title: Cinema of Hong Kong

text: For decades, Hong Kong was the third largest motion picture industry in the world (after Indian cinema and American cinema) and the second largest exporter. Despite an industry crisis starting in the mid-1990s and Hong Kong's transfer to Chinese sovereignty in July 1997, Hong Kong film has retained much of its distinctive identity and continues to play a prominent part on the world cinema stage. In the West, Hong Kong's vigorous pop cinema (especially Hong Kong action cinema) has long had a strong cult following, which is now arguably a part of the cultural mainstream, widely available and imitated.


title: Cinema of Hong Kong

text: Economically, the film industry together with the value added of cultural and creative industries represents 5 per cent of Hong Kong's economy.


title: Cinema of Hong Kong

text: Unlike many film industries, Hong Kong has enjoyed little or no direct government support, through either subsidies or import quotas. It is a thoroughly commercial cinema: highly corporate, concentrating on crowd-pleasing genres like comedy and action, and relying heavily on formulas, sequels and remakes.


title: Cinema of Hong Kong

text: Hong Kong film derives a number of elements from Hollywood, such as certain genre parameters, a "thrill-a-minute" philosophy and fast pacing and film editing. But the borrowings are filtered through elements from traditional Chinese drama and art, particularly a penchant for stylisation and a disregard for Western standards of realism. This, combined with a fast and loose approach to the filmmaking process, contributes to the energy and surreal imagination that foreign audiences note in Hong Kong cinema.


title: Cinema of Hong Kong

text: In 2010, the box office gross in Hong Kong was HK$1.339 billion and in 2011 it was HK$1.379 billion. There were 56 Hong Kong films and 220 foreign films released in 2011.


title: Cinema of Hong Kong

text: In 2017, the box office gross was HK$1.85 billion compared with HK$1.95 billion in 2016. 331 films were released in 2017, dropped from 348 the year before.


title: Cinema of Hong Kong

text: According to McDonald, a star system emerged in Hollywood as talent scouts, coaches, and publicists were involved with finding performers and making them into stars. In the vertically integrated Hollywood film industry of the 1920s, 1930s, and 1940s, these responsibilities were all undertaken by the studios themselves. The studios made the stars and, due to notoriously restrictive terms imposed by exclusive services contracts, the studios also owned the stars (McDonald, 2000). As is common in commercial cinema, the industry's heart is a highly developed star system. In earlier days, beloved performers from the Chinese opera stage often brought their audiences with them to the screen. For the past three or four decades, television has been a major launching pad for movie stardom, through acting courses and widely watched drama, comedy and variety series offered by the two major stations. Possibly even more important is the overlap with the Cantonese pop music industry. Many, if not most, movie stars have recording sidelines, and vice versa; this has been a key marketing strategy in an entertainment industry where American-style, multimedia advertising campaigns have until recently been little used (Bordwell, 2000). In the current commercially troubled climate, the casting of young Cantopop idols (such as Ekin Cheng and the Twins) to attract the all-important youth audience is endemic.


title: Cinema of Hong Kong

text: In the small and tightly knit industry, actors (as well as other personnel, such as directors) are kept very busy. During previous boom periods, the number of movies made by a successful figure in a single year could routinely reach double digits.


title: Cinema of Hong Kong

text: Films are typically low-budget when compared with American films. A major release with a big star, aimed at "hit" status, will typically cost around US$5 million (Yang et al., 1997). A low-budget feature can go well below US$1 million. Occasional blockbuster projects by the very biggest stars (Jackie Chan or Stephen Chow, for example) or international co-productions ("crossovers") aimed at the global market, can go as high as US$20 million or more, but these are rare exceptions. Hong Kong productions can nevertheless achieve a level of gloss and lavishness greater than these numbers might suggest, given factors such as lower wages and value of the Hong Kong dollar.


title: Cinema of Hong Kong

text: Films in the Cantonese language have been made in Hong Kong since the beginning. In the 1950s, it also became a center of Mandarin language film making after the Communist takeover in mainland China and the entertainment industry shifted from Shanghai to Hong Kong. From the 1960s to mid-1970s, Mandarin film productions became dominant, especially those made by the Shaw Brothers studio in Hong Kong. There was also a short-lived period whereby Hokkien films were produced in Hong Kong, and there were also films made in the Teochew dialect. Cantonese films made a comeback in the 1970s, and since the 1980s, films have been made mostly in Cantonese.


title: Cinema of Hong Kong

text: For decades, films were typically shot silent, with dialogue and all other sound dubbed afterwards. In the hectic and low-budget industry, this method was faster and more cost-efficient than recording live sound, particularly when using performers from different dialect regions; it also helped facilitate dubbing into other languages for the vital export market (for example, Standard Mandarin for mainland China and Taiwan). Many busy stars would not even record their own dialogue, but would be dubbed by a lesser-known performer. Shooting without sound also contributed to an improvisatory filmmaking approach. Movies often went into production without finished scripts, with scenes and dialogue concocted on the set; especially low-budget productions on tight schedules might even have actors mouth silently or simply count numbers, with actual dialogue created only in the editing process.


title: Cinema of Hong Kong

text: A trend towards sync sound filming grew in the late 1990s and this method is now the norm, partly because of a widespread public association with higher quality cinema.


title: Cinema of Hong Kong

text: During its early history, Hong Kong's cinema played second fiddle to that of the mainland, particularly the city of Shanghai, which was then the movie capital of the Chinese-speaking world. Very little of this work is extant: one count finds only four films remaining out of over 500 produced in Hong Kong before World War II (Fonoroff, 1997). Detailed accounts of this period therefore have inherent limitations and uncertainties.


title: Cinema of Hong Kong

text: As in most of China, the development of early films was tightly bound to Chinese opera, for centuries the dominant form of dramatic entertainment. Opera scenes were the source for what are generally credited as the first movies made in Hong Kong, two 1909 short comedies entitled "Stealing a Roasted Duck" and "Right a Wrong with Earthenware Dish". The director was stage actor and director Liang Shaobo. The producer was an American, Benjamin Brodsky (sometimes transliterated 'Polaski'), one of a number of Westerners who helped jumpstart Chinese film through their efforts to crack China's vast potential market.


title: Cinema of Hong Kong

text: Credit for the first Hong Kong feature film is usually given to "Zhuangzi Tests His Wife" (1913), which also took its story from the opera stage, was helmed by a stage director and featured Brodsky's involvement. Director Lai Man-Wai (Li Ming Wei or Li Minwei in Mandarin) was a theatrical colleague of Liang Shaobo's who would become known as the "Father of Hong Kong Cinema". In another borrowing from opera, Lai played the role of wife himself. His brother played the role of husband, and his wife a supporting role as a maid, making her the first Chinese woman to act in a Chinese film, a milestone delayed by longstanding taboos regarding female performers (Leyda, 1972). "Zhuangzhi" was the only film made by Chinese American Film, founded by Lai and Brodsky as the first movie studio in Hong Kong, and was never actually shown in the territory (Stokes and Hoover, 1999).


title: Cinema of Hong Kong

text: The following year, the outbreak of World War I put a large crimp in the development of cinema in Hong Kong, as Germany was the source of the colony's film stock (Yang, 2003). It was not until 1923 that Lai, his brother and their cousin joined with Liang Shaobo to form Hong Kong's first entirely Chinese-owned-and-operated production company, the China Sun Motion Picture Company. In 1924, they moved their operation to the Mainland after government red tape blocked their plans to build a studio. (Teo, 1997)


title: Cinema of Hong Kong

text: With the popularity of talkies in the early 1930s, the problem of China's various spoken dialects had to be grappled with. Hong Kong was a major center for Cantonese, one of the most widely spoken, and political factors on the Mainland provided other opportunities. In 1932, the Shaw brothers, who formed the Tianyi Film Company, teamed up with Cantonese opera singer to make the first Cantonese talkie, , in Shanghai. This film proved to be very successful, and in 1934, they established a branch of the Tianyi Studio in Kowloon to make Cantonese films. The government of the Kuomintang or Nationalist Party wanted to enforce a "Mandarin-only" policy and was hostile to Cantonese filmmaking in China. It also banned the wildly popular "wuxia" genre of martial arts swordplay and fantasy, accusing it of promoting superstition and violent anarchy. Cantonese film and "wuxia" film remained popular despite government hostility, and the British colony of Hong Kong became a place where both of these trends could be freely served. Tianyi soon moved the entire film production operation from Shanghai to Hong Kong and reorganised Tianyi into Nanyang (南洋) Productions. The name 粵語長片 (Pinyin: Yuèyǔ cháng piàn, Jyutping: jyut6 jyu5 coeng4 pin3*2) soon became the standard name for black and white Cantonese movies.


title: Cinema of Hong Kong

text: Filmed Cantonese operas proved even more successful than "wuxia" and constituted the leading genre of the 1930s. Major studios that thrived in this period were Grandview, Universal, and Nanyang (which later became the Shaw Brothers Studio that would have an enduring influence on Chinese film). (Teo, 1997)


title: Cinema of Hong Kong

text: Another important factor in the 1930s, was the second Sino-Japanese War. "National defense" films—patriotic war stories about Chinese resisting the Japanese invasion—became one of Hong Kong's major genres; notable titles included Kwan Man Ching's "Lifeline" (1935), Chiu Shu Sun's "Hand to Hand Combat" (1937) and Situ Huimin's "March of the Partisans" (1938). The genre and the film industry were further boosted by emigre film artists and companies when Shanghai was taken by the Japanese in 1937.


title: Cinema of Hong Kong

text: This of course came to an end when Hong Kong itself fell to the Japanese in December 1941. But unlike on the Mainland, the occupiers were not able to put together a collaborationist film industry. They managed to complete just one propaganda movie, "The Attack on Hong Kong" (1942; a.k.a. "The Day of England's Collapse") before the British returned in 1945 (Teo, 1997). A more important move by the Japanese may have been to melt down many of Hong Kong's pre-war films to extract their silver nitrate for military use (Fonoroff, 1997).


title: Cinema of Hong Kong

text: Postwar Hong Kong cinema, like postwar Hong Kong industries in general, was catalysed by the continuing influx of capital and talents from Mainland China. The Hong Kong population in 1940 was around 1 million and rose to around 3.9 million in 1967, the population is increased around 2.9 million in this period. This became a flood with the 1946 resumption of the Chinese Civil War (which had been on hold during the fight against Japan) and then the 1949 Communist victory. These events definitively shifted the center of Chinese-language cinema to Hong Kong. The colony also did big business exporting films to Southeast Asian countries (especially but not exclusively due to their large Chinese expatriate communities) and to Chinatowns in Western countries (Bordwell, 2000).


