Cannes festival sees growing interest in Chinese cinema

The film, starring Zhao Tao, Jia's wife and Liao Fan, a Berlin International Film Festival's best actor winner for Black Coal, Thin Ice, will have its world debut in Cannes on Friday.

Ash's cast also includes actor-director Xu Zheng, known for the blockbuster Lost franchise; and Feng Xiaogang, a pioneer who has reinvented Chinese commercial films.

The film, which was shot in four months in Datong, Shanxi province, and the Three Gorges Dam area and the Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region, has some elements from Hong Kong gangster movies and martial arts films.

Jia was not on Cannes' red carpet, but his film's stars Zhao and Liao appeared in the spotlight. And joining them were singer-actress Li Yuchun, actresses Ma Sichun and Fan Bingbing, also a juror at last year's 70th Cannes festival.

Separately, Chinese director Bi Gan has Long Day's Journey into Night selected for the Un Certain Regard competition of the festival.

The film, starring Tang Wei, Sylvia Chang, Huang Jue, Lee Hongchi and Chen Yongzhong, is about a man who returns to his hometown to seek a mysterious woman whom he spent an unforgettable summer with more than a decade earlier.

Tang, the Chinese star who shot to prominence for Ang Lee's Lust, Caution, says she is privileged to be part of Bi's work.

Bi shot to fame with his directorial debut Kaili Blues (2016), an arthouse feature set in the young director's hometown in Guizhou province.

As for the other Chinese links in Cannes, the Spanish psychological thriller Everybody Knows featuring Penelope Cruz and Javier Bardem-which is the festival's opening title, has a Chinese investor backing it.