The United States and Iran announced a temporary ceasefire, and the two sides were preparing to enter the most critical stage of peace talks. Iran's supreme leader Mujtaba Khamenei, who was very low-key and barely showed up, suddenly issued the latest statement. Remembering late father Khamenei
This is the "magic of winemaking" in the new era - using digital innovation to connect tradition and the future; using cultural innovation to connect wine and life. On January 31st, National Taiwan once again joined hands with CCTV to innovatively launch "Xiao Satan Factory: Intelligent Manufacturing of "Magic"", which quickly became a hit as soon as it was aired. In just a few days, the number of views across the entire network quickly exceeded 100 million times. This audio-visual feast, guided by the magic "exploration" of Maotai Town, with "technology" as its core and "culture" as its soul, not only refreshed the public's cognitive boundaries of the liquor industry, but also transformed the grand proposition of how the "historical classic industry" can move towards modernization into an immersive intellectual journey.
This time, Sa Beining is no longer just a CCTV host familiar to the audience, but has transformed into a "scientific detective", going deep into the core hinterland of Chinese Maotai-flavor liquor - Moutai Town, Kweichow, and entering the Guotai Distillery, trying to solve a question: Why is it that only Maotai Town can brew truly top-level Maotai Liquor? What kind of "magic" is hidden behind high-quality Guotai wine?
CCTV × National Taiwan Network join hands again to tell the modern story of liquor
This is not the first time Sa Beining has walked into Maotai Town. As early as 2024, he visited the Guotai Distillery in Maotai Town as an observer. This "second exploration" is of great significance - it marks that Guotai Liquor and CCTV have once again joined hands to create a phenomenal brand content communication event. Different from the one-way output of traditional advertisements or promotional videos, this cooperation is centered on "characters + narrative + technology experience" and innovatively adopts the content form of documentary + immersive visit + metaverse interaction to transform serious industrial transformation issues into cultural expressions that the public loves to hear.
What's more, the spread was perfectly timed. On October 16, 2025, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology issued the "Guiding Opinions on Promoting the High-Quality Development of Historical Classic Industries (2026-2030) (Draft for Comment)", which clearly defined the brewing industry as a "historical classic industry" for the first time. This policy positioning not only gives the liquor industry a new historical mission, but also injects a shot in the arm into the liquor industry which is in a period of deep adjustment.
In this context, Guotai Liquor chose to join forces with CCTV to use Sa Beining, a national public figure, to lead hundreds of millions of viewers to re-understand liquor - it is not only a cultural heritage for thousands of years, but also the forefront of technological innovation.
Three key words: distillation, microorganisms, data
In the footage of "Xiao Sa Tan Factory: Intelligent Creation of "Magic"", Sa Beining transforms into a "secret seeker", holding three key words - distillation, microorganisms, and data, and reveals the mystery of Maotai Town sauce wine brewing one by one.
Keyword 1: Distillation – a leap from “one thousand cups without getting drunk” to stable quality. At the beginning of the program, Sa Beining met the "Poetic Immortal" Li Bai by chance at Guotai Winery, triggering a dialogue between ancient and modern times. Li Bai joked that he had "a hundred poems about wine fighting", but in fact, most of the wine he drank at that time was undistilled fermented wine, and the alcohol content was generally very low, far less than that of today's liquor. Even if the distillation technology is mature, because it relies heavily on the personal experience of the master, the process operations vary from person to person, and the quality of the wine is difficult to stabilize.
How to make every bottle of wine reach the same high quality? The answer lies in National Taiwan’s smart brewing system. Here, the traditional sauce wine brewing craft formulas such as "See the steam and press the fermented grains" and "Easy and thin" have been transformed into sophisticated data control. The steam distribution is monitored in real time through an infrared probe, and the mechanical arm accurately reproduces the steamer loading action to ensure that the heating uniformity of each steamer is maximized. This transformation from "experience-driven" to "data-driven" is the scientific sublimation of traditional craftsmanship in modern brewing.