title: Cinema of Hong Kong

text: The postwar era also cemented the bifurcation of the industry into two parallel cinemas, one in Mandarin, the dominant dialect of the Mainland emigres, and one in Cantonese, the dialect of most Hong Kong natives. The distinction between the two languages is in sound (Kei, 1994). During the silent film age the written language was Chinese and was known to all, no matter the language spoken (Kei, 1994). Subtitles allow both markets access to films (Kei, 1994). Mandarin movies sometimes had much higher budgets and more lavish production. Reasons included their enormous export market; the expertise and capital of the Shanghai filmmakers. For decades to come, Cantonese films, though sometimes more numerous, were relegated to second-tier status (Leyda, 1972).


title: Cinema of Hong Kong

text: Most of the films reviewed by the Office for Film, Newspaper and Article Administration come with subtitles, although there's no law requiring them. According to Shu Kei (also known as Kenneth Ip), the reason for the inclusion of English subtitles must've been to target overseas audiences, while Chinese subtitles were added to reach those who could read Chinese, but couldn't understand Cantonese.


title: Cinema of Hong Kong

text: The books "City on Fire: Hong Kong Cinema" (1999) and "Yang, 2003" falsely claim that the British authorities passed a law in 1963 requiring the subtitling of all films in English, supposedly to enable a watch on political content. And that making a virtue of necessity, studios included Chinese subtitles as well, enabling easier access to their movies for speakers of other dialects. (Yang, 2003)


title: Cinema of Hong Kong

text: During this period, Cantonese opera on film dominated. The top stars were the female duo of Yam Kim Fai and Pak Suet Sin (Yam–Pak for short). Yam specialised in male scholar roles to Pak's female leads. They made over fifty films together, "The Purple Hairpin" (1959) being one of the most enduringly popular (Teo, 1997).


title: Cinema of Hong Kong

text: Low-budget martial arts films were also popular. A series of roughly 100 kung fu movies starring Kwan Tak Hing as historical folk hero Wong Fei Hung were made, starting with "The True Story of Wong Fei Hung" (1949) and ending with "Wong Fei Hung Bravely Crushing the Fire Formation" (1970) (Logan, 1995). Fantasy "wuxia" (swordplay) serials with special effects drawn on the film by hand, such as "The Six-Fingered Lord of the Lute" (1965) starring teen idol Connie Chan Po-chu in the lead male role, were also popular (Chute and Lim, 2003, 3), as were contemporary melodramas of home and family life, including the dramatisation of sibling rivalries in "Our Sister Hedy" (1957) starring Julie Yeh Feng.


title: Cinema of Hong Kong

text: In Mandarin production, Shaw Brothers and Motion Picture and General Investments Limited (MP&GI, later renamed Cathay) were the top studios by the 1960s, and bitter rivals. The Shaws gained the upper hand in 1964 after the death in a plane crash of MP&GI founder and head Loke Wan Tho. The renamed Cathay faltered, ceasing film production in 1970 (Yang, 2003).


title: Cinema of Hong Kong

text: A musical genre called "Huángméidiào" (黃梅調) was derived from Chinese opera; the Shaws' record-breaking hit "The Love Eterne" (1963) remains the classic of the genre. Historical costume epics often overlapped with the "Huángméidiào", such as in "The Kingdom and the Beauty" (1959). (Both of the above examples were directed by Shaw's star director, Li Han Hsiang). Romantic melodramas such as "Red Bloom in the Snow" (1956), "Love Without End" (1961), "The Blue and the Black" (1964) and adaptations of novels by Chiung Yao were popular. So were Hollywood-style musicals, which were a particular speciality of MP&GI/Cathay in entries such as "Mambo Girl" (1957) and "The Wild, Wild Rose" (1960).


title: Cinema of Hong Kong

text: In 1960s, the Motion Picture and General Investments Limited produced a special set of romantic movies which was called Southern and Northern. The first one is "The Greatest Civil Wall On Earth" (1961), the second one is "The Greatest Wedding On Earth" (1962) and the third one is "The Greatest Love Affair On Earth" (1964). This set of movies were partly spoken in Cantonese and partly spoken in Mandarin. In this set of movies, they showed some differences between Northern and Southern China; besides the languages, the movies also showed some kind of culture, such as the wedding culture and the food culture. The main idea of this set of movies was a kind of cultural integration between North and South.


title: Cinema of Hong Kong

text: In the second half of the 1960s, the Shaws inaugurated a new generation of more intense, less fantastical "wuxia" films with glossier production values, acrobatic moves and stronger violence. The trend was inspired by the popularity of imported samurai movies from Japan (Chute and Lim, 2003, 8), as well as by the loss of movie audiences to television. This marked the crucial turn of the industry from a female-centric genre system to an action movie orientation (see also the Hong Kong action cinema article). Key trendsetters included Xu Zenghong's "Temple of the Red Lotus" (1965), King Hu's "Come Drink with Me" (1966) and "Dragon Inn" (1967, made in Taiwan; a.k.a. "Dragon Gate Inn"), and Chang Cheh's "Tiger Boy" (1966), "The One-Armed Swordsman" (1967) and "Golden Swallow" (1968).


title: Cinema of Hong Kong

text: Mandarin-dialect film in general and the Shaw Brothers studio in particular began the 1970s in apparent positions of unassailable strength. Cantonese cinema virtually vanished in the face of Mandarin studios and Cantonese television, which became available to the general population in 1967; in 1972 no films in the local dialect were made (Bordwell, 2000). The Shaws saw their longtime rival Cathay ceasing film production, leaving themselves the only megastudio. The martial arts subgenre of the kung fu movie exploded into popularity internationally, with the Shaws driving and dominating the wave. But changes were beginning that would greatly alter the industry by the end of the decade.


title: Cinema of Hong Kong

text: Paradoxically, television would soon contribute to the revival of Cantonese in a movement towards more down-to-earth movies about modern Hong Kong life and average people.


title: Cinema of Hong Kong

text: The first spark was the ensemble comedy "The House of 72 Tenants", the only Cantonese film made in 1973, a resounding hit. It was based on a well-known play and produced by the Shaws as a showcase for performers from their pioneering television station TVB (Yang, 2003).


title: Cinema of Hong Kong

text: The return of Cantonese really took off with the comedies of former TVB stars the Hui Brothers (actor-director-screenwriter Michael Hui, actor-singer Sam Hui and actor Ricky Hui). The rationale behind the move to Cantonese was clear in the trailer for the brothers' "Games Gamblers Play" (1974): "Films by devoted young people with you in mind." This move back to the local audience for Hong Kong cinema paid off immediately. "Games Gamblers Play" initially made US$1.4 million at the Hong Kong box office, becoming the highest-grossing film up to that point. The Hui movies also broke ground by satirising the modern reality of an ascendant middle class, whose long work hours and dreams of material success were transforming the colony into a modern industrial and corporate giant (Teo, 1997). Cantonese comedy thrived and Cantonese production skyrocketed; Mandarin hung on into the early 1980s, but has been relatively rare onscreen since.


title: Cinema of Hong Kong

text: In 1970, former Shaw Brothers executives Raymond Chow and Leonard Ho left to form their own studio, Golden Harvest. The upstart's more flexible and less tightfisted approach to the business outmaneuvered the Shaws' old-style studio. Chow and Ho landed contracts with rising young performers who had fresh ideas for the industry, like Bruce Lee and the Hui Brothers, and allowed them greater creative latitude than was traditional. California-born, Bruce Lee only found minor roles in U.S. films and television at first, as foreign actors were often criticized and not widely accepted by the audience during the 1970s in North America. Bruce expressed that the true orientals were not shown, especially in Hollywood, and most audiences still viewed Asian people as stereotypes (e.g. with flat eyes, pigtails). Moreover, the directors usually got him to do something just to be exotic. When Golden Harvest's "The Big Boss" (a.k.a. "The Fists of Fury", 1971) came into theatres, it jump-started Lee's career into stardom and made martial arts and kung fu a global trend.


title: Cinema of Hong Kong

text: In 1976, Shaw Brothers made a series of true crime films. The first, "The Criminals", took in HK$838,067, ranking in at #33 in the Hong Kong box office for that year. Following its success, Shaw Brothers made "The Criminals 2 - Homicides" that same year, followed by three more films ("The Criminals 3 - Arson", "The Criminals 4 - Assault" and "The Criminals 5 - The Teenager's Nightmare") the following year. The first movie in "The Criminals" series included three true stories: "The Human Torsos", "The Stuntmen," and "Valley of the Hanged"; each story was filmed by a different director. "Valley of the Hanged" told the story of a triple murder in Hong Kong, as well as a story about an unfaithful wife humiliating her husband. The Shaw Brothers' films attracted audiences with bizarre true stories featuring erotic and violent scenes. Their films also portrayed the ordinary aspects of Hong Kongers' lives, such as playing mahjong, a popular form of gambling.


title: Cinema of Hong Kong

text: By the end of the 1970s, Golden Harvest was the top studio, signing with Jackie Chan, the kung fu comedy actor-filmmaker who would spend the next 20 years as Asia's biggest box office draw (Chan and Yang, 1998, pp. 164–165; Bordwell, 2000). Raymond Chow built upon Lee's success with "The Big Boss" (a.k.a. "Fists of Fury", 1971), "Fist of Fury" (a.k.a. "The Chinese Connection", 1972) and "The Way of the Dragon" (a.k.a. "The Return of the Dragon", 1972), each of which broke Hong Kong box office records. Bruce Lee appeared with minor Hollywood actors in the larger budget "Enter the Dragon" (1973), a co production with Warner Bros. Lee's death under mysterious circumstances made him a cult hero. Lee played a key role in opening foreign markets to Hong Kong films. Lee's films, enjoyed throughout the Third World, were often taken as symbolising the rebellious pride of insurgent Asia.


title: Cinema of Hong Kong

text: Meanwhile, the explosions of Cantonese and kung fu and the success of Golden Harvest created more space for independent producers and production companies. The era of the studio juggernauts was past. The Shaws nevertheless continued film production until 1985 before turning entirely to television (Teo, 1997).


title: Cinema of Hong Kong

text: The rapidly growing permissiveness in film content that was general in much of the world affected Hong Kong film as well. A genre of softcore erotica known as "fengyue" became a local staple (the name is a contraction of a Chinese phrase implying seductive decadence). Such material did not suffer as much of a stigma in Hong Kong as in most Western countries; it was more or less part of the mainstream, sometimes featuring contributions from major directors such as Chor Yuen and Li Han Hsiang and often crossbreeding with other popular genres like martial arts, the costume film and especially comedy (Teo, 1997; Yang, 2003). Violence also grew more intense and graphic, particularly at the instigation of martial arts filmmakers.


