https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/entertainment/article/3334751/new-bbc-series-chinas-wild-guangdong-shows-southern-province-wildlife-wonderland?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/entertainment/article/3334751/new-bbc-series-chinas-wild-guangdong-shows-southern-province-wildlife-wonderland?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 01 Dec 2025 23:15:13 +0000 Stephen McCarty Stephen McCarty Make no bones about it: dinosaurs are a perennial big deal. As passionate palaeontologist Dr Nizar Ibrahim puts it: “When museums are talking about bringing in exhibitions, they say the two themes that always work are mummies and dinosaurs!” And dinosaurs’ outsize appeal extends to television. In 1999, the BBC unleashed what it calls “one of [its] most beloved factual shows”, Walking with Dinosaurs. Now, after a surprisingly long interlude, comes Walking with Dinosaurs: Legends Unearthed, a... https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/entertainment/article/3311527/new-bbc-show-walking-dinosaurs-has-character-led-stories-based-genuine-evidence?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/entertainment/article/3311527/new-bbc-show-walking-dinosaurs-has-character-led-stories-based-genuine-evidence?utm_source=rss_feed Sun, 25 May 2025 10:15:07 +0000 Stephen McCarty Stephen McCarty Picasso. One of those historical figures so famous they fly solo in the name game. But who, or what, is Picasso, really? An umbrella or drinks coaster? T-shirt, necklace or bobblehead? Shopping bag or small family car? The commodification of the artistically prominent demands they be reduced to a token of modern life – an adornment, an implement, an everyday essential, even something in which to drive around – putting them everywhere and nowhere all at once. The more we see the signature... https://www.scmp.com/postmag/culture/article/3303100/picasso-masterpieces-join-modern-asian-artworks-conversation-creativity-m-hong-kong?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/postmag/culture/article/3303100/picasso-masterpieces-join-modern-asian-artworks-conversation-creativity-m-hong-kong?utm_source=rss_feed Fri, 21 Mar 2025 20:15:08 +0000 Professor Brian Cox believes “we have to go to Mars eventually” – although not as a refuge after ruining planet Earth. “Mars is the only planet in the solar system we can go to. But this is extremely important – I interviewed Jeff Bezos once and he said this – our planet is the best planet in the universe for us, because we evolved on it and are entirely reliant on its ecosystem. “Mars is not a second chance; we can’t take everything from this planet, essentially destroy it, then move, en masse,... https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/entertainment/article/3282526/professor-brian-cox-offers-guided-tour-space-bbc-earth-series-solar-system?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/entertainment/article/3282526/professor-brian-cox-offers-guided-tour-space-bbc-earth-series-solar-system?utm_source=rss_feed Wed, 16 Oct 2024 11:15:07 +0000 Stephen McCarty Stephen McCarty This correspondent never needs one of those “please wake for meals” stickers when flying. Because he’s always awake – unlike his regular travel partner, who often sleeps through taxiing, take-off, landing, taxiing and much in between. To the exhausted insomniac, in the air or on the ground, the ability to sleep whenever, wherever, must seem a blessing. Or is it a magic trick that can be learned? A skill to be mastered? To sleep, perchance to wake four or five times in the night to go to the... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/long-reads/article/3279162/how-get-good-nights-sleep-overstimulated-world-sleeping-well-really-skill-insomniacs-can-learn?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/long-reads/article/3279162/how-get-good-nights-sleep-overstimulated-world-sleeping-well-really-skill-insomniacs-can-learn?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 21 Sep 2024 03:15:14 +0000 Pachinko (Apple TV+) is arguably far more than a mere television series: it could amount to a medical breakthrough. Viewers who find they can’t stop swiping their phone should try watching this cinematically rich Korean-Japanese historical drama, a Korean-Japanese-American-Canadian joint production rendered in Korean, Japanese and English and told along two timelines – and realise they are cured, so engrossing are plot, acting and cinematography. Series one, which aired in 2022, bagged 11... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/film-tv/article/3278095/how-pachinko-aims-authenticity-duolingo-japanese-talks-grandma?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/film-tv/article/3278095/how-pachinko-aims-authenticity-duolingo-japanese-talks-grandma?utm_source=rss_feed Fri, 13 Sep 2024 04:15:08 +0000 Where would the fashion industry be without television and film (and vice versa)? Haven’t we all dashed out to buy a Cillian Murphy flat cap in the hope of being mistaken for a Birmingham thug after a dose of Peaky Blinders on Netflix? Or a pair of block heels so we can copy Carrie Bradshaw, queen of New York, in HBO’s And Just Like That … ? Might we have imagined ourselves to be Prada-inspired, mid-century clothes horse Beth Harmon in Netflix’s The Queen’s Gambit? Or fancied a frilly frock as... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/film-tv/article/3277874/emily-paris-peaky-blinders-fashion-still-under-thrall-tv-and-film?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/film-tv/article/3277874/emily-paris-peaky-blinders-fashion-still-under-thrall-tv-and-film?utm_source=rss_feed Tue, 10 Sep 2024 20:00:18 +0000 There is no monster in Loch Ness. Having gazed at its immeasurable expanse through cold spring rain arrowing in on gusting winds from the battlements of Urquhart Castle and detected nothing, I declare the tales of an elusive leviathan in Scotland’s most famous stretch of water a chronic hoax. Which is perhaps what the monster wants me to think. Deep swells and whitecaps have kept the tourist boats in dock but, regardless of the weather, the vista is majestic: something first-time visitors to the... https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/travel-leisure/article/3276808/sleeper-train-scotland-highlands-tour-lakes-mountains-whisky-harry-potter?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/travel-leisure/article/3276808/sleeper-train-scotland-highlands-tour-lakes-mountains-whisky-harry-potter?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 02 Sep 2024 11:15:08 +0000 Phil Wang grew up to be a miracle worker. “Stand-up is like alchemy”, he muses. “Turning nothing into something. There’s something mystifying about that. To stand on stage on your own and turn that nothing into a room of laughing people – I found that fascinating, so I thought I’d give it a go.” Wang, 34, familiar from live performances and innumerable television and radio shows, is poised to release his second Netflix special, Wang in There, Baby! But now, during a video call from his London... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/arts-music/article/3276817/stand-comic-phil-wang-channels-his-british-malaysian-heritage-netflix-gold-new-special-wang-there?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/arts-music/article/3276817/stand-comic-phil-wang-channels-his-british-malaysian-heritage-netflix-gold-new-special-wang-there?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 02 Sep 2024 08:45:08 +0000 Tony Bui has gone the extra mile to bring you this interview. Caught in one of China’s recent biblical rainstorms, the film director, writer and producer found himself lost in an unfamiliar, chaotic Beijing. “It’s my first time here,” he says via Zoom, almost two hours after our scheduled appointment, “and unfortunately I don’t speak the language. I was stuck: I took the wrong bus, got off the bus, I was soaked – my shoes, socks, everything. “I tried to grab a cab; couldn’t get one, couldn’t... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/film-tv/article/3276055/tony-bui-telling-story-vietnam-wars-napalm-girl-25-years-after-sundance-hit-three-seasons?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/film-tv/article/3276055/tony-bui-telling-story-vietnam-wars-napalm-girl-25-years-after-sundance-hit-three-seasons?utm_source=rss_feed Wed, 28 Aug 2024 22:15:09 +0000 Next time you’re making tracks to New York’s Grand Central Station, pack a tennis racquet. Just off the cavernous concourse familiar from so many movies stands an unremarkable bank of lifts. Ascend to the fourth floor, navigate a nondescript corridor and call for new balls, please, on the full-sized indoor court, whose arched windows look onto Manhattan’s 42nd Street. That’s after you’ve forked out the US$365 an hour (peak period) fee charged by the Vanderbilt Tennis Club. The extant Grand... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/travel/article/3275291/tennis-court-inside-grand-central-terminal-new-york-icon-beloved-movie-buffs-and-tourists?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/travel/article/3275291/tennis-court-inside-grand-central-terminal-new-york-icon-beloved-movie-buffs-and-tourists?utm_source=rss_feed Tue, 27 Aug 2024 09:15:08 +0000 “What was difficult for me was learning how to cook, smile to camera, have a bit of a laugh and not cut my fingers off. That was hard.” So says – with trademark Australian humour and candidness – Justine Schofield, a television personality enduringly popular enough to have just wrapped yet another season of Everyday Gourmet, a studio-based show garnished with an international-travel element. “We’ve been doing it for 14 years,” she says by Zoom from her home in Sydney, “and the last eight or so... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/film-tv/article/3275127/masterchef-australia-alum-and-everyday-gourmet-host-justine-schofield-back-road-new-season-time-its?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/film-tv/article/3275127/masterchef-australia-alum-and-everyday-gourmet-host-justine-schofield-back-road-new-season-time-its?utm_source=rss_feed Fri, 23 Aug 2024 04:00:12 +0000 Everything everywhere all at once. Or it soon will be. If both the doom merchants and the evangelists are to be believed, artificial intelligence will soon be running every aspect of our lives. Cyberdyne Systems will finally rule the world. Non-spoiler alert: AI is already making its startling, invisible presence felt in the realm of the moving, talking image: as we know, deepfakery can have seriously harmful effects on, for example, political truth (whatever that is). And in the more frivolous... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/film-tv/article/3274623/youre-still-going-need-human-landy-slattery-why-ai-wont-replace-creatives-will-spark-creativity?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/film-tv/article/3274623/youre-still-going-need-human-landy-slattery-why-ai-wont-replace-creatives-will-spark-creativity?utm_source=rss_feed Fri, 16 Aug 2024 06:45:08 +0000 Stephen McCarty Stephen McCarty “A bloody disgrace!” exclaims Peter Foo, on the coast at Liverpool, England. The Liverpudlian is relating the story of his father, one of 2,300 Chinese seamen secretly deported from Britain – in his case to Singapore – after helping the Allies win World War II. Like hundreds of other children from suddenly shattered families, Foo grew up believing his father had inexcusably “done a runner”. In Melbourne, Australia, teacher Kerry Ang is explaining to pupils the intricacies of the White Australia... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/short-reads/article/3274302/british-directors-surprising-connection-southeast-asian-war-history?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/short-reads/article/3274302/british-directors-surprising-connection-southeast-asian-war-history?utm_source=rss_feed Wed, 14 Aug 2024 09:00:14 +0000 Ching Shih was notoriously difficult to impress. History’s most powerful and swag-laden pirate, Canton native, scourge of the Chinese, British and Portuguese fleets, with roughly 1,800 ships and 80,000 crew at her command, she was also an implacable disciplinarian and enforcer of women’s rights who executed all manner of rule breakers. But she would no doubt approve of Maja Bodenstein. The film and television writer has returned Ching to the South China Sea of the Qing dynasty – reincarnating... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/arts-music/article/3273574/pirate-queen-how-filmmaker-maja-bodenstein-reclaimed-her-chinese-roots-emmy-nominated-video-game?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/arts-music/article/3273574/pirate-queen-how-filmmaker-maja-bodenstein-reclaimed-her-chinese-roots-emmy-nominated-video-game?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 10 Aug 2024 03:15:08 +0000 Who knew school could be this much fun? “I start with crime films, like Akira Kurosawa’s, then Johnnie To’s and the way similar themes are picked up at different moments in history; and how directors play with generic conventions. “I have a section on family drama, which is big in East Asia and a very important genre. I also have animation; and I end with zombies and monsters. Godzilla!” Professor Choi Jinhee, head of film studies at King’s College, University of London, is describing her... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/short-reads/article/3272309/professor-film-studies-choi-jinhee-her-use-films-kurosawa-and-johnnie-and-godzilla?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/short-reads/article/3272309/professor-film-studies-choi-jinhee-her-use-films-kurosawa-and-johnnie-and-godzilla?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 29 Jul 2024 23:00:11 +0000 Munich, eh? All right, so it’s not Christopher Isherwood’s Jazz Age Berlin of the 1930s, with its sordid carryings-on and illicit sexual liaisons. But it’s not all Teutonic rigidity and buttoned-up, BMW boardroom types either: plenty of online “niche” interest sites promise local excitement centred on more than bratwurst, beer and football. Manifold are the online notices advertising the pleasures of fetish parties, transgender escort services and BDSM clubs. Which, in a kind of gross squaring... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/short-reads/article/3272014/cinema-plays-rocky-horror-picture-show-all-time-why-you-should-visit-munichs-museum-lichtspiele?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/short-reads/article/3272014/cinema-plays-rocky-horror-picture-show-all-time-why-you-should-visit-munichs-museum-lichtspiele?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 27 Jul 2024 02:00:16 +0000 Hollywood loves a land that time forgot: any mythical, feral, fantastical, fun place that decided it was perfectly fine as it was, thank you, when the world moved on. Well, some exist – and one of them is a speck of rock in west London’s River Thames. The private, mostly residential Eel Pie Island is an improbable blend of all the best, reality-defying bits of Lamma Island, the 1960s, San Francisco’s Telegraph Hill and those few square metres of Ubud, Bali, not yet defiled by tourist buses. For... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/travel/article/3271491/why-you-should-visit-londons-eel-pie-island-throwback-san-francisco-thames-only-open-2-or-3-times?