Barco lights up world premiere of Chinese blockbuster "Curse of the golden flower"

Barco helped light up the premiere evening by providing the director – whose much-lauded films include Hero, House of Flying Daggers and Raise the Red Lantern – with a near 50 square-metre indoor Barco iLite 6 LED screen. The large-scale screen, consisting of 240 LED tiles, truly helped make the evening a larger than life experience.

Live from New York, Zhang greeted guests of the premiere via the Barco screen. His audience included more than 400 members of the global media and some 100 VIPs. Hong Kong-based television broadcaster, Phoenix TV, provided the overseas video link transmission for the director’s speech. The entire premiere, which included a dazzling audio-video feast and an exciting film trailer of Curse of the Golden Flower, was also shown by Phoenix TV, and across all of mainland China on CCTV Movie Channel. What is more, keeping up with the times, the premiere was also shown on the net at Sina.com.

Among the evening’s special guests was Asian heartthrob Jay Chow, whose role in the new film brings him together with China’s cinema queen Gong Li. Gong Li worked with Zhang Yimou in his early films, including the much acclaimed Red Sorghum, Raise the Red Lantern and The Story of Qiu Ju. Other Curse of the Golden Flower cast members are Hong Kong film star Chow Yun-Fat and mainland acting sensation Liu Ye.

Zhang’s lavish and opulent new film is set before China’s Tang Dynasty and tells the story of an imperial Chinese family collapsing amidst a power struggle between the emperor (Chow Yun-Fat), the empress (Gong Li) and the couple's three sons. The family’s battle among each other for control and authority ultimately threatens to tear it to pieces.

“This was an exciting night not just for our production company and Zhang Yimou, but for the entire Chinese film industry and movie lovers from around the world,” said Zhang Wei Ping, Chairman of NPF. NPF selected Barco for the global premiere because Barco is second to none in visualization and display solutions. Barco products not only account for more than 70% of the large screen LED rental market worldwide, but also set the standard for movie viewing in China, where digital cinema is synonymous with Barco.

“While we are proud of our success around the world with our state-of-the-art LED products, our position in China truly represents something special, as China’s hunger for the very best is insatiable,” said Frank Christiaens, Barco’s Managing Director in China. “The relationship between Barco and China is one of mutual appreciation for achieving excellence.”


About Barco
Barco, a global technology company headquartered in Kortrijk, Belgium, designs and develops visualization products for a variety of professional markets. Barco has its own facilities for Sales & Marketing, Customer Support, R&D and Manufacturing in Europe, North America and Asia Pacific.
For fiscal year 2005, Barco posted net sales of euro 712.0 million.
Barco’s ordinary shares are listed on the Brussels/Euronext stock exchange. Barco is a BEL 20 and a Next 150 company. Share information may be accessed on Bloomberg under the symbol BAR BB and on Reuters under BARBt.BR.

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For more information, please contact

Inge Govaerts
Public Relations Manager
Barco - Media & Entertainment

Telephone +32 56 36 8052
inge.govaerts@barco.com

Valerie Tang
Marketing Director - Great China
Barco China

Telephone +86 21 6091 2222
valerie.tang@barco.com