bodyType

customContents

entityId

entityUuid

articlePageQuery

filter

article

articleBaseAdvertisingInfoArticle

articleListArticle

articleSeoArticle

helpersCheckIsPostiesArticle

hooksArticleAcknowledgementGateOverlayArticle

hooksTrackPageViewArticle

hooksContentInterestArticle

articleLinkingDataContent

articleSchemaContent

liveArticle

advertZone

sentiment

contentLock

topics

types

sections

moreOnThisArticles

urlAlias

commentCount

sponsorType

authorLocations

authors

paywallTypes

corrections

displaySlideShow

multimediaEmbed

printHeadline

seriesContainer

socialHeadline

headline

flag

firstTopic

glossary

flattenTypeIds

publishedDate

additionalInfoBoxes

images

image

relatedLinks

relatedNewsletters

__typename

createdDate

sponsor

factSheets

series

disableOffPlatformContent

published

updatedDate

summary

subHeadline

body

keywords

copyrighted

customTimezone

liveContents

Agence France-Presse

Two decades after scoring a surprise holiday season global hit with Love Actually, British filmmaker Richard Curtis is bidding to repeat the trick with his first foray into animation.
The 68-year-old writer and director has co-adapted his own trilogy of children’s books, and commandeered longtime friend Ed Sheeran into contributing an original song, to bring That Christmas to the big and small screens.
Featuring the voices of Brian Cox (Succession), Bill Nighy (Love Actually) and a host of other acting talent, it hits select UK cinemas this week before its worldwide release on Netflix from December 4.
Curtis, the director behind box office successes like Four Weddings and a Funeral and Notting Hill, before 2003’s Love Actually, said his first venture into animation was full of surprises, particularly the time-consuming nature of the genre.


“I’ve been shocked by the amount of time (it takes),” he said as the film premiered at the London Film Festival last month. There were some silver linings, however.
“My theory is that it means that people working in animation are nicer than people working in normal movies, because they know they’ve got to get on for five years.
“You really do get married. It’s not a one night stand – it’s not a sexy holiday in Ibiza! It’s a long journey together. So I really enjoy it.”
That Christmas – a series of entwined tales about a town of friends and relatives during a troubled festive period – is a family-friendly offering which still has a grown-up contemporary edge to it.
It features plenty of jokes and references to everything from Jesus being a hipster to abortion and climate change.

“If love were easy, your father wouldn’t have run off with his 25-year-old dental nurse,” one of the main animated characters, Mrs Williams, tells her schoolboy son, Danny.
Curtis said he and co-screenwriter Peter Souter were confident the format meant they could be “modern and sometimes edgy and satirical without crossing any big red lines”.
“I’ve always thought that you shouldn’t, as it were, dumb down if you’re dealing with kids,” he said.
Veteran stage and screen actress Fiona Shaw was equally enthused about contributing to a film not just aimed at adults.
“I really love a young audience, because they watch with such enthusiasm and such accuracy and such memory. They remember things,” she said.

“So I’m hoping that this audience will enjoy Ms Trapper as much as I enjoyed playing it.”
Simon Otto, known for his work heading character animation for the How to Train Your Dragon films, makes his feature directorial debut on the project, which he said breaks new ground in the genre.
“In animation, it’s very uncommon to tell multithread storylines – it’s usually about a single hero on a fantastical journey,” he said.
“Bringing the charm and timelessness of animation to Richard’s real-life stories that have universal appeal and wish-fulfilment felt like a really interesting match to everyone.”
Curtis revealed that Sheeran wrote and recorded an original song for the film, “Under the Tree”, largely thanks to the story’s setting in the county of Suffolk in eastern England, where both of them live.

“Ed is, as it were, the epitome of Suffolk,” the filmmaker explained.
“I went round, showed him the film, and he said: ‘Oh, I’d love to write a song for this’. And he did it fast, and it’s a really beautiful song,” said Curtis. “We’re really lucky.”
Otto noted that the track “really became the heart of the film” as it plays at a climactic moment in the movie.
“It’s building towards this moment,” he said. “And he could be one of our characters.”