Keyword 2: Microorganisms - the invisible "wine-making magicians". If distillation determines the concentration of wine, then microorganisms are the soul that determines the aroma of wine.
Wearing VR glasses, Sa Beining and Li Bai entered the world of the "National Taipei Metaverse" together, and a spectacular picture of life appeared in front of them: thousands of microorganisms were active and running in Maotai Town, each performing their own duties - yeast produces aroma, bacteria regulates sourness, and mold promotes transformation. In the brewing process of Guotai liquor alone, more than 1,000 microorganisms are involved and more than 3,000 substances are produced.
What China Taiwan does is to be the "super nanny" and "chef" of these "magicians" - allowing the microorganisms to eat well, grow well, and work efficiently.
Keyword 3: Data - making the "craftsman spirit" replicable and inheritable. If the first two keywords reveal the "natural code" of sauce wine, then the third keyword "data" points to the future direction - intelligence, standardization and replicability.
In the Guotai Intelligent Brewing Workshop, Sa Beining witnessed a shocking scene: the robotic arm moved dexterously above the retort, and the infrared probe scanned the steam distribution like an "eye"; on the control system screen, various parameters jumped in real time, forming smooth data curves.
It turns out that National Taiwan has broken down the process of the "12987" sauce wine brewing cycle (i.e. one-year production cycle, two grain feedings, nine cooking times, eight fermentations, and seven wine extractions) into 30 processes, 274 links, and 1,508 process indicators, and the operating standards of each process have been digitized and modeled. For example, in the grain-moistening process, a mathematical model of the gelatinization degree of sorghum was established through image recognition and infrared detection technology, which can accurately determine whether "seven-minute cooked" or "eight-minute cooked" is achieved, thereby achieving the best cooking effect.
"The 'magic' of intelligent manufacturing in Taiwan is to transform the experience and mentality of traditional manual craftsmen into precise digital expressions to build a digitally intelligent production system," Sa Beining concluded.
And this is a true reflection of the concept put forward by National Taiwan University of "adhering to tradition without clinging to the past, and scientific innovation without departing from the original" - respecting tradition, but not stopping at tradition; embracing technology, but never deviating from the essence.
The whole chain transition of Guotai Intelligent Brewing
In fact, behind this "intelligent magic" lies more than 20 years of continuous investment and technological research by Taiwan.
Since 1999, for more than ten years, Guotai has focused on systematically learning the authentic Maotai wine brewing techniques and accumulated massive amounts of original data. In the next ten years, it has fully promoted "modernization" - converting experience into numbers and building a digital and intelligent production system covering the entire production process.
In October 2023, National Taiwan officially released the "National Taiwan Intelligent Brewing Standard System", becoming China's first intelligent brewing standard system for Maotai-flavor liquor. One year later, the system was upgraded to version 2.0, further improving the process indicators and becoming a benchmark for the industry to follow.
Up to now, National Taiwan has joined forces with top institutions such as the China Liquor Industry Association, Jiangnan University, and Tianjin University of Science and Technology to establish a large scientific research platform. It has achieved 5 internationally leading scientific research results, applied for 242 patents, published 143 academic papers, and built a complete innovation chain of "basic research - technological research - achievement transformation".
At the hardware level, China and Taiwan collaborated with equipment manufacturing companies to develop 735 sets of intelligent brewing equipment with primary and auxiliary supporting functions and full linkage, overcoming the shortage of complete sets of equipment for sauce wine production. Whether it is smart koji making, smart steamer loading, smart cooling, or smart wine delivery, all operations have been automated, closed, and clean.
Traditional Maotai-flavor wine needs to be collected in seven rounds. The flavor of the base wine in each round is very different. Finally, it is blended with the "art of the tongue" by the old craftsman to form a unique style. However, this method is highly dependent on personal experience and is easily affected by physical conditions, emotions and other factors, making it difficult to ensure batch consistency.
