Chinese poster with Kamajī cosplay

I love good movie posters, and here's a cool one you might have missed.

Last summer, Hayao Miyazaki's transcendent animated film Spirited Away finally ⁠— nearly two decades after its original release in Japan ⁠— had an official theatrical release in China. As The Hollywood Reporter's Gavin J. Blair noted, "Miyazaki has legions of fans in China who predominantly know his work through pirated DVDs and downloads. ... All foreign films screened in China must win government approval."

Of course, to release the film in China, it had to be dubbed/revoiced into Chinese. Film stars from China including Zhou Dongyu, Jing Boran and Peng Yuchang handled that work.

Finally, a new set of marketing materials was required for the Chinese market, and they were jaw-droppingly gorgeous. You can see them on the blog Spoon & Tamago, which noted that "the Chinese release even includes a series of stylized posters featuring the voice actors and actresses in the film." And that brings us to the poster at the top of this post. It's film director, producer and actor Tian Zhuangzhuang getting into character as Kamajī, the humanoid spider who operates the boiler room of the mysterious bathhouse.

Again, you can see all the posters at this link.

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Watching Films
(December 2019 update)

I previously wrote about the films I watched in November, so here's the list of what I viewed in December:

• Ikiru (Akira Kurosawa, 1952)
• Letter Never Sent (Mikhail Kalatozov, 1960)
• Salesman (Albert Maysles, David Maysles & Charlotte Zwerin, 1969)
• Nashville (Robert Altman, 1975)
• Punch-Drunk Love (Paul Thomas Anderson, 2002)