Global Courant
Eastern Grace Film, a new production company that teased its debut production “The Sand Murmurs” earlier this month, has gone one step further. It used the Shanghai International Film Festival to unveil a slate of nine new film productions.
The company is an indirect subsidiary of Baination Pictures, a Beijing-based film and TV group that is listed on the Shenzhen stock exchange. Eastern Grace is headed by president Wilson Jiang, a veteran film distributor in China.
Jiang pitched the company as a diversified operation that spans film investment, production and promotion operating at the top end of the Chinese industry. In addition to the conventional systems of production and exploitation, Eastern Grace aims to generate short films and stage plays that are derived from its portfolio movies. New media revenue will also be pursued in the VR, metaverse and virtual image categories. Some of these initiatives will be achieved in partnership with other companies.
Speaking at the launch event at the Qiantan Shangri-la Hotel in Shanghai, Jiang said that the company will work within the “policy background of focusing on content output” and focus on “high-quality films with realism and Chinese aesthetic characteristics, injecting new vitality and creativity into the Chinese film industry.”
The event also witnessed the unveiling of the company’s new logo which combines representative Chinese art elements such as ink, wash and landscapes.
“The Sand Murmurs” is typical of the scale of the company’s ambition. With a $40 million production budget and a cast of star names, including Deng Chao, Rong Zishan and Yang Zishag, it is a major book-to-film adaptation that will take a year to deliver.
The other new titles were announced as:
“The Old Dog” directed by Liu Yu and starring Tony Leung Chiu-wai and Yu Qian;
“Nothing Can’t Be Undone by A Hotpot,” to be directed by Ding Sheng (“Saving Mr Wu”) with Mini Yang, Yu Qian, Tian Yu;
“Tall Girl,” to be directed by Xing Xiao (“A Loner”);
Two from director Xin Yukun, “The Trending Topic,” with major star Zhou Dong Yu Zhou (“Better Days,” “Soul Mate”) and “Love across the Sea”;
“The Girl in the Playground,” from director Wang Yang (soon to be released “June”);
“Mystery of the Night” by Cai Jun, China’s best-known horror novelist with credits including “Nineteen Floors of Hell,” “Butterfly Cemetery” and “Murdering Things Past”) and who has seen several of his books already adapted for cinema and television;
and “Breaking Free” by Hong Kong’s Longman Leung (aka Lu Jianqing) who previously directed “Cold War” and “Helios.”