Guotai used science and technology to establish a database of ingredients for the flavor of each round of base wine, find the characteristic data of each flavor, establish a fingerprint map, and accurately calculate the blending ratio of each round of base wine. The wine blended in this way is more stable in batches and of better quality.
At the same time, Guotai also researches wine body optimization technology and successfully applies it in many products to make the wine body softer, cleaner and healthier. The specific performance is: the content of fusel oil is lower, and the body feels more comfortable after drinking; the content of aldehydes is lower, the taste is smoother, and the throat is not spicy; the quality standards of national and Taiwanese products have also been improved. On the basis of national standards, 12 new corporate internal control standards have been added, and the control of 8 unhelpful ingredient indicators has been stricter.
The deep logic behind playing more than 100 million yuan
As of the beginning of 2026, the views of "Xiao Sa Returns to Maotai Town" have exceeded 100 million, and related short video secondary creations are emerging one after another. The success of this communication is no accident. The reason why it touches people's hearts is that it tells a story that resonates with the times: In a seemingly conservative traditional industry, a technological revolution that is still flowing deep is quietly taking place.
Taiwan did not deny tradition, but used technology to accurately inherit tradition; it did not abandon handwork, but let machines inherit ingenuity; it did not cater to short-term traffic, but insisted on long-term R&D investment. It is this attitude of "holding millennium culture in its left hand and modern technology in its right hand" that allowed it to buck the trend during the period of deep adjustment in the industry and become the representative force of "China's new famous wines".
The more far-reaching significance is that this "intelligent manufacturing" practice provides a sample for the digital and intelligent transformation and upgrading of historical classic industries. When the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology lists brewing as a "historical classic industry", it means that its cultural value and development potential are highly recognized at the policy level. National Taiwan’s exploration proves that only by embracing the digital intelligence era and through scientific research empowerment, standard guidance, and intelligent upgrading can classic industries be rejuvenated.
As Sa Beining said at the end of the film: "Today, the iteration of brewing technology has far exceeded the imagination of previous generations. What we see is not only the innovation of Taiwan, but also the vigorous vitality of the historical classic industry of Chinese liquor because of the empowerment of science and technology."
With history, heritage, ingenuity and technology, from "Steampunk Town" to "Smart Brewing Factory", from Xiao Sa's exploration to the attention of hundreds of millions of people, Guotai Liquor is interpreting the answer to the times of Chinese liquor in a brand new way.
Standing at the new starting point of the "15th Five-Year Plan", National Taiwan will continue to focus on the three major events of "making good wine", "making good wine", and "drinking good wine". With consumers as the center, digital intelligence as the engine, product strength as the foundation, and brand culture as the soul, we will seize opportunities in the turbulent industry changes, break through cycles with innovation, and win the future with digital intelligence empowerment. (Source: Guizhou Daily Press)
See the living inheritance of traditional skills through the live broadcast of spring tea.
The tea proverb goes, "Spring rain is as valuable as oil, and spring tea is as valuable as gold." For tea lovers, sipping spring tea is the ritual of spring. Only this year, there is something new in the way of opening this sense of ritual - more than 270 million users choose to follow and learn about Spring Tea in the live broadcast room, using the screen as the "first scene".
On April 8, Douyin e-commerce released "Spring in the Live Broadcast Room: 2026 Douyin E-commerce Spring Tea Consumption Illustrated Guide" (referred to as the "Illustrated Guide"). The "Illustrated Book" shows that during this year's spring tea season, more than 270 million users on the platform followed Spring Tea in the live broadcast room, and the topic "The first sip of spring tea on Douyin" has a cumulative reading volume of 830 million. These figures clearly convey a signal: Spring tea consumption is experiencing a quiet increase from offline to online, and online channels are becoming an important growth pole for the development of the traditional tea industry.
