Reset boosts Panorama China's sci-fi focus

The Chinese sci-fi feature film Reset won the Remi Best in Show award and its leading actress Yang Mi won the Remi for Best Actress on Saturday at Houston's 50th WorldFest International Film Festival.

Yang, a popular actress in China who has starred in TV shows such as Eternal Love (San Sheng San Shi), made a brief appearance at the festival's award ceremony before going on stage to accept the award.

"I have not attended that many film festivals. I am much honored to be awarded. More and more people are paying attention to Chinese films, thanks," said Yang.

More than 100 people from China's film industry attended the ceremony, including actress Lisa Lu and actors Sun Chun and Wang Luoyong.

Reset, with Jackie Chan as its supervising executive producer, tells the story of a mother who travels back in time twice in order to save her only son. It's scheduled to be released in China in June. Its screening in Houston was its world premiere.

"This is our first try at a sci-fi movie," said Jason Huang, executive director at New Clues Film which produced Reset. "We did 2,000 special effects frames, but we know it's a far cry from Hollywood's big budget action films. Our budget was only $20 million, while most Hollywood movie budgets start at $200 million. Despite that, we did our best."

Huang said Reset focused on the creative sci-fi idea behind the story of a mother and son rather than on action and special effects.

A US-China film summit was held during the festival. Industry insiders exchanged views on the two major film markets' box office, cultural differences and how to bridge them and how to better work together.

Michael Berry, a professor of contemporary Chinese cultural studies at UCLA, recounted the history of the sci-fi and fantasy genre in Chinese cinema and what's likely to come in the future.

While predicting the genre will increase in popularity, Berry cautioned the industry not to rush too blindly into it, and said a solid story remains the key to a good movie.

The sci-fi and fantasy genre has become a focus of WorldFest Panorama China, attracting many scripts with production potential.

Liu Xiaolin, chairman of WD Pictures and a host of the summit, said that China has surpassed the US in number of movie screens.

"The summit discussion was very fruitful," Liu said. "With all the discussion on technique and bridging the cultural difference, we agree that the future is bright for China-US cooperation."

"Panorama China is a new program developed by Ray Jiang to promote Chinese cinema," said Berry. "I was impressed by the number of filmmakers from China participating in the event. There are established people such as Lisa Lu and Wang Luoyong here. It's great to see so many talents here."

Of the 33 Chinese films showcased at the festival, Justice Forever, Sunset Blue and Mr. Zhu's Summer won Platinum Remi Awards, Strangers and Survival in Shanghai won a Gold Remi and a few others won Special Jury Awards.

mayzhou@chinadailyusa.com

(China Daily USA 05/01/2017 page2)