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/travel/article/3271491/why-you-should-visit-londons-eel-pie-island-throwback-san-francisco-thames-only-open-2-or-3-times?utm_source=rss_feed Tue, 23 Jul 2024 08:00:14 +0000 Stephen McCarty Stephen McCarty It’s a kind of magic – not the 1980s stadium rock extravaganza type, more the movie-make-believe sort. “Editing is magic!” says Mary Stephen, Hong Kong-born film and documentary editor and the calibre of practitioner to whom the description “legendary” is frequently applied. Stephen is speaking on video, from her Paris home, about a long career spent almost entirely in the comparative dark, yet one without which numerous films and documentaries would be unrecognisable, as well as, undoubtedly,... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/film-tv/article/3269339/hong-kong-director-who-became-eric-rohmers-editor-mary-stephen-life-film?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/film-tv/article/3269339/hong-kong-director-who-became-eric-rohmers-editor-mary-stephen-life-film?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 08 Jul 2024 03:15:08 +0000 In 1967, Taiwan inaugurated a supersized audio cabinet called the Beishan Broadcast Wall. Comprising 48 loudspeakers that could be turned up way past 11, it still stands, 10 metres (33 feet) tall, in Quemoy (also called Kinmen), a group of islands that in the 1950s was on the frontline of confrontation between communist China and Taiwan, to which the Nationalists under Chiang Kai-shek had fled. Although it no longer serves as a propaganda tool for blasting songs by Taiwanese pop queen Teresa... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/film-tv/article/3268404/weird-separation-life-taiwan-goes-despite-invasion-fear-documentary-maker-says?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/film-tv/article/3268404/weird-separation-life-taiwan-goes-despite-invasion-fear-documentary-maker-says?utm_source=rss_feed Sun, 30 Jun 2024 23:15:12 +0000 For Ruby Yang, it’s a case of “sweet 16 forever”. On speaking to Post Magazine, the Hong Kong-born documentary maker had just attended the recent, inaugural Asian Avant-Garde Film Festival at M+, the city’s museum of contemporary visual culture, in the West Kowloon Cultural District. Several of Yang’s films were shown as part of the festival programme, all in their original 16mm format. But her connection with the museum goes beyond the festival and is more substantial, as is that of her husband... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/film-tv/article/3267837/oscar-winning-hong-kong-born-filmmaker-ruby-yang-changing-world-and-new-challenges?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/film-tv/article/3267837/oscar-winning-hong-kong-born-filmmaker-ruby-yang-changing-world-and-new-challenges?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 24 Jun 2024 23:15:08 +0000 Think you know Ieoh Ming Pei? With his impish grin and trademark round spectacles, he was the father of such buildings as the Bank of China Tower in Hong Kong and Paris’ Louvre Pyramid. He was a foe to feng shui masters and bête noire of the French media, and was photographed with famous faces of the moment, including Jackie O, Robert Kennedy, Jimmy Carter and François Mitterrand. He received the Pritzker Architecture Prize and numerous other professional honours, and was awarded the United... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/design-interiors/article/3267509/architect-im-pei-never-wanted-retrospective-how-hong-kong-got-host-one-last?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/design-interiors/article/3267509/architect-im-pei-never-wanted-retrospective-how-hong-kong-got-host-one-last?utm_source=rss_feed Sun, 23 Jun 2024 03:15:08 +0000 You saw him fight the bad fight as a pulverising, punching, fire-raising triad boss in 2019’s Netflix supernatural thriller series Wu Assassins. You marvelled at his big-screen bravado when he one-upped Jason Bourne as a microchip-modified super agent in Dark Asset (2023); channelled his inner Bruce Lee in Jean-Claude Van Damme knuckle-cracker Street Fighter (1994); and, most courageously of all, led a feudal Chinese warrior clan while making a 1980s headband look cool in The Man with the Iron... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/film-tv/article/3266901/wu-assassins-star-byron-mann-modelizer-film-love-letter-hong-kong?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/film-tv/article/3266901/wu-assassins-star-byron-mann-modelizer-film-love-letter-hong-kong?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 17 Jun 2024 23:15:09 +0000 Ema Ryan Yamazaki has covered all manner of bases on her way to becoming a documentary maker. And not just any documentary maker. Time and audience taste will tell, but arguably, Japan’s foremost meta-modernist chronicler is emerging. It is a development that few would have predicted for a half-Japanese, half-British adopted New Yorker who “grew up watching Coronation Street, The Bill and EastEnders”. Exactly how much Britain’s two favourite TV soap operas and a much loved police procedural... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/film-tv/article/3266132/redefining-what-it-means-be-japanese-filmmaker-ema-ryan-yamazaki-her-life-and-work?