"Spring in the Live Broadcast Room: 2026 Douyin E-commerce Spring Tea Consumption Illustration"
In the past, people watched, tasted and bought tea offline; now, the live broadcast of tea culture content in the live broadcast room has turned spring tea into a perceptible spring experience. When the camera is focused on the place of origin, consumers can not only see the actual situation of the tea mountain, but also watch the manual frying process and listen to the tea master's explanation of tea culture. In the live broadcast room, consumers no longer just "buy tea", but also "see tea and understand tea", truly integrating into tea culture.
This change is particularly important for young people. For a long time, there seems to be an invisible gap between traditional tea culture and young people. In the perception of many young people, tea is "exclusive" for their elders and is often associated with complicated tea ceremony, esoteric culture and even some indescribable sense of distance, which makes them stay away from tea and tea culture.
In fact, it’s not that many young people don’t love tea, but they lack the knowledge to understand tea. Traditionally, tea sales have mainly relied on tea shops scattered in the streets, brand counters or recommendations from acquaintances. The learning cost for novices is high and the price system is complicated. Young people are easily confused and do not dare to test the waters easily. Live streaming e-commerce has significantly lowered this threshold. The popularization of tea knowledge, brewing teaching, origin traceability and other contents in the live broadcast room allow young people to "watch, learn and buy at the same time", achieving a natural integration between young people and tea.
The data confirms this trend. According to the "Illustrated Book", among new customers who buy spring tea for the first time, 36% are aged 18-30, which means that about one out of every three new customers of spring tea is a young person. Live e-commerce is becoming an important bridge for traditional spring tea to connect young groups, allowing traditional tea culture to rejuvenate among the younger generation.
"Spring in the Live Broadcast Room: 2026 Douyin E-commerce Spring Tea Consumption Illustration"
It should be noted that behind this change is not only the innovation of sales channels, but also the change of cultural inheritance methods. The difficulty in the living inheritance of traditional tea culture lies in how to let young people "enter" rather than "be educated". The traditional inheritance method focuses on ritual and seniority-based authority, which is too far away from the lifestyle of young people. Live streaming e-commerce has changed this one-way output and insufficiently grounded inheritance method. Live facts about the place of origin, dismantling of the tea-making process, and records of tea mountain life, these more vivid content forms make tea culture visible, tangible, and participatory. Tea culture is finally no longer a high-level professional knowledge, but has become a touchable daily life.
From an industrial perspective, this change has also brought more certain increments to merchants. In the past, spring tea production areas were far away from consumers, and there was asymmetric information between production and marketing. Live e-commerce shortens this distance with content. Tea farmers and tea companies can directly face consumers, display products, explain processes, and build trust. Consumers' decision-making costs are reduced, and the sales efficiency of production areas will naturally increase. This is an important advantage of live broadcast e-commerce that breaks the limitations of time and space.
It is worth noting that different brands have found their own ways of expression in the live broadcast room. Time-honored brands focus more on keeping integrity. They continue to present traditional tea-making techniques and the daily routine of craftsmen, building trust with visible craftsmanship; cutting-edge brands focus on the needs of young users. Innovative products such as small-portion tasting packs and tea powder meet the needs of young people for ready-to-drink, convenience and early adopters. Different categories of tea are on the same stage, jointly promoting the upgrade of spring tea consumption from a single category to a consumption trend that combines cultural temperament and lifestyle attributes.
From a more macro perspective, the rise of tea culture in live broadcast rooms means that traditional skills are not sealed in museums, but have gained new vitality in compliant and orderly business practices. When discussing the relationship between technology and industry, people of insight often say: "Technology without industrialization is equivalent to useless technology; without continuous technological innovation, there will be no long-term development of the industry." The relationship between live broadcast rooms and tea culture can also be inspired: the spread of traditional culture needs to be connected with contemporary life, and a sustainable path needs to be found in orderly market practice; in turn, the excavation and inheritance of cultural core also injects lasting power into industrial development. Live e-commerce has found a new living inheritance method for traditional tea culture. It uses craft demonstrations and knowledge explanations to bring tea culture into the lives of young people. Behind this is not only the migration of consumption scenes, but also the update of the logic of cultural communication.