title: Cinema of Hong Kong

text: Director Lung Kong blended these trends into the social-issue dramas which he had already made his speciality with late 1960s Cantonese classics like "The Story of a Discharged Prisoner" (1967) and "Teddy Girls" (1969). In the 1970s, he began directing in Mandarin and brought exploitation elements to serious films about subjects like prostitution ("The Call Girls" and "Lina"), the atomic bomb ("Hiroshima 28") and the fragility of civilised society ("Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow" (1970), which portrayed a plague-decimated, near-future Hong Kong) (Teo, 1997).


title: Cinema of Hong Kong

text: The brief career of Tang Shu Shuen, the territory's first noted woman director, produced two films, "The Arch" (1968) and "China Behind" (1974), that were trailblazers for a local, socially critical art cinema. They are also widely considered forerunners of the last major milestone of the decade, the so-called Hong Kong New Wave that would come from outside the traditional studio hierarchy and point to new possibilities for the industry (Bordwell, 2000).


title: Cinema of Hong Kong

text: The 1980s and early 1990s, saw seeds planted in the 1970s come to full flower: the triumph of Cantonese, the birth of a new and modern cinema, superpower status in the East Asian market, and the turning of the West's attention to Hong Kong film.


title: Cinema of Hong Kong

text: A cinema of greater technical polish and more sophisticated visual style, including the first forays into up-to-date special effects technology, sprang up quickly. To this surface dazzle, the new cinema added an eclectic mixing and matching of genres, and a penchant for pushing the boundaries of sensationalistic content. Slapstick comedy, sex, the supernatural, and above all action (of both the martial arts and cops-and-criminals varieties) ruled, occasionally all in the same film.


title: Cinema of Hong Kong

text: Some of the iconic films during this period include "The Killer" (1989), by John Woo, which is archetypal of the heroic bloodshed genre.


title: Cinema of Hong Kong

text: During this period, the Hong Kong industry was one of the few in the world that thrived in the face of the increasing global dominance of Hollywood. Indeed, it came to exert a comparable dominance in its own region of the world. The regional audience had always been vital, but now more than ever Hong Kong product filled theatres and video shelves in places like Thailand, Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia and South Korea. Taiwan became at least as important a market to Hong Kong film as the local one; in the early 1990s the once-robust Taiwanese film industry came close to extinction under the onslaught of Hong Kong imports (Bordwell, 2000). They even found a foothold in Japan, with its own highly developed and well-funded cinema and strong taste for American movies; Jackie Chan and Leslie Cheung were one of the stars who became very popular there.


title: Cinema of Hong Kong

text: Almost accidentally, Hong Kong also reached further into the West, building upon the attention gained during the 1970s kung fu craze. Availability in Chinatown theatres and video shops allowed the movies to be discovered by Western film cultists attracted by their "exotic" qualities and excesses. An emergence into the wider popular culture gradually followed over the coming years.


title: Cinema of Hong Kong

text: The trailblazer was production company Cinema City, founded in 1980 by comedians Karl Maka, Raymond Wong and Dean Shek. It specialised in contemporary comedy and action, slickly produced according to explicitly prescribed commercial formulas. The lavish, effects-filled spy spoof "Aces Go Places" (1982) and its numerous sequels epitomised the much-imitated "Cinema City style" (Yang, 2003).


title: Cinema of Hong Kong

text: Directors and producers Tsui Hark and Wong Jing can be singled out as definitive figures of this era. Tsui was a notorious Hong Kong New Wave tyro who symbolised that movement's absorption into the mainstream, becoming the industry's central trendsetter and technical experimenter (Yang et al., 1997, p. 75). The even more prolific Wong is, by most accounts, the most commercially successful and critically reviled Hong Kong filmmaker of the last two decades, with his relentless output of aggressively crowd-pleasing and cannily marketed pulp films.


title: Cinema of Hong Kong

text: Other hallmarks of this era included the gangster or "Triad" movie trend launched by director John Woo, producer and long-time actor Alan Tang and dominated by actor Chow Yun-fat; romantic melodramas and martial arts fantasies starring Brigitte Lin; the comedies of stars like Cherie Chung and Stephen Chow; traditional kung fu movies dominated by Jet Li; and contemporary, stunt-driven kung fu action epitomised by the work of Jackie Chan.


title: Cinema of Hong Kong

text: The government's introduction of a film ratings system in 1988 had a certainly unintended effect on subsequent trends. The "Category III" (adults only) rating became an umbrella for the rapid growth of pornographic and generally outré films; however, while considered graphic by Chinese standards, these films would be more on par with movies rated "R" or "NC-17" in the United States, and not "XXX". By the height of the boom in the early 1990s, roughly half of the theatrical features produced were Category III-rated softcore erotica descended from the fengyue movies of the 1970s. (Yang, 2003) A definitive example of a mainstream Category III hit was Michael Mak's "Sex and Zen" (1991), a period comedy inspired by "The Carnal Prayer Mat", the seventeenth century classic of comic-erotic literature by Li Yu (Dannen and Long, 1997). "Naked Killer" (1992) also became an international cult classic.


title: Cinema of Hong Kong

text: The rating also covered a trend for grisly, taboo-tweaking exploitation and horror films, often supposedly based on true crime stories, such as "Men Behind the Sun" (1988), "Dr. Lamb" (1992), "The Untold Story" (1993) and "Ebola Syndrome" (1996). Films depicting Triad rituals would also receive a Category III rating, an example of this being "Crime Story" (1993) starring Jackie Chan.


title: Cinema of Hong Kong

text: Since the mid-1990s, the trend has withered with the shrinking of the general Hong Kong film market and the wider availability of pornography in home video formats (Bordwell, 2000). But in 2000s, three Category III movies: "Election", its sequel, "Election 2" (a.k.a. "Triad Election"), and "Mad Detective", all directed by Johnnie To, still enjoyed surprising box office successes in Hong Kong.


title: Cinema of Hong Kong

text: In this landscape of pulp, there remained some ground for an alternative cinema or art cinema, due at least in part to the influence of the New Wave. Some New Wave filmmakers such as Ann Hui and Yim Ho continued to earn acclaim with personal and political films made at the edges of the mainstream.


title: Cinema of Hong Kong

text: The second half of the 1980s also saw the emergence of what is sometimes called a "Second Wave". These younger directors included names like Stanley Kwan, Clara Law and her partner Eddie Fong, Mabel Cheung, Lawrence Ah Mon and Wong Kar-wai. Like the New Wavers, they tended to be graduates of overseas film schools and local television apprenticeships, and to be interested in going beyond the usual, commercial subject matters and styles.


title: Cinema of Hong Kong

text: These artists began to earn Hong Kong unprecedented attention and respect in international critical circles and the global film festival circuit. In particular, Wong Kar-wai's works starring Leslie Cheung, Tony Leung Chiu-Wai and Maggie Cheung in the 1990s have made him an internationally acclaimed and award-winning filmmaker.


title: Cinema of Hong Kong

text: During the 1990s, the Hong Kong film industry underwent a drastic decline from which it has not recovered. Domestic ticket sales had already started to drop in the late 1980s, but the regional audience kept the industry booming into the early years of the next decade (Teo, 1997). But by the mid-1990s, it went into freefall. Revenues were cut in half. By the decade's end, the number of films produced in a typical year dropped from an early 1990s high of well over 200 to somewhere around 100 (a large part of this reduction was in the "Category III" softcore pornography area.) American blockbuster imports began to regularly top the box office for the first time in decades. Ironically, this was the same period during which Hong Kong cinema emerged into something like mainstream visibility in the U.S. and began exporting popular figures to Hollywood.


title: Cinema of Hong Kong

text: The greater access to the Mainland that came with the July 1997 handover to China, was not as much of a boom as hoped, and presented its own problems, particularly with regard to censorship.


title: Cinema of Hong Kong

text: The industry had one of its darkest years in 2003. In addition to the continuing slump, a SARS virus outbreak kept many theatres virtually empty for a time and shut down film production for four months; only fifty-four movies were made (Li, 2004). The unrelated deaths of two of Hong Kong's famous singer/actors, Leslie Cheung, 46, and Anita Mui, 40, rounded out the bad news.


title: Cinema of Hong Kong

text: The Hong Kong Government in April 2003, introduced a Film Guarantee Fund as an incentive to local banks to become involved in the motion picture industry. The guarantee operates to secure a percentage of monies loaned by banks to film production companies. The Fund has received a mixed reception from industry participants, and less than enthusiastic reception from financial institutions who perceive investment in local films as high risk ventures with little collateral. Film guarantee legal documents commissioned by the Hong Kong Government in late April 2003 are based on Canadian documents, which have limited relevance to the local industry.


title: Cinema of Hong Kong

text: Efforts by local filmmakers to refinish their product have had mixed results overall. These include technically glossier visuals, including much digital imagery; greater use of Hollywood-style mass marketing techniques; and heavy reliance on casting teen-friendly Cantopop music stars. Successful genre cycles in the late 1990s and early 2000s have included: American-styled, high-tech action pictures such as "Downtown Torpedoes" (1997), "Gen-X Cops" and "Purple Storm" (both 1999); the "Triad kids" subgenre launched by "Young and Dangerous" (1996); yuppie-centric romantic comedies like "The Truth About Jane and Sam" (1999), "Needing You..." (2000), "Love on a Diet" (2001); and supernatural chillers like "Horror Hotline: Big-Head Monster" (2001) and "The Eye" (2002), often modelled on the Japanese horror films then making an international splash.


title: Cinema of Hong Kong

text: In the 2000s, there have been some bright spots. Milkyway Image, founded by filmmakers Johnnie To and Wai Ka-Fai in the mid-1990s, has had considerable critical and commercial success, especially with offbeat and character-driven crime films like "The Mission" (1999) and "Running on Karma" (2003). An even more successful example of the genre was the blockbuster "Infernal Affairs" trilogy (2002–03) of police thrillers co-directed by Andrew Lau and Alan Mak (the Oscar-winning movie "The Departed", was based on this movie). Comedian Stephen Chow, the most consistently popular screen star of the 1990s, directed and starred in "Shaolin Soccer" (2001) and "Kung Fu Hustle" (2004); these used digital special effects to push his distinctive humor into new realms of the surreal and became the territory's two highest-grossing films to date, garnering numerous awards locally and internationally. Johnnie To's two Category III movies: "Election" and "Election 2" also enjoyed Hong Kong box office successes. "Election 2" has even been released in the US theatrically under the new title "Triad Election"; this movie received very positive reviews in the United States, with a more than 90% "Fresh" rating on Rotten Tomatoes. New LGBT films such as "City Without Baseball" (2008), "Permanent Residence" (2009) and "Amphetamine" (2009) followed the success of earlier 1990s films such as "Bugis Street" (a 1995 Hong Kong–Singapore co-production), and "Hold You Tight" (1998).


