Last night WildChina hosted the inaugural Where the Wild Things Are: A WildChina Series at In & Out Yunnan Restaurant in Beijing. An exclusive and intimate dinner capped at 40 people, WildChina invited friend Janet Yang, renowned Hollywood producer to speak.

Janet, who has shot many times in Shanghai, contrasted and described in detail what it was like shooting in Shanghai in the mid-1980’s on EMPIRE OF THE SUN and her more recent experiences the last few years on the last two movies.

As she explained her motivation for producing films based in China, we Beijingers could not help but nod in total agreement about how difficult it is to explain to people who are not based in China or who have not traveled to China that the images that they see in RAISE THE RED LANTERN and CROUCHING TIGER, HIDDEN DRAGON are of a China that no longer exists. As Janet joked, “China today isn’t just rickshaws and men with long pongtails.” Janet said that she always wanted to create a film that shows what Shanghai looks like and feels like today. She has done exactly that with SHANGHAI CALLING, which will be released later this year. The audience was allowed sneak peeks into her movie and everyone was dying to see more!

Attendees last night were generously granted invitations to a private screening of SHANGHAI CALLING on Monday, March 19th which everyone was particularly excited about.

WildChina is looking forward to hosting future Where the Wild Things Are events to share with the Beijing community. Our next event– May 31st– will be highlighting WildChina expert William Lindesay and his recent discovery of a new sections of the Great Wall.