Fantasy pushes into genre films: Variety tells us that Fantasy Pictures, a Chinese film company under the guidance of producer Yuan Gadi, is trying to make films that will reach a worldwide audience. The method? Science fiction!

Although China (particularly Hong Kong) is known for colorful costume fantasy films, the science fiction genre has been limited to mostly window dressing: ripping off a few elements from THE TERMINATOR for THE CAT, for example. More recently, Stephen Chow’s CJ7 was an E.T.-type movie that scored big in its native land and earned a small release stateside.

“The sci-fi film will take big steps in future years in mainland China. This is also new for the government and for censorship — maybe it could be the key genre to promote the local market,” says Yuan, who hopes that within the next two years, Fantasy will produce and launch a number of highly innovative genre films by China’s new generation of filmmakers.