title: Cinema of Hong Kong

text: Still, some observers believe that, given the depressed state of the industry and the rapidly strengthening economic and political ties among Hong Kong, mainland China and Taiwan, the distinctive entity of Hong Kong cinema that emerged after World War II may have a limited lifespan. The lines between the mainland and Hong Kong industries are ever more blurred, especially now that China is producing increasing numbers of slick, mass-appeal popular films. Predictions are notoriously difficult in this rapidly changing part of the world, but the trend may be towards a more pan-Chinese cinema, as existed in the first half of the twentieth century.


title: Cinema of Hong Kong

text: In June 2021, the Hong Kong Film Censorship Authority OFNAA introduced a new national security policy. This law passed in 27 October 2021. It gives the chief secretary the power to revoke a film's licence if it is found to "endorse, support, glorify, encourage and incite activities that might endanger national security". Under the new law, the maximum penalties for showing unapproved films are three years in jail and a fine of HK$1 million. Critics like professor Kenny Ng and filmmaker Kiwi Chow voice concerns of its political censorship, spurring fears the new law would dampen the film industry.


title: Cinema of Hong Kong

text: In June 2022, "The Dancing Voice of Youth" was censored, and in August 2022, "Losing Side of a Longed Place" was censored. In October 2022, the OFNAA recommended the screening of "The Dark Knight" be cancelled. In October 2022, the OFNAA also banned "The Lucky Woman" from being screened due to protest scenes that took place at Taiwan's Presidential Office Building.


title: Cinema of Hong Kong

text: Note that "[e]very year, since 1978, the HKIFF has published both a catalog of films released that year and a retrospective book—and sometimes, special interest publication or two in the form of books and pamphlets. In 1996, a 10th Anniversary special was issued, and from 1997 onward, there have been yearly 'Panorama' special interest books in addition to the annual catalogs, retrospective books, and occasional pamphlets. In 2003, the HKIFF started carrying publications of the Hong Kong Film Archive, as well."—Bibliography of Hong Kong International Film Festival Retrospective Books Related to Hong Kong Action Cinema


title: Rich Blomquist

text: Rich Blomquist (born July 27, 1977) is an American writer, producer and occasional actor. He was a former staff writer for "The Daily Show". The show won six Emmy awards during his employment; in 2003–2006, 2009 and 2011.


title: Rich Blomquist

text: He has also contributed material to "Saturday Night Live", specifically for Robert Smigel's "TV Funhouse". Blomquist is originally from Westbrook, Connecticut. He graduated in 2000 from the School of Communications at Elon University in North Carolina.


title: Rich Blomquist

text: Blomquist and his wife Kristen Schaal wrote a book together called "The Sexy Book of Sexy Sex". It was published in July 2010 by Chronicle Books.


title: Rich Blomquist

text: Blomquist wrote for "The Last Man on Earth" until it got cancelled and is currently writing for the animated sitcom "Bless the Harts", both for Fox Broadcasting Company and 20th Century Fox Television.


title: Rich Blomquist

text: Blomquist also voices Daniel, Louise's (Jenny's boss) husband in "Bless the Harts". Daniel is portrayed as a man who now resents his wife after years of love. He spends his time with his "business-man" (according to Louise) friends and likes to look at other women, mostly because of his relationship with his wife. It is revealed in "Mega-Lo-Memories" that 10 years ago, Daniel couldn't stop loving Louise back when they dated, but doesn't care for her much in the present.


title: Rich Blomquist

text: Blomquist lives in New York City and is married to actress and voice actress Kristen Schaal. They have a daughter, Ruby, born February 11, 2018. He is of Swedish descent.


title: Lynn-Holly Johnson

text: Lynn-Holly Johnson is an American retired figure skater and actress. After achieving some success as a figure skater in the mid-1970s, she began an acting career, including a Golden Globe-nominated role in 1978's "Ice Castles" and her role as Bibi Dahl in the 1981 James Bond film "For Your Eyes Only".


title: Lynn-Holly Johnson

text: Johnson was born Lynn Holly Johnson in Chicago, Illinois, to Margaret, a housewife, and Alan Johnson, a general contractor. She has a brother, Gregg, and an older sister, Kimberlee. Johnson added the hyphen to her name after her roommate signed Johnson's name that way. She graduated from Niles North High School in Skokie, Illinois.


title: Lynn-Holly Johnson

text: Johnson won the silver medal at the novice level of the 1974 U.S. Figure Skating Championships. She gave up competitive skating in 1977 to turn professional and join the Ice Capades, and subsequently began an acting career, making her film debut in "Ice Castles", in which she portrayed Alexis "Lexie" Winston, a figure skater who is blinded by a blood clot in her brain. The film, a romantic drama co-starring Robby Benson, was a minor success in December 1978, grossing $18 million in the US. Johnson, who was described as "an appealing young woman who actually happens to be a good skater who can act" by film critic Roger Ebert, was nominated for a Golden Globe as "Golden Globe Award for New Star of the Year – Actress" for her performance in the film.


title: Lynn-Holly Johnson

text: Johnson was subsequently cast in the lead role of the Disney horror drama "The Watcher in the Woods". The film received a limited release in April 1980, but it was soon withdrawn and not given a wider release until October 1981. Also in 1981, Johnson had a minor supporting role as Bibi Dahl in the James Bond movie "For Your Eyes Only"; the character's name is a pun on the endearing term "baby doll" as well as likely being an homage to Roald Dahl, who wrote the screenplay for the 1967 Bond movie "You Only Live Twice". In "For Your Eyes Only," she played yet another figure skater who has a crush on James Bond, played by Roger Moore. In 1984, Johnson starred in "Where the Boys Are '84", a remake of the 1960 film of the same name. The film was a critical and box-office failure.


title: Lynn-Holly Johnson

text: In 1996, Johnson quit acting to concentrate on her family; her last acting role at that time was a made-for-television film, "Fugitive X: Innocent Target".


title: Lynn-Holly Johnson

text: Johnson currently lives with her husband and their two children in Los Angeles, California. In January 2010, Johnson suffered a stroke while on a flight from Florida to Los Angeles. Upon medical intervention, Johnson learned that the stroke had been brought on by a patent foramen ovale, a congenital heart defect that had gone undiagnosed. She subsequently underwent open heart surgery to treat the condition.


title: Lynn-Holly Johnson

text: Johnson's daughter, Jensie, is a competitive gymnast and a member of the Alabama Crimson Tide gymnastics team.


title: Lisa Nicole Carson

text: Lisa Nicole Carson is an American actress. She is best known for her roles as Carla in "ER" (1996–2001), and Renee Raddick in "Ally McBeal" (1997–2002). Carson has also starred in films, most notably as Marti in "Jason's Lyric" (1994), Coretta in "Devil in a Blue Dress" (1995), Josie in "Love Jones" (1997), and Sylvia in "Life" (1999).


title: Lisa Nicole Carson

text: Following her struggles with bipolar disorder, for which she was hospitalized while starring in "Ally McBeal", Carson went on hiatus until 2012, when she reprised her role as Renee Raddick in the final episode of "Harry's Law". Most recently, Carson starred as Mae Bell in the miniseries "The New Edition Story" (2017).


title: Lisa Nicole Carson

text: Carson was born in Brooklyn, New York; her father is a journalism professor at the University of Florida, and her mother was a kindergarten teacher in New York. She spent her adolescence in Gainesville, Florida and attended F. W. Buchholz High School. Her parents separated when she was 14, and her mother moved back to New York alone. In 1986, she entered the Regional competition sponsored by the "America's Junior Miss" talent show, taking second place for the region held in Gainesville. After graduating in 1987, Carson returned to New York and decided that she wanted to be an actress. She began her career by appearing in a number of "After School Specials" and HBO short films.


title: Lisa Nicole Carson

text: Carson appeared in productions at the famed Negro Ensemble Company. Her first notable credit came in 1991, when she appeared in "Law & Order" and in 1992 she had a non-speaking, minor role in the comedy series, "The Cosby Show". She was a regular on "The Apollo Comedy Hour" before appearing in film in "Let's Get Bizzee" (1993), "Jason's Lyric" (1994) and "Devil in a Blue Dress" (1995). She has appeared in "Love Jones" and "Life". She also performed as an R&B singer in the 1995 television movie "Divas". She had a role in the 1997 movie "Eve's Bayou", as Mattie Mereaux.


title: Lisa Nicole Carson

text: On television, she played the recurring character Carla Reece, the on/off girlfriend of Eriq La Salle's Dr Peter Benton in NBC's "ER" between 1996 and 2001. Between 1997 and 2002 she played prosecutor Renee Raddick in Fox's "Ally McBeal", a role for which she received multiple award nominations. Carson was fired from both roles, amid reports about her erratic behavior on and off set, alleged drug use, being arrested and admissions to a mental health facility. She did return to "Ally McBeal" to reprise her role for the final episode.


title: Lisa Nicole Carson

text: After a ten year hiatus, she returned to acting in 2012, featuring in a guest appearance in the second-season finale of the NBC series "Harry's Law" reprising her character Renee Raddick from "Ally McBeal". In 2017, she starred in the BET miniseries "The New Edition Story".


title: Lisa Nicole Carson

text: In 2000, she was arrested and then committed to a psychiatric hospital, after having a mental breakdown at a hotel in Manhattan.


title: Lisa Nicole Carson

text: In the July 2015 issue of "Essence", Carson gave an interview in which she openly described her struggles with bipolar disorder and how the illness has affected her life and career. After having taken a 10-year hiatus from show business to live and receive treatment in New York, she reported having moved back to Los Angeles with plans to revitalize her acting career.


title: Petal

text: Petals are modified leaves that surround the reproductive parts of flowers. They are often brightly colored or unusually shaped to attract pollinators. All of the petals of a flower are collectively known as the corolla. Petals are usually accompanied by another set of modified leaves called sepals, that collectively form the "calyx" and lie just beneath the corolla. The calyx and the corolla together make up the perianth, the non-reproductive portion of a flower. When the petals and sepals of a flower are difficult to distinguish, they are collectively called tepals. Examples of plants in which the term "tepal" is appropriate include genera such as "Aloe" and "Tulipa". Conversely, genera such as "Rosa" and "Phaseolus" have well-distinguished sepals and petals. When the undifferentiated tepals resemble petals, they are referred to as "petaloid", as in petaloid monocots, orders of monocots with brightly colored tepals. Since they include Liliales, an alternative name is lilioid monocots.


title: Petal

text: Although petals are usually the most conspicuous parts of animal-pollinated flowers, wind-pollinated species, such as the grasses, either have very small petals or lack them entirely (apetalous).


