Talking Entertainment: Your Weekend Guide to the Arts

A reality TV competition will be used to cast talent for Transformers 4 in China. This news came from the China Movie Channel and its sister website m1905 last week during the Beijing International Film Festival. The name of the program is The Chinese Actors Talent Search and contestants will be recruited through online registration. A panel of judges will select the winners during televised reality shows which will air on CCTV-6 in early June. The lucky four finalists will have a spot in the film.

Wearemovigeeks.com gives a nice rundown on the competition and quotes one of the judges Sid Ganis saying:

“This will give actors and fans of the Transformers franchise the opportunity to be appearing in a major motion picture, and it will provide the world audience yet another glimpse of the Chinese people, the Chinese culture and China itself.”

This is the first time Hollywood has used reality TV to reach into China’s masses for talent. And it seems everyone is scrambling to make money off China’s rising class of cinema goers. Next week’s Iron Man 3 release can be considered a milestone for “Sino-Hollywood” relations, with a special cut for Chinese audiences featuring Fan Bing Bing and an evil Chinaman from the original comic re-stereotyped as a terrorist. In one scene, the bad guy even lectures on the authenticity of fortune cookies. This story in the Guardian looks into Iron Man 3 and the phenomenon of Hollywood “starting to kiss China’s butt for RMB,” in depth.

On the local entertainment front, The Beijing Comedy Festival wrapped up with Sherwin Jiang taking top prize in the open mic category. The Good Doctor, a writer for Beijing Cream, reported on the finalists and is pretty excited about the comedians popping up around town. The Good Doctor writes:

“It turns out that there’s an honest-to-goodness, thriving stand-up scene in Beijing. If you’re a closeted comedy nerd who’ll only risk coming out to see live shows in Beijing when big name comics fly in from the States, I hate to break it to you, but Louis CK isn’t walking back onto that stage anytime soon. Why not try to get a laugh on at one of the many local venues in Beijing that host regular stand-up nights?”

We’re also excited for this burgeoning comedy scene and especially that famous international comedian Des Bishop who is gracing the Chinese capital with his presence this year. He’s in Beijing to study Chinese and will be hosting regular comedy nights at the Bookworm. The funny man kicks things off this weekend with a stand up show at the Bookworm. Giveaway: Apparently the story about how his dad nearly played James Bond is the punch line.

Here are some entertaining A&C events this week:

• Art Cult Trash Movie
  
• Oh My, Modern Dance at Vics
  
• Book Crossing at Modernista
• An Astounding Earthquake Documentary at Zajia