The Chinese press reports that, according to an insider, Zhang Yimou's third period epic Curse of the Golden Flower has been officially selected by the authority to compete for the Best Foreign Language award of next year's Oscar. The anonymous insider claimed that some good words of mouth from people who saw the film actually helped the film to get the nomination. A few other titles were also up to the nomination but were not strong enough to defeat Golden Flower. The Banquet, Feng Xiaogang's Hamlet inspired historically drama, which has a story setup very similar to that of Golden Flower, received mixed/negative reviews both at home and overseas; The Road, Zhang Jiarui's drama about a bus drive and a ticket-seller's friendship / love story in the 1960/70's, also failed to draw a strong support; and the production studio of  Curiosity Kills the Cat, a modern day urban psychological thriller by Zhang Yibao, basically used the bidding for the nomination as a publicity stunt for the low budget flick, which will open next month in China.

Shooting of Feng Xiaogang's war epic Assembly or The Assembly Call is about to start in the Northeast of China (Manchuria) on October 6. The film begins in 1948, at the turning point of the last Chinese civil war and ends in 1956, three years after the end of Korea War. According to several Chinese newspapers and Screen Daily, the story is something like this: a company of soldiers are ordered to fight (probably for defending a position) until they hear the assembly call. But the call never comes and everybody dies, except one. Years later, the lone survivor starts searching for the remains his fallen comrades and trying to prove that they all died like real heroes. The film is inspired by short story "The Law Suit (literal title)", which was written by Yang Jinyuan, based on a true story . The script is written by Zhang Heng (Zhang Side). A cast assembled with a group of relatively unknown young actors are currently receiving training at a boot camp. This US$10 million war picture has been aimed at a theatrical release in China next year. The CG effects will be handled by Technicolor, which also worked for Feng's The Banquet; the sound effects will be done by the people who worked in Saving Private Ryan; and a South Korean team from another Korea War epic Taegukgi Hwinalrimyeo will be in charge of the character makeup.

Feng Xiaogang's The Banquet, despite a mixed review, is going very strong right now in China. The box-office revenue will reach 100 million yuans (US$12.6 million) in a few days. The Banquet, which has been released in the mainland China, Hong Kong and Taiwan for over two weeks, has become the top-seller of Feng Xiaogang. The total revenue may eventually reach 150 million yuans, the record of Zhang Yimou's House of Flying Daggers, but is very unlikely to reach 250 million yuans, the record of Zhang Another film Hero. The number one seller in the mainland China is still Titanic, which collected 360 million yuans from Chinese box-offices.