China builds itself a DREAM FACTORY

China’s Lunar New Year movie season is like America’s summer blockbuster season… on steroids.  And it got that way thanks to THE DREAM FACTORY — a wry 1997 comedy directed by Feng Xiaogang, who’d come to be known as “the Chinese Spielberg.”  Host Rico Gagliano gets a crash course on the movie from experts on Chinese cinema, including City University of New York’s Ying Zhu and UCLA’s Michael Berry. Our first season, titled “Lost in Translation,” spotlights movies that were massive cultural phenomena in one country, but nowhere else. With episodes spanning nearly every continent, tune in weekly to discover unique film stories from around the globe.Each episode, we publish a complementary piece in a new series called “MUBI Podcast Expanded.” This week, we have an article by film professor Ying Zhu, building on her commentary featured in this episode about Feng Xiaogang's THE DREAM FACTORY and Chinese New Year comedies. Read the article here.MUBI is a global streaming service, production company and film distributor. A place to discover and watch beautiful, interesting, incredible films. A new hand-picked film arrives on MUBI, every single day. From iconic directors, to emerging auteurs. All carefully chosen by MUBI’s curators.