Talking Entertainment: Your Weekend Guide to the Arts

Robert Downey, Jr. will be in Beijing on April 6 to begin promoting Iron Man 3. The film, set for release in early May, is hoped to be a winner with Chinese audiences. Not only were many scenes shot in Beijing, but Chinese stars Fan Bingbing and Wang Xueqi were given prominent roles.

Downey will only be in town for a day. The Hollywood Reporter got the scoop:

Robert Downey, Jr. will attend an event set within Beijing’s Forbidden City complex on April 6 to launch a month-long promotional blitz of Iron Man 3 in China before its release in the country in early May. A source close to the event told The Hollywood Reporter that the actor would be in the Chinese capital for the whole day, with his appearance at the evening event possibly preceded by meetings with the local press.

Iron Man 3 will be heavily promoted in Beijing throughout April and is expected to have a presence at the Beijing International Film Festival, which is warming up for its own launch on April 16. Also, for those of us who can't wait that long for big-screen entertainment, Oz the Great and Powerful, the successful Hollywood adaptation of the classic The Wizard of Oz, is out in Beijing theaters today.

Local film club Electric Shadows will be celebrating their fourth anniversary at Zajia next Thursday. Since this is their fourth year – on the fourth day of the fourth month – they will be celebrating appropriately (in Mandarin, the word "four" rhymes with "death"), with dancing zombie shorts, zombie spoof Shaun of the Dead, and a performance by the Beijing Dead, the local Grateful Dead cover band. (Notice: This event has been cancelled and deleted from the Beijinger website)

Here's a list of A&C events this week:

• Sushi dreams
• Love-themed documentary (and paintings)
• Escape to the wilderness
• Vixens return

One more quick note to end, Modernista has notified us that their April film screenings have been moved from 4:30pm to 5:00pm.

Full Disclosure: The author, Nick Richards, is a member of the Beijing Dead band mentioned in this article