title: Petal

text: The collection of all petals in a flower is referred to as the corolla. The role of the corolla in plant evolution has been studied extensively since Charles Darwin postulated a theory of the origin of elongated corollae and corolla tubes.


title: Petal

text: A corolla of separate petals, without fusion of individual segments, is "apopetalous". If the petals are free from one another in the corolla, the plant is "polypetalous" or "choripetalous"; while if the petals are at least partially fused, it is "gamopetalous" or "sympetalous". In the case of fused tepals, the term is "syntepalous". The corolla in some plants forms a tube.


title: Petal

text: Petals can differ dramatically in different species. The number of petals in a flower may hold clues to a plant's classification. For example, flowers on eudicots (the largest group of dicots) most frequently have four or five petals while flowers on monocots have three or six petals, although there are many exceptions to this rule.


title: Petal

text: The petal whorl or corolla may be either radially or bilaterally symmetrical (see Symmetry in biology and Floral symmetry). If all of the petals are essentially identical in size and shape, the flower is said to be regular or actinomorphic (meaning "ray-formed"). Many flowers are symmetrical in only one plane (i.e., symmetry is bilateral) and are termed irregular or zygomorphic (meaning "yoke-" or "pair-formed"). In "irregular" flowers, other floral parts may be modified from the "regular" form, but the petals show the greatest deviation from radial symmetry. Examples of zygomorphic flowers may be seen in orchids and members of the pea family.


title: Petal

text: In many plants of the aster family such as the sunflower, "Helianthus annuus", the circumference of the flower head is composed of ray florets. Each ray floret is anatomically an individual flower with a single large petal. Florets in the center of the disc typically have no or very reduced petals. In some plants such as "Narcissus" the lower part of the petals or tepals are fused to form a floral cup (hypanthium) above the ovary, and from which the petals proper extend.


title: Petal

text: Petal often consists of two parts: the upper, broad part, similar to leaf blade, also called the "blade" and the lower part, narrow, similar to leaf petiole, called the "claw", separated from each other at the "limb". Claws are developed in petals of some flowers of the family "Brassicaceae", such as "Erysimum cheiri".


title: Petal

text: The inception and further development of petals show a great variety of patterns. Petals of different species of plants vary greatly in color or color pattern, both in visible light and in ultraviolet. Such patterns often function as guides to pollinators and are variously known as nectar guides, pollen guides, and floral guides.


title: Petal

text: The genetics behind the formation of petals, in accordance with the ABC model of flower development, are that sepals, petals, stamens, and carpels are modified versions of each other. It appears that the mechanisms to form petals evolved very few times (perhaps only once), rather than evolving repeatedly from stamens.


title: Petal

text: Pollination is an important step in the sexual reproduction of higher plants. Pollen is produced by the male flower or by the male organs of hermaphroditic flowers.


title: Petal

text: Pollen does not move on its own and thus requires wind or animal pollinators to disperse the pollen to the stigma of the same or nearby flowers. However, pollinators are rather selective in determining the flowers they choose to pollinate. This develops competition between flowers and as a result flowers must provide incentives to appeal to pollinators (unless the flower self-pollinates or is involved in wind pollination). Petals play a major role in competing to attract pollinators. Henceforth pollination dispersal could occur and the survival of many species of flowers could prolong.


title: Petal

text: Petals have various functions and purposes depending on the type of plant. In general, petals operate to protect some parts of the flower and attract/repel specific pollinators.


title: Petal

text: This is where the positioning of the flower petals are located on the flower is the corolla e.g. the buttercup having shiny yellow flower petals which contain guidelines amongst the petals in aiding the pollinator towards the nectar. Pollinators have the ability to determine specific flowers they wish to pollinate. Using incentives flowers draw pollinators and set up a mutual relation between each other in which case the pollinators will remember to always guard and pollinate these flowers (unless incentives are not consistently met and competition prevails).


title: Petal

text: The petals could produce different scents to allure desirable pollinators or repel undesirable pollinators. Some flowers will also mimic the scents produced by materials such as decaying meat, to attract pollinators to them.


title: Petal

text: Various color traits are used by different petals that could attract pollinators that have poor smelling abilities, or that only come out at certain parts of the day. Some flowers can change the color of their petals as a signal to mutual pollinators to approach or keep away.


title: Petal

text: Furthermore, the shape and size of the flower/petals are important in selecting the type of pollinators they need. For example, large petals and flowers will attract pollinators at a large distance or that are large themselves.


title: Petal

text: Collectively the scent, color, and shape of petals all play a role in attracting/repelling specific pollinators and providing suitable conditions for pollinating. Some pollinators include insects, birds, bats, and wind.


title: Petal

text: In some petals, a distinction can be made between a lower narrowed, stalk-like basal part referred to as the claw, and a wider distal part referred to as the blade (or limb). Often the claw and blade are at an angle with one another.


title: Petal

text: Wind-pollinated flowers often have small, dull petals and produce little or no scent. Some of these flowers will often have no petals at all. Flowers that depend on wind pollination will produce large amounts of pollen because most of the pollen scattered by the wind tends to not reach other flowers.


title: Petal

text: Flowers have various regulatory mechanisms to attract insects. One such helpful mechanism is the use of color guiding marks. Insects such as the bee or butterfly can see the ultraviolet marks which are contained on these flowers, acting as an attractive mechanism which is not visible towards the human eye. Many flowers contain a variety of shapes acting to aid with the landing of the visiting insect and also influence the insect to brush against anthers and stigmas (parts of the flower). One such example of a flower is the pohutukawa ("Metrosideros excelsa") which acts to regulate color in a different way. The pohutukawa contains small petals also having bright large red clusters of stamens.


title: Petal

text: Another attractive mechanism for flowers is the use of scents which are highly attractive to humans. One such example is the rose. On the other hand, some flowers produce the smell of rotting meat and are attractive to insects such as flies. Darkness is another factor that flowers have adapted to as nighttime conditions limit vision and color-perception. Fragrancy can be especially useful for flowers that are pollinated at night by moths and other flying insects.


title: Petal

text: Flowers are also pollinated by birds and must be large and colorful to be visible against natural scenery. In New Zealand, such bird–pollinated native plants include: kowhai ("Sophora" species), flax ("Phormium tenax") and kaka beak ("Clianthus puniceus"). Flowers adapt the mechanism on their petals to change color in acting as a communicative mechanism for the bird to visit. An example is the tree fuchsia ("Fuchsia excorticata") which are green when needing to be pollinated and turn red for the birds to stop coming and pollinating the flower.


title: Petal

text: Flowers can be pollinated by short-tailed bats. An example of this is the dactylanthus ("Dactylanthus taylorii"). This plant has its home under the ground acting the role of a parasite on the roots of forest trees. The dactylanthus has only its flowers pointing to the surface and the flowers lack color but have the advantage of containing much nectar and a strong scent. These act as a useful mechanism in attracting the bat.


title: Star Fox 64

text: "Star Fox 64" was the first Nintendo 64 game to feature support for the system's Rumble Pak peripheral, which initially came bundled with retail copies of the game. Since its release in 1997, the game has sold over 4 million copies, making it the best-selling game in the series and the ninth best-selling game on the system. The game received critical acclaim for its precise controls, voice acting, multiplayer modes, and replayability through the use of branching gameplay paths. Like the SNES "Star Fox" game before it, "Star Fox 64" has been deemed one of the greatest video games of all time. A stereoscopic 3D remake for the Nintendo 3DS, "Star Fox 64 3D", was released in 2011, and a reimagining for the Wii U, "Star Fox Zero", was released in 2016. The game was also re-released on the Nintendo Switch Online + Expansion Pack at the launch of the service on October 25, 2021.


title: Star Fox 64

text: "Star Fox 64" is a 3D rail shooter game in which the player controls one of the vehicles piloted by Fox McCloud, usually an Arwing. Most of the game takes place in "Corridor Mode", which forces Fox's vehicle down an on-rails path straight forward through the environment. In Corridor Mode, the player's vehicle can be maneuvered around the screen to dodge obstacles and can also perform a somersault to get behind enemies or dodge projectiles. The Arwing is also capable of deflecting enemy fire while performing a spinning maneuver called a "barrel roll" (actually an aileron roll in real-life aviation terms). The Arwing and Landmaster can charge up their laser cannons to unleash a powerful lock-on laser.


title: Star Fox 64

text: In addition to Corridor Mode, some stages of the game, including multiplayer and most boss fights, take place in "All-Range Mode". In this variant, the player can move freely in a three-dimensional space within the confines of a large arena. The Arwing can also perform one new maneuver in All-Range Mode: a U-Turn to change direction.


title: Star Fox 64

text: Throughout the game, the player can fly or drive through power-ups to collect them. These include silver and gold rings that refill the vehicle's shields, weapon upgrades, wing repairs, extra lives, and Nova bombs.


title: Star Fox 64

text: Returning from the original "Star Fox" are wingmen that fly with the player in their own Arwings. Fox's wingmen periodically attack enemies or are pursued into the player's field of view, requiring the player to shoot down the pursuers before the wingman has to retreat to the "Great Fox" mothership for repairs (the character will then be unavailable to start the next stage, but may return if enough time passes). Each wingman provides a different form of assistance to the player: Slippy Toad scans bosses and displays their shields on the player's screen, Peppy Hare provides gameplay advice, and Falco Lombardi occasionally locates alternate routes through stages. Some stages also feature special appearances from supporting characters that assist the team.


title: Star Fox 64

text: The game features a branching level system, in which more difficult paths are unlocked by completing certain objectives. Players can also change paths once the current mission is accomplished. All of the game's possible routes start at Corneria, eventually putting the player in contact with the Star Wolf Team, and end at Venom in a confrontation with Andross.


title: Star Fox 64

text: To add replay challenge, the game also features awardable medals, which are earned by accomplishing a mission with all wingmen intact and having achieved a certain hit total. Obtaining medals unlocks bonus features, such as new multiplayer vehicles, cosmetic changes to Fox in single player, and additional game settings such as "Expert Mode".


title: Star Fox 64

text: The Arwing is the primary fighter craft used by the Star Fox team. The player can use the fighter's boost meter to perform special techniques to avoid collisions, change direction, and gain tactical advantages in combat. Certain levels also put the player in a tank-like vehicle called the Landmaster, as well as a submarine named the Blue Marine on the planet Aquas. Each vehicle shares some tactical characteristics with the Arwing while providing its own unique gameplay elements.


title: Star Fox 64

text: "Star Fox 64" features split-screen multiplayer support for up to four players simultaneously. At first, users can only play using the Arwing fighter, but by earning certain medals in the main campaign, players can unlock the Landmaster tank and fight on foot as one of the four members of Star Fox equipped with a bazooka. Multiplayer is the only place where players can use a Landmaster with upgraded lasers.


title: Star Fox 64

text: There are three modes of multiplayer play: a "point match" in which the player must shoot down an opponent a certain number of times, a "battle royal" in which the last player left wins, and a "time trial" to destroy enemy fighters.


title: Star Fox 64

text: On Corneria, the fourth planet of the Lylat system, Andross is driven to madness and nearly destroys the planet using biological weapons. General Pepper exiles Andross to the remote planet Venom. Five years later, Pepper detects suspicious activity on Venom. Pepper hires the Star Fox team (including James McCloud, Peppy Hare, and Pigma Dengar) to investigate. After Pigma betrays the team and Andross captures James, Peppy escapes from Venom and informs his son Fox about James's fate.


title: Star Fox 64

text: Two years later, Andross launches an attack across the Lylat system. Defending Corneria, Pepper summons the new Star Fox team, now consisting of Fox, Peppy, Falco, and Slippy. While traveling through several planets, the team battles with several of Andross' henchmen, including the rival mercenary team Star Wolf. After the team arrives at Venom, Fox confronts and defeats Andross alone, then returns with his teams to Corneria for a victory celebration. Pepper offers Fox the opportunity to join the Cornerian Army, but he declines and the team departs.


title: Star Fox 64

text: Two endings are available depending on how Fox approaches Venom and defeats Andross. The Easy route ending occurs when Fox arrives from Bolse and destroys a robotic version of Andross, leaving Andross himself drifting in the Lylat system. In the Hard route ending from Area 6, Fox reveals Andross' true form as that of a floating brain, and kills him. Shortly before his death, Andross activates his base's self-destruct system in a last-ditch attempt to kill Fox. However, his father James appears and guides Fox out of the exploding base before disappearing again.


title: Star Fox 64

text: In a post-credits scene, Pepper receives a bill from Star Fox presenting the number of enemies killed and multiplies it by 64, resulting in the amount of money due. If the price is between $50,000 and $69,999 (between 781 and 1,093 enemies killed) he will say, "This is one steep bill...but it's worth it". If the price is over $70,000 (1,094 or more), he says "What?!" At this point, the bill is stamped.


title: Star Fox 64

text: The Star Fox team is a group of mercenaries who are enlisted by General Pepper to defend the Lylat system. The team consists of:


title: Star Fox 64

text: Star Fox receives instructions and support from General Pepper, a bloodhound and leader of the Cornerian militia. The team's mothership, The Great Fox, is piloted by a robot named ROB 64 (NUS64 in the Japanese version). Two other supporting characters appear in certain missions to provide aid to the Star Fox team: Bill Grey, Fox's bulldog friend and leader of two fighter units; and Katt Monroe, Falco's friend and former gang member.


title: Star Fox 64

text: Andross is the game's primary antagonist who resembles a monkey or ape, although his species has never been officially confirmed. He is a mad scientist who is intent on capturing and controlling the Lylat system.


title: Star Fox 64

text: The Star Wolf team is a rival band of mercenaries recruited by Andross to attack Star Fox and stop their progress. This team consists of Wolf O'Donnell, a wolf and Fox's long-time rival; Leon Powalski, a sinister chameleon who targets Falco; Andrew Oikonny, Andross's nephew, who goes after Slippy; and Pigma Dengar, a pig who betrayed the original Star Fox team, leading to James's capture. Pigma taunts and chases his former teammate Peppy.


title: Star Fox 64

text: Following the release of "Star Fox" in 1993, series creator Shigeru Miyamoto began working on "Star Fox 2" for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System (SNES). By 1995, Miyamoto and team had largely finished development of "Star Fox 2" before realizing that its release would require the upgraded Super FX 2 chip, which would increase the cost of the game. Furthermore, newly launched competitor consoles, namely the Sega Saturn and the Sony PlayStation, possessed processing power and graphics capabilities that dwarfed those of the SNES, making "Star Fox 2" appear obsolete. Recognizing this and that the Nintendo 64 would launch the following year with significantly increased processing power and graphical capabilities, Miyamoto made the decision to cancel "Star Fox 2" in favor of developing a new "Star Fox" game for the Nintendo 64.


title: Star Fox 64

text: Following the cancellation of "Star Fox 2", Miyamoto and team began work on "Star Fox 64". The team cribbed heavily from the work that had been done in "Star Fox" and "Star Fox 2", stating in an interview that roughly 30% of "64"s gameplay came from the original game, roughly 60% came from the cancelled sequel, and the remaining 10% was original work done during development. In particular, Miyamoto said: "All-Range Mode, Multi-Player Mode and the Star Wolf scenario all came from "Star Fox 2"". One new aspect of gameplay was the addition of levels that used the Landmaster tank and the Blue-Marine submarine, which were conceived of by members of the development team (rather than Miyamoto himself) in response to Miyamoto's suggestion that the game include a "human-type craft", which the team generally did not approve of. The team originally intended for the game to contain multiple underwater levels but ultimately scaled back as they found that the underwater levels slowed down the pacing of the game.


title: Star Fox 64

text: With the underlying gameplay largely complete early in development, Miyamoto and the team focused the majority of their efforts on graphics, audio and dialogue, and enemy AI, seeking to harness the Nintendo 64's processing power. For example, inspired by Miyamoto being a fan of the British puppet-based show "Thunderbirds", the development team animated the game's characters opening and closing their mouths in a puppet-like fashion while speaking, which reduced the overall amount of animation work required for the game. The team also realized that adding dynamic audio would enhance the 3D gameplay experience as the player's allies could audibly signal when the player was being pursued by an offscreen enemy. In writing dialogue for the game's characters, the developers sought to invoke traditional historical dramas, adding more conventional lines such as "I've been waiting for you, Star Fox" and "You're becoming more like your father". Edgier dialogue such as "I guess it's your turn to be thankful" was written for the character Falco Lombardi, while more supportive dialogue such as "Never give up. Trust your instincts!" came from the character Peppy Hare.


title: Star Fox 64

text: "Star Fox 64" was also the first title to make use of the Rumble Pak peripheral, which came bundled with the game in some instances. Miyamoto stated that the development team struggled to utilize the Rumble Pak in a way that players understood, noting that during development, players were often confused as to why their controller was vibrating.


title: Star Fox 64

text: The game was first shown publicly at E3 1996 where Nintendo released a video of an early version of the game. This early version of the game showcased only the first level (Corneria) and featured a minimalistic HUD, showing only a crude meter reflecting the player's shield gauge. Nintendo released further beta footage of the game on December 6, 1996, that showed subsequent levels, an improved HUD, and a short multiplayer segment.


title: Star Fox 64

text: As the game approached launch, Nintendo became concerned that the title "Star Fox" could be considered too similar to the name of the German company "StarVox". Thus like its predecessor, the game was rebranded as "Lylat Wars" in certain PAL territories. "Nintendo Power" subscribers received a promotional video prior to "Star Fox 64"s release (the same tactic was used to promote "Donkey Kong Country" for the SNES as well as "Diddy Kong Racing", "Banjo-Kazooie", and "Hey You, Pikachu!" for the Nintendo 64) that advertised the game's cinematic presentation, as well as new features like the Rumble Pak and voice acting. It revolves around two agents of Sega and Sony (who at the time were Nintendo's biggest hardware competitors) interrogating a Nintendo employee into revealing information about the game.


title: Star Fox 64

text: Years after release, a substantial number of unused assets were found on the cartridge including unused icons, audio files, levels, and power-ups. In an interview post-release, Miyamoto said that while he was not 100% satisfied with the final version of "Star Fox 64", he felt that the game made better use of the Nintendo 64's increased processing power than "Super Mario 64", which was a launch title for the console and which Miyamoto had also developed.


title: Star Fox 64

text: "Star Fox 64" received critical acclaim and was one of the top-selling games of 1997, second to "Mario Kart 64". Reviews hailed the level branching system, particularly its use of player performance and secret in-level triggers rather than simple path selection. Many reviewers also praised the multiplayer modes as an ample source of replay value. However, Crispin Boyer of "Electronic Gaming Monthly" (EGM) considered them a waste, contending that the split screen display made targets too small to pinpoint. The game's voice clips were widely complimented, not for the quality of the acting, but for the unprecedented quantity of audio clips for a cartridge-based game. Critics also applauded the precise analog control, boss designs, Rumble Pak implementation, and cinematic cutscenes. "GamePro" gave the game a perfect 5 out of 5 in all four categories, praising the gameplay, graphics, controls, and fun factor.


title: Star Fox 64

text: The most common criticism was that "Star Fox 64" was not as much of a leap over the original "Star Fox" as "Super Mario 64" was over previous "Mario" games, in particular that the gameplay was still on rails. This perceived shortcoming did little to dull critics' response to the game, however. "GameSpot" reviewer Glenn Rubenstein declared "Star Fox 64" "an instant classic" and "a pleasure to look at". "EGM" gave it their "Game of the Month" award, with Dan Hsu calling it "a shooting fan's dream come true" and Shawn Smith "almost as good as "Mario 64"". "IGN" reviewer Doug Perry said it "demonstrates that shooters are more alive now than ever".


title: Star Fox 64

text: The "GameSpot" review of the Wii Virtual Console version bestows a (7.6/10), praising its simple, enjoyable shooting gameplay, and much voice acting. The review says the game is nice to look at regardless of its graphic age, with added replay value in finding hidden paths, but found the lack of rumble support "alarming", especially since it is the first game to support the Rumble Pak.


title: Star Fox 64

text: In the first five days of the game's U.S. launch, more than 300,000 copies were sold, surpassing the record previously held by "Mario Kart 64" and "Super Mario 64". It sold above 1 million units in the United States by the end of 1997, one of five Nintendo 64 games to do so. Sales were considerably less in Japan, where it sold 75,595 copies during the first week of sale. The game also took the #73 spot in "Nintendo Power's" "Top 200 Nintendo Games Ever".


title: Star Fox 64

text: "Star Fox 64" is listed as the 45th greatest game of all time by Guinness World Records Gamer's Edition in 2009. In 1997 "EGM" ranked it the 39th best console video game of all time, citing its amazing visuals, huge amount of voice acting, and the deep challenge of earning medals on all stages and completing expert mode. They also named it "Shooter of the Year" at their 1997 Editors' Choice Awards. In 2009, Official Nintendo Magazine ranked the game 14th in a list of the greatest Nintendo games.


title: Star Fox 64

text: At E3 2010, Nintendo announced a remake of "Star Fox 64" for the Nintendo 3DS, titled "Star Fox 64 3D". Nintendo exhibited a demo the same day that emphasized the technology of the Nintendo 3DS. The remake was co-developed by Q-Games and features stereoscopic 3D graphics, quality-of-life improvements, gyroscope controls, and brand new voice recordings. The game was released on July 14 in Japan and September 9, 2011 in Europe and North America. This marked the first time that "Star Fox 64" had been released in PAL territories under the original "Star Fox" name. While the remake supports multiplayer for up to four players via download play, the game does not have an online multiplayer mode.


title: India ink

text: India ink (British English: Indian ink; also Chinese ink) is a simple black or coloured ink once widely used for writing and printing and now more commonly used for drawing and outlining, especially when inking comic books and comic strips. India ink is also used in medical applications.


title: India ink

text: Basic India ink is composed of a variety of fine soot, known as "lampblack", combined with water to form a liquid. No binder material is necessary: the carbon molecules are in colloidal suspension and form a waterproof layer after drying. A binding agent such as gelatin or, more commonly, shellac may be added to make the ink more durable once dried. India ink is commonly sold in bottled form, as well as a solid form as an inkstick (most commonly, a stick), which must be ground and mixed with water before use. If a binder is used, India ink may be waterproof or non-waterproof.


title: India ink

text: Woods and Woods (2000) state that the process of making India ink was known in China as early as the middle of the 3rd millennium BC, in Neolithic China, whereas Needham (1985) states that inkmaking commenced perhaps as early as 3 millennia ago in China. India ink was first invented in China, but the English term "India(n) ink" was coined due to their later trade with India. A considerable number of oracle bones of the late Shang dynasty contain incised characters with black pigment from a carbonaceous material identified as ink. Numerous documents written in ink on precious stones as well as bamboo or wooden tablets dating to the Spring and Autumn, Warring States, and Qin period have been uncovered. A cylindrical artifact made from black ink has been found in Qin tombs, dating back to the 3rd century BC during the Warring States or dynastic period, from Yunmeng, Hubei.


title: India ink

text: India ink has been in use in India since at least the 4th century BC, where it was called masi, an admixture of several substances. Indian documents written in Kharosthi with this ink have been unearthed in as far as Xinjiang, China. The practice of writing with ink and a sharp-pointed needle in Tamil and other Dravidian languages was common practice from antiquity in South India, and so several ancient Buddhist and Jain scripts in India were compiled in ink. In India, the carbon black from which India ink is formulated was obtained indigenously by burning bones, tar, pitch, and other substances.


title: India ink

text: The traditional Chinese method of making ink was to grind a mixture of hide glue, carbon black, lampblack, and bone black pigment with a mortar and pestle, then pour it into a ceramic dish where it could dry. To use the dry mixture, a wet brush would be applied until it rehydrated, or more commonly in East Asian calligraphy, a dry solid ink stick was rubbed against an inkstone with water. Like Chinese black inks, the black inks of the Greeks and Romans were also stored in solid form before being ground and mixed with water for usage. In contrast to Chinese inks that were permanent, these inks could be washed away with water.


title: India ink

text: Pine soot was traditionally favored in Chinese inkmaking. Several studies observed that 14th-century Chinese inks are made from very small and uniform pine soot; in fact the inks are even superior in these aspects to modern soot inks. The author Song Yingxing (c. 1600–1660) of the Ming dynasty has described the inkmaking process from pine soot in his work "Tiangong Kaiwu". From the Song dynasty onwards, lampblack also became a favored pigment for the manufacturing of black inks. It was made by combustion in lamps with wicks, using animal, vegetable, and mineral oils.


title: India ink

text: In the Chinese record "Tiangong Kaiwu", ink of the period was said to be made from lampblack of which a tenth was made from burning tung oil, vegetable oils, or lard, and nine-tenths was made from burning pine wood. For the first process, more than one ounce (approx. 30 grams) lampblack of fine quality could be produced from a catty (approx. 0.5 kg) of oil. The lampwick used in the making of lampblack was first soaked in the juice of "Lithospermum officinale" before burning. A skillful artisan could tend to 200 lamps at once. For the second process, the ink was derived from pine wood from which the resin had been removed. The pine wood was burnt in a rounded chamber made from bamboo with the chamber surfaces and joints pasted with paper and matting in which there were holes for smoke emission. The ground was made from bricks and mud with channels for smoke built in. After a burn of several days, the resulting pine soot was scraped from the chamber after cooling. The last one or two sections delivered soot of the purest quality for the best inks, the middle section delivered mixed-quality soot for ordinary ink, and the first one or two sections delivered low-grade soot. The low-grade soot was further pounded and ground for printing, while the coarser grade was used for black paint. The pine soot was soaked in water to divide the fine particles that float and the coarser particles that sink. The sized lampblack was then mixed with glue after which the final product was hammered. Precious components such as gold dust or musk essence may be added to either types of inks.


title: India ink

text: In 1738, Jean-Baptiste Du Halde described the Chinese manufacturing process for lampblack from oil as: "They put five or six lighted wicks into a vessel full of oil, and lay upon this vessel an iron cover, made in the shape of a funnel, which must be set at a certain distance so as to receive all the smoke. When it has received enough, they take it off, and with a goose feather gently brush the bottom, letting the soot fall upon a dry sheet of strong paper. It is this that makes their fine and shining ink. The best oil also gives a lustre to the black, and by consequence makes the ink more esteemed and dearer. The lampblack which is not fetched off with the feather, and which sticks very fast to the cover, is coarser, and they use it to make an ordinary sort of ink, after they have scraped it off into a dish."


title: India ink

text: The Chinese had used India ink derived from pine soot prior to the 11th century AD, when the polymath official Shen Kuo (1031–1095) of the mid Song Dynasty became troubled by deforestation (due to the demands of charcoal for the iron industry) and sought to make ink from a source other than pine soot. He believed that petroleum (which the Chinese called 'rock oil') was produced inexhaustibly within the earth and so decided to make an ink from the soot of burning petroleum, which the later pharmacologist Li Shizhen (1518–1593) wrote was as lustrous as lacquer and was superior to pine soot ink.


title: India ink

text: A common ingredient in India ink, called carbon black, has been used by many ancient historical cultures. For example, the ancient Egyptians and Greeks both had their own recipes for "carbon black". One Greek recipe, from 40 to 90 AD, was written, documented and still exists today.


title: India ink

text: The ink from China was often sought after in the rest of the world, including Europe, due to its quality. For instance, in the 17th century, Louis LeComte said of Chinese ink that "it is most excellent; and they have hitherto vainly tried in France to imitate it." In another instance, in 1735, Jean-Baptiste Du Halde wrote that "the Europeans have endeavored to counterfeit this ink, but without success." These qualities were described by Berthold Laufer: "It produces, first of all, a deep and true black; and second, it is permanent, unchangeable in color, and almost indestructible. Chinese written documents may be soaked in water for several weeks without washing out... In documents written as far back as the Han dynasty... the ink is as bright and well preserved as though it had been applied but yesterday. The same holds good of the productions of the printer's art. Books of the Yuan, Ming, and Ch'ing dynasties have come down to us with paper and type in a perfect state of composition."


title: Claudia Sheinbaum

text: Claudia Sheinbaum Pardo (born 24 June 1962) is a Mexican scientist, politician, and head of government of Mexico City, a position equivalent to a state governor. She was elected on 1 July 2018 as part of the Juntos Haremos Historia coalition. She is the second woman and the first Jew to be elected to this position in Mexico City.


title: Claudia Sheinbaum

text: Sheinbaum has a Ph.D. in energy engineering, and is the author of over 100 articles and two books on the topics of energy, the environment, and sustainable development. She served as the Secretary of the Environment of Mexico City from 2000 to 2006 during Andrés Manuel López Obrador's term as mayor, and she was the Mayor of Tlalpan from 2015 to 2017. She contributed to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which received the Nobel Peace Prize in 2007. In 2018, she was listed as one of BBC's "100 Women". Sheinbaum has been widely mentioned as a possible candidate in the 2024 presidential election.


title: Claudia Sheinbaum

text: Claudia Sheinbaum Pardo was born to a secular Jewish family in Mexico City. Her father's Ashkenazi parents emigrated from Lithuania to Mexico City in the 1920s; her mother's Sephardic parents emigrated there from Sofia, Bulgaria, in the early 1940s to escape the Holocaust. She celebrated all the Jewish holidays at her grandparents' homes. Both of her parents are scientists: her father, chemical engineer Carlos Sheinbaum Yoselevitz, and her mother, Annie Pardo Cemo, a biologist, professor emeritus of the Faculty of Sciences at the National Autonomous University of Mexico. Her brother is a physicist.


title: Claudia Sheinbaum

text: Sheinbaum studied physics at the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM), where she earned an undergraduate degree ('89), followed by a master's ('94) and a Ph.D. ('95) in energy engineering. She completed the work for her doctoral thesis in four years (1991–94) at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in Berkeley, California, where she analyzed the use of energy in Mexico's transportation, published studies on the trends of Mexican building energy use, and obtained a Ph.D. in energy engineering and physics.


title: Claudia Sheinbaum

text: In 1995 she joined the faculty at UNAM's Institute of Engineering. She was a researcher at the Institute of Engineering and is a member of both the Sistema Nacional de Investigadores and the Mexican Academy of Sciences. In 1999 she received the prize of best UNAM young researcher in engineering and technological innovation.


title: Claudia Sheinbaum

text: In 2006 Sheinbaum returned to UNAM, after a period in government, publishing articles in scientific journals.


title: Claudia Sheinbaum

text: In 2007, she joined the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) at the United Nations in the field of energy and industry, as a contributing co-author on the topic "Mitigation of climate change" for the IPCC Fourth Assessment Report. The group won the Nobel Peace Prize that year. In 2013, she co-authored the IPCC Fifth Assessment Report alongside 11 other experts in the field of industry.


title: Claudia Sheinbaum

text: During her time as a student at the National Autonomous University of Mexico, she was a member of the Consejo Estudiantil Universitario ("University Student Council"), a group of students that would become the founding youth movement of the Mexican Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD).


title: Claudia Sheinbaum

text: She was the Secretary of the Environment of Mexico City from 5 December 2000, having been appointed on 20 November 2000 to the cabinet of the Head of Government of Mexico City Andrés Manuel López Obrador. During her term, which concluded in May 2006, she was responsible for the construction of an electronic vehicle-registration center for Mexico City. She also oversaw the introduction of the Metrobus, a rapid transit bus with dedicated lanes, and the construction of the second story of the Anillo Periférico, Mexico City's ring road.


title: Claudia Sheinbaum

text: López Obrador included Sheinbaum in his proposed cabinet for the Secretariat of Environment and Natural Resources as part of his campaign for the 2012 Mexican general election. In 2014 she joined Lopez Obrador's splinter movement which broke away from the mainstream Mexican left-wing party, the Party of the Democratic Revolution. She served as Secretary of the Environment in 2015.


