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Spies now hot on the box

The Mission (Teshu Shiming), an espionage TV drama set in Northeast China during the Civil War (1945-49), is to be shown during prime time on CCTV-8 since Friday.

The TV drama features a protagonist who is not a traditional smart hero, but an undercover Communist who suffers from the misunderstanding of his comrades and family when he loses connection with his organization.

Yan Xiaozhui, director of the series, is confident that audiences will like the show, claiming that it not only offers thrilling stories and fighting scenes but also an in-depth presentation of the character who is pushed to the edge of collapse by the suspect and hatred of those he loves and trusts most.

Gong for a male Geisha

Popular web portal Sina.com awarded six pod-casters with nearly 1 million yuan ($132,000) for their original videos last week in Beijing.

The award winners were among 20,000 competitors in the first Sina Podcast Contest initiated in May this year.

Chopsticks Brothers, two commercial cameramen, won the top prize. Their work, named The Memoir of Male Geisha, is a goofy version of the Hollywood blockbuster on two mock male geisha's life and friendship.

On the same day, Sina announced its new video alliance - you.video.sina.com.cn. The award winners, as the first batch of members, are to promote the podcast service. The alliance has also been associated with 500 professional directors and 50 filming associations who will show their works on the video channel, with its door also open to amateur podcast lovers.

According to the 2007 Chinese Internet Investigative Report, there are 76 million podcast users now in China, and the number is still growing.

Eyes on former host cities

Six short films shot in former Olympic host cities premiered in Beijing last week as the result of a four-month project by Discovery Networks Asia and Visa to find new talents among Chinese young directors.

The six young talents set off to the cities - Rome, Seoul, Los Angeles, Mexico City, Tokyo, and Sydney on April 24, to express their individual feeling and observation of the city. Of the six, four were winners of the Discovery Channel's First Time Filmmakers China Initiative, a program to provide filming opportunities for young directors. The other two are independent filmmakers. The directors were given four months to organize their own crew and produce a short film each. Award-winning director Jia Zhangke worked as their artistic director, sharing his ideas in the pre-shoot discussions and post production.

The films are shown in Travel TV and Discovery Asia, shortly before the online premiere on the official websites of Discovery and Visa.

China Daily

(China Daily 09/25/2007 page18)