The following often happens to me…
1. I buy a DVD in one of the *official* shops around Beijing,
2. I watch it on my nice 32 inches television,
3. The movie is then released in the theaters around China,
4. I sit and cry, because I would have enjoy the movie a lot more if I only waited for a few weeks and watched in theater.
I could of course wait a few weeks. However, with only 20+ foreign movies officially released in China per year, how could I know for which movies I have to wait and for which other movies I can watch the DVD straight away?
Well, here is the official list for 2007! Some of the release dates are missing. I will try to add them as soon as I get them…
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| The Guardian (惊涛大冒险) |
| Director: Andrew Davis |
| Starring: Kevin Costner, Ashton Kutcher |
| Release Date: January 13 |
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| Flyboys (空战英豪) |
| Director: Tony Bill |
| Starring: James Franco, Martin Henderson |
| Release Date: February 9 |
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| Déjà Vu (时空线索) |
| Director: Tony Scott |
| Starring: Denzel Washington, Jim Caviezel |
| Release Date: March 9 |
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| Spider Man 3 (蜘蛛侠3) |
| Director: Sam Raimi |
| Starring: Tobey Maguire, Kirsten Dunst |
| Release Date: May 4 |
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| Shrek 3 (怪物史莱克3) |
| Director: Chris Miller, Raman Hui |
| Voices: Mike Myers, Eddy Murphy, Cameron Diaz |
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| Eragon (伊拉贡/龙骑士) |
| Director: Stefan Fangmeier |
| Starring: Edward Speleers, Jeremy Irons |
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| Happy Feet (欢乐的大脚) |
| Director: George Miller |
| Voices: Elijah Wood, Brittany Murphy, Nicole Kidman |
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| Shooter (射手) |
| Director: Antoine Fuqua |
| Starring: Mark Wahlberg, Kate Mara, Michael Pena |
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January 4th, 2007 at 8:32 pm
If you had to give a Top 5 for the foreign movies in China for 2007, what would it be?
January 5th, 2007 at 11:08 am
Do you mean the Worst 5 ??
Can’t say I’m very enthusiastic with the selection, but I suppose we should be happy with what they give us… What I would really like is the link to check the movie schedule on the web, for WangFuJing theater for ex (don’t know any other!) Would you have that?
January 6th, 2007 at 9:39 am
OK… Let me explain how I do. You’ll see, it’s quite tricky… hehehe…
By the way, if anybody has a better solution, please tell us!
I usually go to Sina.com in the Cinema section. There, you may find the show times for a bunch of cinema. The only drawback is that everything is in Chinese…
So here is some useful vocabulary!
First, the show times are given day by day. Each day is referred both by date and by week days. For example, today is 1月6日(星期六). The dates in Chinese are quite easy to understand. Instead of having a name for each month of the year, they just numbered them! 月 stands for moon - or month - and 日 stands for day. Which means that 1月6日 corresponds to the 6th day of the first month or January. The same concept is applied for the weekdays with 星期 meaning week. However, for the weekdays they don’t use Arabic numbers but Chinese numbers. So, here are the numbers from 1 to 7: 一二三四五六七. However, you will not see 星期七, instead they use 星期日 for Sunday.
So, you found the day you want to go to cinema and watch that incredible movie! Well… That was the easy part.
You will now have to find the name of the movie and the name of the cinema… All this in Chinese!
For example, you want to watch the Curse of the Golden Flower (满城尽带黄金甲) at XinDongAn Theater (新东安影城), the one at the 5th floor of the XinDongAn Shopping Center.
OK, to be fair… For some Theater they will give you the Show Times. But for most of them, they will only provide the phone numbers.
And remember that for new movies their might be a lot of people… You’d better arrive soon enough or there will be no more tickets available…
January 10th, 2007 at 1:26 pm
Quite a challenge indeed… But thank you very much for the tips, and for giving the chinese characters for XinDongAn!
January 10th, 2007 at 11:11 pm
Now, I also added the name of each movie in Chinese!
January 12th, 2007 at 1:54 am
This new actor in James Bond is so not James Bond like…
January 12th, 2007 at 9:10 am
Benjamin, I have to say that I do not totally agree with you. I liked Daniel Craig’s performance for the following reasons. We have to remember that this is the first James Bond of the serie. 007 just became an agent and still has to mature in order to become the James Bond he will be in the previous movies.
What is quite interesting in Casino Royale is the evolution of James through the whole movie, as he’s getting more sophisticated.
January 12th, 2007 at 3:33 pm
Well I’m not speaking of the acting performance, which was good I agree. Also this movie convinced me much more than the last previous ones. What I think does not fit is… Daniel Craig’s face… I guess that’s what people are thinking every time they’re changing the actor, but I didn’t felt the same way about Timothy Dalton or Pierce Brosnan…
Quite personal opininon I guess
January 29th, 2007 at 7:37 pm
There is a new Website where you can buy your tickets online! The only problem of Wang Piao (网票), litrally ‘Internet Ticket’ in Chinese, is that their website is available only in Chinese…
February 17th, 2007 at 10:35 am
where can i buy these dvd movies in china.this is a great site.
March 1st, 2007 at 10:07 am
Hello Kevin, these movies are the official foreign movies for 2007. Therefore, if you like to go to watch them in a theater, I advice you to wait for them to be officially released in China.
Otherwise, you may always check the numerous little shops where they sell lots of Chinese and foreign movies in DVD. They distribute them in two different quality: DVD for less than 10RMB and DVD9 usually for 20RMB.
I heard that these DVD are pirated DVD… But it might only be rumors…