Hollywood is ‘really exhausting’ for young women, Florence Pugh says

15 new Hollywood movies to watch this winter – Sonic 3, Snow White, Wolf Man and more

French actor Franck Dubosc on his dark new film, showing at Hong Kong French Film Festival

Who is Sophia Loren’s teen granddaughter, Lucia Sofia Ponti? The 18-year-old wore Giorgio Armani to the Débutante Ball, and her actress mum was in Dawson’s Creek and Curb Your Enthusiasm

European cinema

Filmmaker Richard Curtis on That Christmas, his first animated movie, and Ed Sheeran

Ed Sheeran wrote a song for Curtis’ animated film That Christmas. Photo: AP

Richard Curtis attends the BFI London Film Festival at the Royal Festival Hall, in London, for a showing of his first animated film, That Christmas. Photo: AFP

Brian Cox (pictured at the Golden Globe Awards, in 2020) is on the cast of That Christmas. Photo: Getty Images

Fiona Shaw and Richard Curtis attend the BFI London Film Festival’s Headline Gala for That Christmas. Photo: AFP

Ed Sheeran is “the epitome of Suffolk”, where That Christmas is set, says Richard Curtis. The pop star wrote a song for the film’s soundtrack. Photo: AP

How Hollywood sci-fi movie Transcendence, starring Johnny Depp, flopped in China

Johnny Depp in a still from Transcendence, the Hollywood sci-fi film that failed to excite audiences in China. Photo: Golden Scene

Johnny Depp (right) and director Walter Pfister in Los Angeles during a tour to promote Transcendence. Photo: Zach Cordner/Invision/AP

Johnny Depp as Will Caster (centre) and Rebecca Hall as Evelyn Caster (right) in a still from Transcendence.

Depp in a still from Transcendence.

(From left) Morgan Freeman, Cillian Murphy and Rebecca Hall in a still from Transcendence.

30 years on, 3 elements that helped make Chungking Express a Hong Kong cinema classic

Faye Wong in a still from 1994 film Chungking Express. Photo: Jet Tone Production

Brigitte Lin Ching-hsia in a still from Chungking Express (1994), a classic Hong Kong film. Photo: Jet Tone Production

Tony Leung Chiu-wai and Faye Wong in a still from Chungking Express. Photo: Jet Tone Production

Faye Wong on the then newly opened Central-Mid-Levels Escalator in Central, Hong Kong, in a still from Chungking Express. Photo: Jet Tone Production

Taoist funeral rituals in Hong Kong plays and a movie used to tell stories about life

Chu Pak-hong in a still from The Last Dance. Photo: Emperor Motion Pictures

Dayo Wong in a still from The Last Dance. The Hong Kong film recently broke box-office records despite it being about the taboo subject of death. Photo: Emperor Motion Pictures

Michael Hui in a still from The Last Dance. The record-breaking Hong Kong film has taken HK$90 million at the box office since its release on November 9. Photo: Emperor Motion Pictures

The Last Dance writer and director Anselm Chan speaks during a screening of the film in Hong Kong. Photo: Nathan Tsui

Wong and Hui in a still from The Last Dance. Making the film helped director Chan in his search for the meaning of life. Photo: Emperor Motion Pictures

A scene from Windmill Grass Theatre’s Black Comedy Di Dar. Photo: Windmill Grass Theatre

Wong Wing-sze in her one-woman black comedy play My Grandmother’s Funeral. Photo: courtesy of Wong Wing-sze

Wong’s play is based on her own experience of losing a family member. Photo: courtesy of Wong Wing-sze

Chu Pak-hong as a Taoist priest in a still from The Last Dance. Chan says making the film inspired him to reach out to a relative he hadn’t seen for years. It’s a message he hopes to share with the audience. Photo: Emperor Motion Pictures

Wong and Michelle Wai in a still from The Last Dance. Photo: Emperor Motion Pictures

What killed Bruce Lee? 4 leading theories medical and martial arts experts proposed after his shock death 50 years ago in July, 1973

Bruce Lee on the set of “The Big Boss”. Lee died two years after the movie’s 1971 release, and in the years since, competing theories have been posited as to what exactly killed the martial arts star.  Photo: Yau Leung

Bruce Lee in a still from “Fist of Fury” (1972).

Lee with Taiwanese actress Betty Ting Pei. The two spent time together soon before Lee’s death.

Bruce Lee in a still from “Enter the Dragon” (1973). Photo: TNS

 Lee circa 1970. He had “chronic fluid intake” by virtue of his alcohol- and juice-based diet. Photo: Getty Images

Lifestyle

Entertainment

Culture

Film & TV

Notting Hill and Love Actually filmmaker was shocked how long it took to make an animated movie, but happy Sheeran wrote a song for the film


Notting Hill and Love Actually filmmaker was shocked how long it took to make an animated movie, but happy Sheeran wrote a song for the film.


Cinema

Christmas