Therefore, the empowerment of traditional tea culture by live streaming e-commerce goes far beyond the increase of sales channels. It is also an innovation in the way of expression, allowing traditional tea culture to find a new living space in the digital context, and further promoting the innovation and upgrading of the tea industry. When consumers, especially the new generation of young people, are willing to spend time in the live broadcast room to understand the ins and outs of a piece of tea, there will be more possibilities for the future of traditional tea culture.
It is worth emphasizing that in this upsurge of digital empowerment of traditional industries, industries and platforms need to maintain the bottom line of quality - from geographical indication protection to product quality traceability, from resisting false propaganda to maintaining price transparency. Only by putting consumer rights and interests first can this spring breeze of live broadcasting truly benefit tea farmers, nourish the industry, and make the inheritance of tea culture more stable and further.
From this perspective, the significance of live streaming e-commerce to tea culture has long gone beyond simply selling and bringing goods, and has become a carrier for traditional culture to reach contemporary young people. It breaks the age barrier and the distance of time and space, allowing old craftsmanship to be seen and traditional culture to be understood. It uses the simplest and most convenient way to help the creative transformation of traditional tea culture and continue to thrive. (Text/Jiang Heng)
China News Service, Beijing, April 10 (Reporter Zhang Ni) On the 10th, the "China Automobile Association Data" WeChat public account released the production and sales of the automobile industry in March. Data shows that from January to March 2026, 954,000 new energy vehicles were exported, a year-on-year increase of 1.2 times.
Data show that in March 2026, automobile production and sales completed 2.917 million units and 2.899 million units respectively, a month-on-month increase of 74.4% and 60.6% respectively, and a year-on-year decrease of 3% and 0.6% respectively.
From January to March, automobile production and sales completed 7.039 million units and 7.048 million units respectively, down 6.9% and 5.6% year-on-year respectively.
In the first quarter, automobile exports grew rapidly, and new energy vehicles performed brilliantly.
From January to March, automobile exports were 2.226 million units, a year-on-year increase of 56.7%. Among them, automobile exports in March were 875,000 units, a month-on-month increase of 30.2%, and a year-on-year increase of 72.7%. From January to March, the export of new energy vehicles was 954,000 units, a year-on-year increase of 1.2 times; the export of traditional fuel vehicles was 1.271 million units, a year-on-year increase of 29.9%.
According to analysis by the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers, after the Spring Festival, corporate production and operation activities accelerated and market activity increased. In March, automobile production and sales rebounded sharply month-on-month and declined slightly year-on-year, which was an improvement compared with the previous two months.
Among them, the domestic market has been relatively sluggish due to factors such as policy switching and adjustment, pre-release of demand, and a high base during the same period, showing a double-digit decline year-on-year; automobile exports have grown rapidly, and despite the challenges of external uncertainty, they still show strong resilience, and the competitiveness of Chinese brands continues to improve. (over)
China News Service, Beijing, April 2 (Reporter Xie Yiguan) After the Bank of Communications’ dividend announcement was written incorrectly, China Everbright Bank made another mistake in the data.
On the evening of April 1, China Everbright Bank issued an announcement on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, confirming the asset size of its branches. Judging from the data released in the announcement, China Everbright Bank has made changes to the data previously disclosed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange. The changed data is consistent with the 2025 annual report data released by the Shanghai Stock Exchange.
Screenshot of China Everbright Bank’s announcement.
Everbright Bank also stated in the correction announcement that the above corrections did not have any impact on other information published in the annual performance announcement. Except as disclosed in this announcement, all information and content published in the annual results announcement remain unchanged.