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/film-tv/article/3266132/redefining-what-it-means-be-japanese-filmmaker-ema-ryan-yamazaki-her-life-and-work?utm_source=rss_feed Wed, 12 Jun 2024 08:15:08 +0000 Unless you’re some sort of vile perpetrator, it is difficult to conceive of having fun during a genocide. Nevertheless, some innocents, perhaps too young to appreciate the horror, managed to do so despite Cambodia’s barbaric Khmer Rouge dictatorship of 1975 to 1979, which resulted in the deaths of an estimated 2 million or more people. They were the subject of the short film Rice (2014), by Cambodian filmmaker Ines Sothea, which pits the naivety of youth against the Khmer Rouge’s brutality. Ines... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/film-tv/article/3265187/she-found-fun-angle-khmer-rouge-genocide-cambodian-filmmaker-ines-sothea-her-debut-short-film-and?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/film-tv/article/3265187/she-found-fun-angle-khmer-rouge-genocide-cambodian-filmmaker-ines-sothea-her-debut-short-film-and?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 03 Jun 2024 23:15:09 +0000 In November 2023, the winds of change blew through Hong Kong – at least as far as the career of Lkhagvadulam Purev-Ochir was concerned. The Mongolian director saw her first feature film, City of Wind, depart the Hong Kong Asian Film Festival with both the young jury best film and new talent awards. The Venice International Film Festival, the world’s oldest, had hosted its world premiere two months earlier, where City of Wind received a best film nomination. Another prestigious stop was... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/film-tv/article/3264245/her-debut-feature-was-film-festival-darling-mongolian-director-uses-money-macau-win-make-short-film?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/film-tv/article/3264245/her-debut-feature-was-film-festival-darling-mongolian-director-uses-money-macau-win-make-short-film?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 27 May 2024 23:15:09 +0000 Roger Garcia speaks “terrible” Italian. And that is after 20-plus years of attending the Far East Film Festival (FEFF) in Udine, Italy, from where, by video call, the affable Hong Kong filmmaker, talking new Asian talent, premieres, the growing influence of streaming platforms and more, cheerfully delivers his confession. The FEFF has long been one of the most important channels for the promotion of Asian cinema throughout Europe. This spring’s jamboree, its 26th, feted Zhang Yimou with an... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/film-tv/article/3263435/so-you-want-make-movie-hong-kong-director-roger-garcia-helping-young-filmmakers-all-over-asia-find?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/film-tv/article/3263435/so-you-want-make-movie-hong-kong-director-roger-garcia-helping-young-filmmakers-all-over-asia-find?utm_source=rss_feed Tue, 21 May 2024 08:15:13 +0000 Attentive film-goers will know Saville Chan Sum-yiu from the numerous best original film song honours he has won, and the nominations he has garnered, at the Hong Kong Film Awards and the Golden Horse Awards in Taipei. But in the next couple of years or so, his name is likely to be much further up the screen as the credits roll. In a video call, the Hong Kong native refers to himself as a “veteran lyricist”, having co-written songs for The Way We Dance (2013), She Remembers, He Forgets (2015)... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/film-tv/article/3262157/how-hong-kong-movie-producer-screenwriter-and-lyricist-saville-chan-wants-add-feature-film-director?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/film-tv/article/3262157/how-hong-kong-movie-producer-screenwriter-and-lyricist-saville-chan-wants-add-feature-film-director?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 11 May 2024 09:15:10 +0000 Actor Daniel York Loh’s website carries an extract from a 2022 theatre review describing him as “a prisoner and a rebel”. Which might have been a fitting sketch of him as a young man. “I started acting when I was in a drug and alcohol rehab unit in Weston-super-Mare, the rehab capital of Britain,” he says, candidly. “I was 19, 20, kicking around and they put me on this three-day-a-week gardening job for £50 a week – one of those Thatcher things, work experience. “I knew this girl in the rehab... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/film-tv/article/3261558/singaporean-british-actor-director-playwright-and-musician-daniel-york-loh-talks-typecasting-and-his?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/film-tv/article/3261558/singaporean-british-actor-director-playwright-and-musician-daniel-york-loh-talks-typecasting-and-his?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 06 May 2024 23:15:08 +0000 Filmmaker and multimedia artist Zhao Yehui went looking for country roads to take her home – or more accurately, to the home of her forebears, shrouded in the mists of time. But once there, she found more than mere ghosts. In a pocket of the Loess Plateau, in central China’s Shanxi province, Zhao found her way to the village of Xi Jiao Gou – and into the centre of a family story embracing revolution, famine, conflict and eventual dispersal. Zhao chronicles the lives and times of four generations... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/film-tv/article/3260817/only-rain-and-snow-water-chinese-filmmaker-charts-her-familys-rise-harsh-rural-roots?