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Sideshow and Janus Films have bought U.S. rights for Chinese director Jia Zhangke’s epic drama Caught By The Tides, following its buzzy world premiere in competition at Cannes in May.

Written by Jia and Wan Jiahuan, the film follows a deeply moving love story over a 23-year time span against the backdrop of explosive growth in China.

Made up of old footage shot by Jia over the past century as well as some new, the film traverses personal and national history including all of his films to date.

Sideshow and Janus Films, which acquired the film from mk2 films, will release the film exclusively in theaters in the coming months.

The companies said in a joint statement: “Jia Zhang-ke is one of the twenty-first century’s most important filmmakers and with Caught By The Tides delivers what will surely be considered one of his great films that gives...

Sideshow and Janus Films have acquired US rights to Caught By The Tides, director Jia Zhang-ke’s entry in last month’s Cannes competition line-up.

The companies said they plan to release the film exclusively in US cinemas “in the coming months.”

Written by Jia and Wan Jiahuan. the Chinese-language film stars Jia’s wife Zhao Tao and Li Zhubin in a love story unfolding over 23 years against the backdrop of China’s explosive growth. The film includes both new material and old footage shot by Jia since the turn of the millennium.

Caught By The Tides is produced by Casper Liang Jiayan,...

“Caught by the Tides,” the contemporary Chinese epic film directed by Jia Zhangke, has been acquired for U.S. release by Sidehow and Janus Films.

The film appeared in main competition in Cannes in May and is an extended look at the romantic destiny of Jia’s perennial heroine, Qiaoqiao over a period of 21 years. On another level, the film is an examination of a country going through profound transformation, mixing individual experiences and turbulent emotional and social changes.

It uses a mixture of old footage shot by Jia over the past century as well as some new. The main cast are Zhao Tao and Li Zhubin.

Variety’s reviewer Jessica Kiang, called the film: “an epic, lyrical drama that is both Chinese master Jia’s career-retrospective reinvention and a defining portrait of modern China.”

Sideshow and Janus Films will release the picture exclusively in U.S. theaters at an...

Sideshow and Janus Films have snapped up U.S. distribution rights to Chinese master filmmaker Jia Zhangke’s latest feature Caught by the Tides, which premiered to rave reviews at this year’s Cannes Film Festival. The two distributors said they will “release the film exclusively in theaters in the coming months.”

Caught by the Tides is composed almost entirely of improvisational footage Jia shot across China over nearly 25 years with his troupe of longtime collaborators. In an interview at Cannes, the director told The Hollywood Reporter that he began to sculpt a feature from the hundreds of hours of footage he had accumulated during the quiet days of China’s long, three-year pandemic shutdown.

THR‘s lead critic summed up the resulting film’s innovative narrative and formal approaches by writing that it “ebbs and flows like poetry.”

Like virtually all of Jia’s work, stretching back to his...

Zhang Dao Ling was a Chinese religious leader and the founder of the “Way of the Celestial Masters” movement of Taoism, who lived during the Eastern Han Dynasty. In essence, his followers were attracted to his faith-healing method which led them to believe in the purification of the body and the cure of illness caused by sinful-mindedness. However, Zhang Tian Shi (Celestial Master Zhang) was also a name given to him by many Taoists because of his magical skills as a healer and an exorcist. At times he was affectionately pictured as an old scholar wearing a Taoist crown and riding on a tiger.

The population of China love watching video on the go and video streaming is a huge business there. Therefore it is no surprise that they watch all kinds of TV series, films, games, music videos and so on on any device and anywhere they choose. Nonetheless,...