title: Claudia Sheinbaum

text: From the end of 2015, Sheinbaum served as the Mayor of Tlalpan. She resigned from the position upon receiving the nomination for candidacy of the mayor of Mexico City for the Juntos Haremos Historia ("Together We Will Make History)" coalition, consisting of the National Regeneration Movement (MORENA), the Labor Party (PT), and the Social Encounter Party (PES).


title: Claudia Sheinbaum

text: On 1 July 2018, Sheinbaum was elected to a six-year term as the head of the government of the Federal District of Mexico City, defeating six other candidates. During the campaign, Sheinbaum was accused by the PAN of being responsible for the collapse of an elementary school in a 7.1 level earthquake that killed 19 children in 2017. She became both Mexico City's first elected female mayor, and its first Jewish mayor.


title: Claudia Sheinbaum

text: In June 2019, Sheinbaum announced a new six-year environmental plan. It includes reducing air pollution by 30%, planting 15 million trees, banning single-use plastics and promoting recycling, building a new waste separation plant, providing water service to every home, constructing 100 kilometers of corridors for the exclusive use of trolleybus lines and the Mexico City Metrobús system, and constructing and installing solar water heaters and solar panels.


title: Claudia Sheinbaum

text: In September 2019, Sheinbaum announced a 40 billion peso (US$2 billion) investment to modernize the Mexico City Metro over the next five years, including modernization, re-strengthening, new trains, improving stations, stairways, train control and automation, user information, and payment systems.


title: Claudia Sheinbaum

text: Sheinbaum was nominated by the City Mayors Foundation for the World Mayor prize in 2021 in North America for her handling of the COVID-19 pandemic in Mexico.


title: Claudia Sheinbaum

text: On 3 May 2021, a train was traveling on Mexico City Metro Line 12, when a girder supporting the overpass on which the train was traveling collapsed, killing 26 and injuring more than 70. Some critics said Sheinbaum and other leaders should have worked harder to improve the Metro's infrastructure. Some political observers have suggested that the political fallout from the crash may harm Sheinbaum's potential candidacy in the 2024 presidential election.


title: Claudia Sheinbaum

text: In 1986, Sheinbaum met politician Carlos Ímaz Gispert, to whom she was married from 1987 to 2016. She has one daughter from this marriage (Mariana, born in 1988, who in 2019 was studying for a doctorate in philosophy at the University of California at Santa Cruz), and also became stepmother to Rodrigo Ímaz Alarcón (born in 1982; now a filmmaker).


title: Claudia Sheinbaum

text: During the COVID-19 pandemic in Mexico, Sheinbaum tested positive for COVID-19 on 27 October 2020, but was asymptomatic.


title: Claudia Sheinbaum

text: On 29 April 2016, when Claudia Sheinbaum was Delegational Chief of Tlalpan, staff of that Delegation, authorized by the deputy director of the Legal Bureau and Government, José Edwin Cerón, demolished the Capilla del Señor de los Trabajos (Chapel of the Lord of the Works), a shed with a metal sheet roof that parishioners had placed years ago, on a piece of land located between Tapakan and Yobain Streets, in the Colonia Cultura Maya of the abovementioned Delegation of Mexico City and dependent on the parish temple of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, in charge of the parish priest Juan Guillermo Blandón Pérez, who pointed out that Sheinbaum was responsible for the demolition: he commented that the action was carried out without prior notification. This last church is located one block away north of the chapel, by Hopelchén Street, in the same neighborhood.


title: Claudia Sheinbaum

text: In the same block as the chapel is the Maya Culture Community Center. Days after the demolition of the chapel, the then chief of the delegation, Claudia Sheinbaum, met with the bishop of the VI Vicariate of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Mexico, Monsignor ; Armando Martínez, president of the Universidad del Pedregal, and Manuel Santiago, general director of Works in the demarcation. They agreed to divide the property in half and build a chapel and an Arts and Crafts Center.


title: Claudia Sheinbaum

text: Journalist Eduardo Ruiz-Healy has accused Claudia Sheinbaum, who was chief of the Tlalpan Delegation from 1 October 2015 to 6 December 2017, of opacity, not having delivered the complete file of the authorizations and permits for land use, construction, and approval of maintenance, security and operation of the property that the Enrique Rébsamen Private School occupied, and neither, on the expansion of the building located at 19 Rancho Tamboreo Street up until 19 September 2017, the day on which the 2017 Puebla earthquake occurred, which mainly affected Mexico City, Morelos, Puebla, Tlaxcala, and the State of Mexico. The earthquake caused the total or partial fall of numerous buildings, including a part of the estate occupied by the Enrique Rébsamen Private School, located at 11 Rancho Tamboreo Street, in Colonia Nueva Oriental Coapa, where 19 children and seven adults died, in Tlalpan, when the chief of that demarcation was Claudia Sheinbaum. In September 2016, during the Sheinbaum delegational government, the Institute for Administrative Verification ruled that the private school's building infringed on the use of land and exceeded the number of levels allowed, and denounced that the owner, Mónica García Villegas, had shown apocryphal documents. Enrique Fuentes, lawyer for the group "Angels against Impunity" (Ángeles contra la Impunidad), integrated by parents of the deceased children, pointed out that the Tlalpan Delegation was notified as a "third party involved." He said the delegational chief had an obligation to act, but abstained, allowing the school to continue activities.


title: Claudia Sheinbaum

text: On 31 August 1983, the Urban Planning Office of the Tlalpan Delegation, through the Construction Licensing Section, issued a construction permit on the land located at the address indicated above, for a Kindergarten school, two departments on four levels (the Enrique Rébsamen Private School), when the head of the Federal District Department was the Institutional Revolutionary Party member , and the delegational chief in Tlalpan, Guillermo Nieves Jenkin.


title: Claudia Sheinbaum

text: In 2014, after an earthquake of 7.2 magnitude, the architect and engineer Juan Mario Velarde Gámez, who presented himself as Director Responsible of the Construction [of the Enrique Rébsamen Private School], stated that the building had "the necessary equipment and security systems for emergency situations provided for in the Construction Regulations for the Federal District."


title: Claudia Sheinbaum

text: At around 10:22 p.m. on 3 May 2021, several girders, part of the tracks, and two wagons of Line 12 ("Golden Line") of the Mexico City Metro collapsed, between the Olivos and Tezonco metro stations, on Tláhuac Avenue, which in that area serves as the boundary between the Iztapalapa and Tláhuac boroughs. The casualties were 26 dead, 80 injured and five missing. Line 12 of the Mexico City Metro was inaugurated on 30 October 2012 by the then Head of Government of Mexico City, Marcelo Ebrard, and the then President of Mexico, Felipe Calderón.


title: Claudia Sheinbaum

text: From weeks before the inauguration, construction failures were detected, for which over more than three years it was necessary to suspend the transport service several times, re-shape some sections of tracks, replace rails, and give greater maintenance; most of these works were carried out during the term of Miguel Ángel Mancera as Head of the Government of Mexico City. On 4 May 2021, the Secretary of Foreign Affairs of Mexico, Marcelo Ebrard, said that the work was definitively delivered in July 2013, after reviews carried out for seven months, and expressed his willingness to respond and collaborate in the event of any request from the authorities.


title: Claudia Sheinbaum

text: The Norwegian company Det Norske Veritas (DNV), in charge of investigating the causes of the collapse of Metro Line 12 – on 3 May 2021 –, detected that one of the beams that collapsed already had structural failures since before the earthquake of 19 September 2017, a factor that had caused problems in the elevated section of the Line that collapsed. On 28 June 2021, the general director of the Mexico City Metro, , who was appointed on 5 December 2018, was removed from her position by Sheinbaum. The editor of the Mexico City daily newspaper "El Financiero", Alejo Sánchez Cano, considered that the responsibility of Sheinbaum is unavoidable, stating that after having been in office for two and a half years she was negligent by not maintaining the metro system.


title: Claudia Sheinbaum

text: Sheinbaum is the author of over 100 articles and two books on the topics of energy, the environment, and sustainable development. A selection follows:


title: Madhur Bhandarkar

text: Madhur Bhandarkar (born 26 August 1968) is an Indian film director, script writer, and producer. In 2016,Bhandarkar was honoured with the Padma Shri, the fourth highest civilian honour, by the Government of India.


title: Madhur Bhandarkar

text: The drama film "Chandni Bar" (2001), won him the National Film Award for Best Film on Social Issues. Bhandarkar received the National Film Awards for the Best Feature Film and Best Director for "Page 3" (2005) and "Traffic Signal" (2007) respectively. The drama film "Fashion" (2008) garnered him several accolades including National Film Award, Filmfare Awards nominations for Best Director and Best Screenplay. Madhur Co-Produced a Bengali film Avijatrik based on the novel "Aparajito" by Bibhutibhushan Bandyopadhyay, The film won National Film Award for Best Feature Film in Bengali in 2021 and this was Madhur's 5th National Award


title: Madhur Bhandarkar

text: Madhur Bhandarkar has been nominated as society member of the Satyajit Ray Film and Television Institute by the Information and Broadcasting Ministry.


title: Madhur Bhandarkar

text: Madhur Bhandarkar worked in a video cassette library in Khar, a suburb of Mumbai. This gave him access to a large collection of movies and he studied film-making through it.


title: Madhur Bhandarkar

text: After trying his skills with small-time filmmakers as an assistant, Bhandarkar landed up as an assistant to Ram Gopal Varma. He even played his first cameo in his 1995 film "Rangeela" where he was the associate director to Ram Gopal Varma. A couple of years later he made his directorial debut with "Trishakti" which took more than three years to make and released in 1999. The film had a relatively low key cast and was largely ignored at the box office. After two years he directed "Chandni Bar" (2001) starring Tabu and Atul Kulkarni with a budget of Rs 15 million. The film was critically acclaimed and a box office success, which took Bhandarkar into the top league of filmmakers in Bollywood. He received his first National Award for this film and thereon won National awards for his films "Page-3" and "Traffic Signal". His movie "Fashion" (2008) also won National Awards for Best Actress (Priyanka Chopra) and for Best Supporting Actress (Kangana Ranaut).


title: Madhur Bhandarkar

text: Madhur was conferred PL Deshpande Award a.k.a. Zenith Asia Award for significantly shaping the film making culture in his unique works and he has been described as 'the Film Maker of the First Decade of the 21st Century'. On the Silver Jubilee Year of Aashay Film Club, award ceremony took place on 16 Nov at National Film Archive Theatre during the eighth Pulotsav – An Art Festival in Pune. PL Deshpande was a renowned writer, stage and film actor and his literary works are still revered in Maharashtra and others parts of the world. In his honour, Zenith Asia Award was given to Madhur Bhandarkar and his film Chandni Bar was also screened during the fest amongst landmark 25 films from world cinema.