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/film-tv/article/3260817/only-rain-and-snow-water-chinese-filmmaker-charts-her-familys-rise-harsh-rural-roots?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 29 Apr 2024 23:15:20 +0000 Beauty might well be in the eye of the beholder, but these days, so is everything else. Surveillance is a 21st century growth industry, the street corner without a camera an endangered species. And in Stranger Eyes, his third feature film, Singaporean director Yeo Siew Hua brings the idea of being spied on uncomfortably close to home. “Stranger Eyes is about surveillance, but unlike in science fiction, I’m more concerned with what it means to see someone – to see and be seen,” says Yeo, 39,... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/film-tv/article/3259440/singaporean-director-yeo-siew-hua-his-new-film-about-surveillance-stranger-eyes-and-why-hes-after?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/film-tv/article/3259440/singaporean-director-yeo-siew-hua-his-new-film-about-surveillance-stranger-eyes-and-why-hes-after?utm_source=rss_feed Thu, 18 Apr 2024 08:15:20 +0000 “They run, hop, burrow, fly … they’re on every continent, in every ocean. They are incredibly adaptable and their adaptability is what we’re celebrating.” Scott Alexander, of BBC Studios’ Natural History Unit, does not temper his admiration for the stars of the corporation’s latest landmark wildlife series: mammals. A six-episode tribute to animals it recognises as having “conquered the Earth”, Mammals, narrated by the inimitable David Attenborough, features a host of familiar fauna faces as... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/film-tv/article/3258727/bbc-earths-mammals-david-attenborough-our-wild-relatives-otters-wolverines-and-how-we-affect-their?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/film-tv/article/3258727/bbc-earths-mammals-david-attenborough-our-wild-relatives-otters-wolverines-and-how-we-affect-their?utm_source=rss_feed Fri, 12 Apr 2024 08:15:15 +0000 On the battlefield, “friendly fire” can kill as effectively as anything more malicious. And in the immensely competitive world of esports, it can prove just as deadly. If only virtually. Friendly Fire is the forthcoming feature film from Filipino director Mikhail Red – a movie without his usual suspects in its cross hairs. “It’s a very different genre for me because it’s wholesome, rated G [all ages]. It’s almost like a 1980s sports underdog film, but set in the world of esports,” reveals Red... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/film-tv/article/3258238/filipino-director-his-new-esports-film-why-he-loves-making-horror-movies-and-surviving-filmmaker-his?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/film-tv/article/3258238/filipino-director-his-new-esports-film-why-he-loves-making-horror-movies-and-surviving-filmmaker-his?utm_source=rss_feed Tue, 09 Apr 2024 04:45:13 +0000 American comic actor Mel Brooks made his debut as a director with a film that was initially controversial, then cult gold, and then considered so important it was chosen to be preserved for all time in the United States’ National Film Registry. The movie was The Producers (1967). But if you think it offers any sort of career guidance for film, stage or television hopefuls, think again. Although the role might be mysterious to most and the credit “producer” says little, the job doesn’t, as a... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/film-tv/article/3257440/film-producer-who-worked-jackie-chan-john-woo-wong-kar-wai-sees-hong-kong-cinema-going-downhill-she?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/film-tv/article/3257440/film-producer-who-worked-jackie-chan-john-woo-wong-kar-wai-sees-hong-kong-cinema-going-downhill-she?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 01 Apr 2024 23:15:21 +0000 In 1982, having just accepted his Oscar for best screenplay for the film Chariots of Fire, in Los Angeles, Colin Welland famously and impertinently declared, “The British are coming!” (The phrase supposedly originated with American revolutionary hero Paul Revere, almost certainly a myth.) Dr Wilfred Wong Ying-wai isn’t about to make such a bold claim on behalf of Hong Kong’s filmmakers – although, arguably, he would be entitled to. As chairman of the Hong Kong Film Development Council (FDC),... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/film-tv/article/3256354/they-loved-bruce-lee-and-jackie-chan-scheme-will-show-world-new-generation-hong-kong-filmmakers?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/film-tv/article/3256354/they-loved-bruce-lee-and-jackie-chan-scheme-will-show-world-new-generation-hong-kong-filmmakers?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 23 Mar 2024 08:15:21 +0000 These days, everyone’s at it. Streaming films and television shows on their mobile phones, posting them, being inspired, making their own. It’s easy to forget the eye-straining micro-screen era, but into that brave new technological world went actress and producer Jennifer Lim in history-making, 2006 comic-horror series When Evil Calls: the first designed to be watched on a mobile phone. “If it had arrived slightly later it would have been perfect!” recalls Lim fondly during a Zoom call from her... