The Beijinger Blog - Beijing News

Ice Ice Bingbings: Li to Star in "Transformers 4" and Fan Starts Shooting "X-Men"

thebeijinger — Tue, 21 May 2013 19:00:00 +0800

Fan Bingbing and Li Bingbing, the Beijing-based actresses, are making significant inroads this month to expand their Hollywood careers and international presence. Quite the change from their filmographies to date, which have been mostly shot in our fair city (in fact, Fan is best known for Lost In Beijing).

Chi Fan for Charity Set for Nov 2 in Beijing: Event Expands This Year to Hong Kong

thebeijinger — Tue, 21 May 2013 17:00:10 +0800

Eating for a good cause — two great things that go great together. For fans of both, mark your calendars: Chi Fan for Charity (CFFC) has announced its dates for 2013.

The Beijing event will take place on November 2, followed by Shanghai on November 9. This year also sees a third city — Hong Kong — being added on November 16, CFFC announced Tuesday.

Beijing Takes Five of Asia's Top 10 Restaurants in Daily Meal Rankings

thebeijinger — Tue, 21 May 2013 13:00:00 +0800

Seems Beijing is a pretty good place to eat, at least according to The Daily Meal and its ranking of 101 Best Restaurant in Asia.

Naked City: Streaking Artist Finally Revealed

thebeijinger — Tue, 21 May 2013 10:15:13 +0800

The mysterious streaker who has been photographed running across Beijing streets with items including a crucifix and a sex doll has been exposed as artist Li Binyuan, a graduate of the Central Academy of Fine Arts.

Li seems to have revealed himself because although his midnight streaks through Wangjing have gone viral (NSFW), his claimed 10 dashes have only been recorded or posted six times. Let's face it: if you're a performance artist running naked through the streets of Beijing and surprised drivers only photographed or videoed you six times, that's just not enough exposure.

The Beijinger 2013 Reader Bar and Club Awards: The Complete Winners' List

thebeijinger — Mon, 20 May 2013 17:00:00 +0800

The Beijinger presented its 10th Annual Reader Bar & Club Awards Saturday evening at Galaxy SOHO. Over 500 nightlife personalities and readers turned up to food, drinks, and performances. Below is the full list of winners and outstanding establishments. Congratulations to everyone who took home a prize!

Watch: Trailer for Touch of Sin, Jia Zhangke's Scathing New Movie about Modern China

thebeijinger — Sun, 19 May 2013 11:00:00 +0800

Chinese director Jia Zhangke rose to fame directing sullen, methodically-paced dramas about life in modern China, and his latest effort continues this theme, albeit with a far less subtle edge.

According to Salon.com:

“A Touch of Sin” both is and is not like Jia’s other films, which include “Still Life,” “The World” and “Unknown Pleasures,” along with several documentaries. Locations for these four allegorical tales are similarly downscale, ranging from brothels to bus and train stations to beaten-down peasants’ households to a dormitory for industrial workers. And then there’s all the killing. It would be a mistake to advertise this as an action movie – although some American distributor probably will – because it sets up false expectations. But Jia has evidently decided he’s done with subtlety and wants to move to a starker level of metaphor. Drawing on several different spectacular true-crime stories – a relatively new phenomenon in China – he delivers an art-house film with the body count of a “Die Hard” sequel.

Great Leap Brewing, Lush Big Winners at Reader Bar & Club Awards; Slow Boat Brewery Taproom Best Newcomer

thebeijinger — Sat, 18 May 2013 22:54:14 +0800

Great Leap Brewing and Wudaokou favorite Lush were the big winners at The Beijinger 10th Annual Reader Bar & Club Awards, held at the futuristic Galaxy SOHO complex in Chaoyangmen.

Lush emerged as an early multiple winner in our pre-announced categories, picking up awards in four categories: Best Open Mic, Best Quiz Night, Best for Students, and Best Wudaokou. Josh Lally made it five when he won Best Manager for both Lush and Pyro Pizza, along with two Outstanding prizes, for Lally in Personality of the Year and for Lush as Best Survivor.

New Openings: Let's Gets into Pasta, New NLGX Crêpanini Offers Take-out Option

thebeijinger — Sat, 18 May 2013 11:00:00 +0800

Lots of changes mean lots of choices for Beijingers this spring and summer. Not satisfied with burgers and seafood, the Let's franchise will expand into noodles with Let's Pasta in July, opening in Sanlitun Village South. The new venue will use a choose-your-own-pasta concept, including not only Italian, but also Hong Kong and Japanese-style recipes.

And the Winner Is (Part 4)...More Beijinger 2013 Reader Bar & Club Awards Winners Revealed

thebeijinger — Fri, 17 May 2013 17:00:00 +0800

This year – in order to give everyone more time to concentrate on drinking at our Reader Bar & Club Awards Party – we've decided to announce some of the winners before the big event. Yesterday and earlier today we announced the winners in nine categories, which you can read about here, here, and here. The last three categories that we are pre-announcing are: Maddest Regulars, Best Open Mic, and Best for Students (only votes from voters identifying themselves as students were counted). You can see which bars have come up trumps below.

For the other awards, turn up Saturday, as we're saving the best categories for the party. Names appear with the venue that received the most votes first, then outstanding performers in alphabetical order.

Le Petit Gourmand Closes, Jack D to Replace Space

thebeijinger — Fri, 17 May 2013 14:20:00 +0800

Tongli Studio stalwart Le Petit Gourmand is moving. Closed five days ago, the space that LPG currently occupies will become a bar called Jack D operated by the same management. It's slated to open towards the end of the month, one of the partners, Mr. Cui, told the Beijinger earlier today.

However, fans of the restaurant should not despair. LPG is looking at a bigger space in the Yashow area, which may feature a garden. The move and re-opening should take about three months, Cui said.