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Jet Li's charity boost

China's top media group, Huayi Brothers, will donate a percentage of every movie ticket sold to The Forbidden Kingdom (Gongfu Zhi Wang) to Jet Li's One Foundation.

Four theater chains, Beijing New Film Association, Stellar International, Shanghai United Circuit and Beijing Wanda, will donate 0.01 yuan from every ticket.

From this year, the "one ticket and 0.1 yuan donation" will be applied to all the Huayi productions and also films, which Huayi is the main investor.

The new $70 million martial arts film, which stars Li and Jackie Chan, will premiere in China and North America in April. The story follows an American boy's kungfu dream, combining Chinese myths, martial arts and American humor. This is the first time that the two kungfu stars fight in one film.

Director of the Lion King, Rob Minkoff, directs. Academy Award-winning Peter Pau will also assist in the cinematographer, while Yuen Woo-ping is the choreographer.

Art for art's sake

The Artron Art China 2007 Most Influential Participants of Chinese Art were revealed recently in Beijing.

Topping the Events of the Year is the renovation of the National Museum of China, which upon its completion in 2010 will become the largest museum in the world with a floor space of over 192,000 sq m.

The most eye-catching Artist Celebrity of the Year is Ai Weiwei, who brought 1,001 Chinese people, including farmers, laid-off workers, street vendors, minority people, students, rock singers and white-collar workers to Kassel, Germany, to an art event called Documenta, where his work Fairytale was showing.

High on the Most Influential Artists of the Year is Cai Guoqiang, who set a new record for contemporary Chinese work at Christie's Hong Kong's auction last December with a set of 14 drawings for Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation, sold for $9.5 million.

Leading the Most Influential Emerging Young Artists List is the so-called "Unmask Art Group", comprising three artists, Liu Zhan, Kuang Jun and Tan Tianjun, who emphasize teamwork and a combination of artistic creation and business returns, defying the traditional notion of art for art's sake.

Desire of a desperate housewife

In Deadly Delicious (Shuang Shi Ji), which premiered on March 8, Chinese Women's Day, award-winning actress Yu Nan plays a desperate housewife who tries to poison her husband, with the help of the man's mistress.

The thrilling picture features beautifully made Chinese cuisine and a triangular love affair. A traditional Chinese saying goes the attraction between a man and woman is the greatest desire. Hong Kong actor Francis Ng plays against Yu, as her husband.

Yu's other film, Speed Racer, by writer/directors Larry and Andy Wachowski, creators of the groundbreaking The Matrix trilogy, opened on Sunday in America. Speed Racer marks the Wachowski brothers' first writing/directing collaboration since The Matrix movies.

China Daily

(China Daily 03/11/2008 page18)