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/film-tv/article/3255592/jennifer-lim-standing-fellow-british-asian-actors-her-role-first-series-written-phone-viewing-and?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/film-tv/article/3255592/jennifer-lim-standing-fellow-british-asian-actors-her-role-first-series-written-phone-viewing-and?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 16 Mar 2024 08:15:08 +0000 What do you picture at mention of the word “library”? Mountains? Rivers? Trees? Rice paddies? Correct. At least in the case of shimmering new knowledge repository the Beijing City Library – which is where you’ll also find the planet’s largest library reading space, ratified by Guinness World Records. At 21,809 square metres (235,000 square feet), the cavernous expanse incorporates the dominant section of a building that might look intergalactic to some of its target audience: all sorts of people... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/design-interiors/article/3255336/worlds-biggest-library-reading-space-beijing-was-inspired-nature-and-designed-be-place-where?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/design-interiors/article/3255336/worlds-biggest-library-reading-space-beijing-was-inspired-nature-and-designed-be-place-where?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 16 Mar 2024 05:15:10 +0000 Liverpool, England: home of Europe’s oldest Chinese community and the biggest Chinatown gate outside the Middle Kingdom. And a city that should arguably be the site of a monument to the Chinese sailors who helped the Allies defeat the Nazis. Either that, or a memorial to British government hypocrisy. Those sailors belong to a sliver of history that resonates with filmmaker and academic Rosa Fong, senior lecturer in film at John Moores University, Liverpool. Director, screenwriter and British... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/film-tv/article/3254663/chinese-sailors-who-helped-allies-win-wwii-then-were-deported-uk-subject-rosa-fongs-new-documentary?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/film-tv/article/3254663/chinese-sailors-who-helped-allies-win-wwii-then-were-deported-uk-subject-rosa-fongs-new-documentary?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 09 Mar 2024 08:15:08 +0000 Wall space must be a problem in Ravi Ajit Chopra’s house. Chopra is the director of a monster-hit-in-waiting: the forthcoming feature-film version of science-fiction spectacular Cognition. And it will arrive with an impressive pedigree. Cognition already exists as a history-making “short”. Starring Andrew Scott and Jeremy Irvine, it has so far amassed no fewer than 400 awards worldwide since its 2020 release, making it the most decorated live action fictional short film, as recognised by... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/film-tv/article/3253746/cognition-director-turning-record-breaking-short-feature-film-working-bbc-and-his-bollywood-dream?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/film-tv/article/3253746/cognition-director-turning-record-breaking-short-feature-film-working-bbc-and-his-bollywood-dream?utm_source=rss_feed Fri, 01 Mar 2024 11:45:10 +0000 Walking the walk, not just talking the talk: a handy phrase to be mangled into service in assessing the impact of Tan Pin Pin’s films. And one that’s particularly apt considering her latest work, which ruminates on the shifting significance of the act of walking. Tan’s 2023 film walk walk features several Singaporean women for whom walking is more than mere exercise. One walks to hear herself think; another as an extension of her art practice; a group of four meets socially, striding out along... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/film-tv/article/3253202/singaporean-director-tan-pin-pin-her-new-documentary-walk-walk-and-30-years-capturing-lion-city-film?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/film-tv/article/3253202/singaporean-director-tan-pin-pin-her-new-documentary-walk-walk-and-30-years-capturing-lion-city-film?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 26 Feb 2024 08:12:01 +0000 It’s 1941. War comes to the Pacific as Pearl Harbour is blitzed. Aboard a ship bound for Singapore to fight the Japanese is British Army second lieutenant James Clavell. But the ship is sunk and Clavell finds himself in Java, where he is wounded and captured. Eventually, he does make it to Singapore – as a prisoner of war in Changi prison. Thus were planted the earliest seeds of what would become known as novelist Clavell’s Asian Saga: six books, including Tai-Pan (1966) and Noble House (1981),... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/film-tv/article/3252437/shogun-writers-and-producers-talk-about-disney-series-creating-manual-directors-and-why-filming?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/film-tv/article/3252437/shogun-writers-and-producers-talk-about-disney-series-creating-manual-directors-and-why-filming?utm_source=rss_feed Tue, 20 Feb 2024 10:16:46 +0000 Talk about thieves in the night. The compartments’ connecting door slides open, stopping with an unintended crash. Shouting some groggy expletive, this correspondent half-falls from a bunk and jumps into the suddenly empty adjoining room. Trousers on, fast. Dash down the train sleeper carriage to alert the attendant. SM: “What the hell just happened? Our door was locked from the inside but somebody burst in!” Attendant shrugs. SM: “Are there thieves on this train?” Attendant: “Yes. Thieves.” SM:... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/travel/article/3251909/bad-night-good-night-train-low-points-and-highlights-planet-friendly-tour-europe-rail?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/travel/article/3251909/bad-night-good-night-train-low-points-and-highlights-planet-friendly-tour-europe-rail?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 17 Feb 2024 08:15:16 +0000 Some hotels move you to tears. Some leave you wistful; others blissful. So if you are told your hotel has been designed with buckets of Emotionalism, you might start searching for an adjective. You will also be missing the point – if only partly. Emotionalism in architecture: philosophy; movement; dream. It is founded on human emotions – with a name like that, what else? – but it is also a slippery intellectual concept. So when you check into The Blue, in Taipei, you are checking into not just a... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/design-interiors/article/3251911/taiwans-capital-lies-hotel-so-captivating-city-paused-moment-blue-has-been-designed-emotionalism-its?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/design-interiors/article/3251911/taiwans-capital-lies-hotel-so-captivating-city-paused-moment-blue-has-been-designed-emotionalism-its?utm_source=rss_feed Thu, 15 Feb 2024 04:45:17 +0000 Dolly Parton and Kenny Rogers sang a song called “Islands in the Stream”. However inadvertent, the title is an apt descriptor of modern-day television viewers: agglomerated, by region or genre preference, into clumps of watchers buffeted by increasingly powerful torrents of streaming content. With so many platforms to choose from and a blizzard of series, films, documentaries and reality shows on tap, what do depth soundings reveal about the future of streaming in the Asia-Pacific (APAC)... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/film-tv/article/3251754/future-streaming-tv-asia-pacific-strength-take-risks-more-unique-local-content-and-growth-short-form?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/film-tv/article/3251754/future-streaming-tv-asia-pacific-strength-take-risks-more-unique-local-content-and-growth-short-form?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 12 Feb 2024 23:15:19 +0000 “In many ways, there are similarities between Zen Buddhism and punk rock.” Although you read that correctly, it might surprise Buddhists and punks, who make unlikely bedfellows. Nevertheless, it’s a pillar of the world view of Singaporean independent filmmaker Tzang Merwyn Tong, who sees rebellion in both schools. “One comes from a place of rebellion, of resistance, the other from a place of knowing that resistance is part of the whole,” says Tong during a video call from his Lion City home.... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/film-tv/article/3250662/rebel-singaporean-director-tzang-merwyn-tong-why-renewed-interest-his-films-about-misfits-heralds?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/film-tv/article/3250662/rebel-singaporean-director-tzang-merwyn-tong-why-renewed-interest-his-films-about-misfits-heralds?utm_source=rss_feed Fri, 02 Feb 2024 03:45:09 +0000 “To be, or not to be?” was never much of a question. The answer was already obvious. In 2012 and 2013, Britain’s Royal Shakespeare Company staged a production of The Orphan of Zhao at the Swan Theatre, Stratford-upon-Avon. Otherwise known as “the Chinese Hamlet”, it had “a 17-strong cast, only three of whom were of East or Southeast Asian heritage”, says actress Lucy Sheen. If the casting of The Orphan of Zhao meant opportunity was not to be for many actors of colour, it was hardly the first... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/film-tv/article/3250234/call-midwife-and-silent-witness-actress-lucy-sheen-talks-diversity-and-inclusion-and-promoting-east?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/film-tv/article/3250234/call-midwife-and-silent-witness-actress-lucy-sheen-talks-diversity-and-inclusion-and-promoting-east?utm_source=rss_feed Tue, 30 Jan 2024 08:15:19 +0000 Dying, in theatrical terms, is not every actor’s ambition. But for Jean Yoon, buying the farm was the biggest pull when it came to choosing her latest role – which in itself would not be what you would expect. “Code 8: Part II – it’s about to drop on Netflix,” says Yoon on a video call from her home in Canada. “It’s a science-fiction, dystopian thriller from Canadian director Jeff Chan. Following part one [2019], it’s set in a police state with AI robot enforcement machines. “I took the part... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/film-tv/article/3248879/i-get-die-jean-yoon-kims-convenience-new-netflix-sci-fi-role-her-love-yoko-ono-and-show-left-her?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/film-tv/article/3248879/i-get-die-jean-yoon-kims-convenience-new-netflix-sci-fi-role-her-love-yoko-ono-and-show-left-her?utm_source=rss_feed Fri, 19 Jan 2024 03:15:14 +0000