Talking Entertainment: Cartoon Banned, More Sci-fi, Bo Xilai and a Death Match

Nick Richards | Jul 26, 2013 11:00 am | Add a comment | 8781 reads

And yet another Hollywood film blocked by Chinese authorities. This time a children’s film took the hit, Despicable Me 2, a feature animation from Universal, was blocked by censors yesterday and nobody knows why, but protectionism may be a factor. Still, there’s plenty more to look forward to this summer with Monsters Inc and Jurassic Park 3-D scheduled to be released at the end of August.

In a follow up from my Sci-fi post a couple of weeks ago, it has been announced that Tor Books will be releasing the English translation of The Three-Body Trilogy in the US. Their announcement links to a moving short story by the translator of the first book, Ken Liu, which I suggest reading. Entitled, The Paper Menagerie, it is the first work of fiction to win Nebula, Hugo, and World Fantasy Awards in one swoop. Liu is clearly a talented writer and his translation of Chinese science fiction is highly anticipated.

In further book news, those following the Bo Xilai case, which is making headlines again, might be interested in Penguin China’s 2012 release of The Rise and Fall of the House of Bo, available for purchase at the Bookworm. In the book, author John Garnaut traces back the stories of murder, defection, political purges and ideological clashes that led to Bo Xilai’s fall.

The Bookworm also just announced yesterday that The Literary Death Match, described as a “crowd-luring, bright-minded spectacle” is returning to Beijing on September 11. We’ll have a follow up post once the lineup is confirmed.

And it seems that a winning design has been chosen for a new National Art Museum of China. Delightedly, the building will not try to be a dragon or panda or anything overtly Chinese and will be constructed nearby the Olympic Park to avoid any threat to the downtown cityscape.

Here are some arts and culture events to look forward to this week: