MCLC: Chinese film pulled from Tokyo festival

[Denton, Kirk]

MCLC LIST
From: kirk (denton.2 at osu.edu)
Subject: Chinese film pulled from Tokyo festival
***********************************************************

Source: The Guardian
(9/26/12):http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2012/sep/26/floating-city-tokyo-in
ternational-film-festival

Chinese film pulled from Tokyo film festival over row with Japan
Yim Ho's Floating City has been withdrawn from competition following
mounting political tensions between China and Japan
By Ben Child

A Hong Kong-Chinese film has been withdrawn from the Tokyo international
film festival owing to ongoing political tensions between China and Japan,
reports Screen Daily
<http://www.screendaily.com/news/asia-pacific/tokyo-fest-screening-of-yim-h
os-floating-city-cancelled/5047020.article?blocktitle=Latest-news&contentID
=1846>.

Festival organisers announced on Tuesday that Yim Ho's Floating City, a
Cantonese-language drama chronicling the meteoric rise of an illiterate
man (played by Aaron Kwok) from a local fishing family to a powerful
figure in Hong Kong's corporate world, would not after all be screening in
the Japanese capital next month.

"It is with great regret that we have to announce the cancellation of the
scheduled screening of Floating City at the 25th Tokyo international film
festival owing to certain reasons on the production side," a statement
read. "Although we have strongly requested those involved not to call off
the plan to take part in the festival, the cancellation has unfortunately
been finalised."

Violent protests have taken place across China in the past week after
Japan took the decision to "nationalise" the chain of disputed, gas-rich
Senkaku islands in the East China Sea. The archipelago is known in China
as the Diaoyu islands and has been in Japanese hands since 1895. The move
to withdraw Floating City countered suggestions by Tokyo international
film festival chairman Tom Yoda last week that political tensions
<http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/sep/17/china-japan-dangerous-
standoff> would not affect the festival.

The big budget Sino-Japanese co-production 1905 also appears to be another
victim of the ongoing dispute over the islands. Starring Hong Kong's Tony
Leung 
<http://twitchfilm.com/2012/09/kiyoshi-kurosawa-directing-tony-leung-in-big
-budget-chinese-language-feature-1905.html>, and directed by Japan's
Kiyoshi Kurosawa, the period action-drama was due to start filming in
Taiwan in November but has now been postponed. Leung was due to play a
loan shark who ventures from Guangdong province in China to Yokohama in
Japan to recover debts from a band of anti-Manchu government
revolutionaries.

The 25th Tokyo international film festival is due to run from 20-28
October. Fifteen competition titles were originally due to compete for the
Sakura grand prix, which carries a cash award of $50,000.