BEIJING SNAPSHOT: As Olympics ebb, smartphone synchronicity
February 20, 2022 GMTBEIJING (AP) — The smartphones glowed. The irony echoed.
As part of the closing ceremony Sunday night for the most locked-down and sequestered Olympics in human history, a carefully curated crowd packed — well, dotted, really — the famed Bird's Nest stadium as a warm and humanistic show unfolded.
Filmmaker Zhang Yimou returns for Olympics opening ceremony
January 8, 2022 GMTBEIJING (AP) — Renowned Chinese filmmaker Zhang Yimou is promising a simpler opening ceremony for next month's Beijing Winter Games with a bold and unprecedented way of lighting the Olympic flame.
Zhang, who directed an awe-inspiring opening ceremony for the Summer Olympics in Beijing in 2008, is returning in the same role for the 2022 Games, Chinese state media reported late Friday.
Reports: Oscar-winning Japanese costume designer Wada dies
November 21, 2021 GMTTOKYO (AP) — Emi Wada, the Japanese costume designer who won an Oscar for her work in Akira Kurosawa’s “Ran,” has died, Japanese media reports said Sunday. She was 84.
Wada died Nov. 13, the reports said, citing unidentified family sources and not giving the cause of death.