Tickets for Shanghai International Film Festival 2016 are set to go on sale on Monday morning at 8am, offering a chance to see a host of of great movies that normally might not make it to Mainland China cinema screens, plus Sir Ian McKellen. Not too shabby.
Intriguingly, stories have also emerged in the past few days that JK Rowling, who you may have heard of for being the author of a cult series of wizard stories, has promised China fans a 'mysterious surprise'. So mysterious that there are no more details at all, in fact. The treat comes as the Harry Potter series is set to be shown at SIFF 2016, with muggle speculation currently going into overdrive as to whether it'll be linked to forthcoming spin off film Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them or forthcoming spin off stage show Harry Potter and the Cursed Child.
Speaking of wizards, Gandalf will be in town in his equally magical Sir Ian McKellen guise to help promote the British Council and the BFI's 'Shakespeare Lives' series. He'll be dropping in for the glitzy opening ceremony and for a special screening of his Richard III on Monday 13 June.
Elsewhere, a host of recent Hollywood blockbusters will be shown (bypassing the usual quota system that China has in place on foreign films), including a series of 2015 Oscar nominated pictures. Among them will be The Danish Girl, a stunning biographical romantic drama based on the fictional novel by David Ebershoff, Danny Boyle's Steve Jobs, starring Michael Fassbender, Room, based on the bestseller by Emma Donoghue and Joy, starring Jennifer Lawrence.
Look out for plenty of classics too, with many newly restored films making an appearance such as Francis Ford Coppola’s Dracula and Yasujirō Ozu’s beautiful Late Spring (1949). There'll also be a whole series of Bond films including From Russia with Love (1963), Casino Royale (1967), On Her Majesty’s Secret Service (1969), The Spy Who Loved Me (1977), The Living Daylights (1987), Goldeneye (1995) and Casino Royale (2006).
In addition, SIFF will have a whole section dedicated to Andrei Tarkovsky, including the screening of his short classic The Steamroller and the Violin (1960), and to the late Hong Kong actor Leslie Cheung, who played Cheng Dieyi in the seminal Farewell My Concubine.
If previous years are anything to go by, tickets for the most popular screenings will be snapped up quickly (through official channels at least). Find more details and the latest schedules at the Shanghai International Film Festival website and get ready to hit Taobao's cinema booking site at 8am on Monday morning to book your tickets.