Since China Everbright Bank is listed on A+H shares, China Everbright Bank previously disclosed the "2025 Annual Report of China Everbright Bank Co., Ltd." and the "2025 Annual Performance Announcement" on the Shanghai Stock Exchange and the Hong Kong Stock Exchange respectively.
A China News reporter compared the two announcements and found that, except for a few branches such as Beijing Branch, Xi'an Branch, Sydney Branch, and Macau Branch, which had consistent data, the asset scale of 40 branches showed large discrepancies.
For example, in the "2025 Annual Report of China Everbright Bank Co., Ltd." of the Shanghai Stock Exchange, the asset scale of Tianjin Branch is 101.325 billion yuan; but in the "2025 Annual Results Announcement" of the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, Tianjin Branch The asset scale of the Tianjin Branch has become 59.836 billion yuan; the Shanghai Branch is even more outrageous. The asset scale announced in the two reports is 443.188 billion yuan and 39.54 billion yuan respectively, a difference of more than 10 times.
The left picture is a screenshot from the Shanghai Stock Exchange's "China Everbright Bank Co., Ltd. 2025 Annual Report", and the right picture is a screenshot from the Hong Kong Stock Exchange's "2025 Annual Results Announcement".
According to the annual report of China Everbright Bank, the 2025 financial report will be audited by KPMG Huazhen LLP (Special General Partnership) and KPMG LLP in accordance with the Chinese Auditing Standards for Certified Public Accountants and the International Auditing Standards respectively, and will issue standard unqualified audit reports.
The reporter noticed that as of the evening of April 2, the erroneous annual report from the Hong Kong Stock Exchange had not been removed.
Previously, the China Securities Regulatory Commission issued the "Information Disclosure and Preparation Rules No. 19 of Companies that Offer Securities to the Public - Correction of Financial Information and Related Disclosures" requiring that if there are errors in the financial information of the company's publicly disclosed periodic reports, and the board of directors decides to correct them, the corrected financial information and other information required to be disclosed by these regulations should be disclosed in a separate temporary report in a timely manner.
At the same time, the Hong Kong Stock Exchange stipulates that the issuer should request the Listing Division of the Hong Kong Stock Exchange in writing to cancel the published document, explain the reason for revising the document, and submit the revised version through ESS. The canceled document will still be published on the HKEX website, but HKEX will mark the document as "cancelled and reissued". When submitting a revised version through ESS, the issuer may add the words "revised" and "(Revised)" in the free text title bar.
It is worth mentioning that as of the evening of April 2, the Shanghai Stock Exchange had not issued a correction announcement simultaneously.
According to Article 6 of the "Shanghai Stock Exchange Self-Regulatory Guidelines for Listed Companies No. 2—Information Disclosure Management (Revised in March 2025)", information disclosed in overseas markets should be consistent with the content disclosed domestically. When major differences occur, listed companies and relevant information disclosure obligors shall explain to the Exchange and disclose corrections or supplementary announcements. (over)
China News Service, Beijing, April 10 (Reporter Wang Mengyao) For every 3 kilowatt hours of electricity used, there is 1 kilowatt hour of green electricity. China relies on its high proportion of green electricity applications and the unique structure of coal power generation to achieve stable power supply amid the turbulent international situation.
As tensions in the Middle East continued and shipping in the Strait of Hormuz was blocked, international energy prices rose collectively, with international oil prices once exceeding US$120 per barrel. Morgan Stanley said that the global liquefied natural gas (LNG) market is expected to have a supply gap of approximately 15 million tons (approximately 4%) in 2026. International Energy Agency officials say the escalating conflict in the Middle East is plunging the world into its worst energy crisis in decades.
"Any economy that relies heavily on imported LNG or oil for power production will face skyrocketing power prices and potential power shortages." Nomura China chief economist Lu Ting said that in the global energy crisis, China has a comparative advantage in power supply. China's power system is almost self-sufficient in primary energy sources, with almost no natural gas or oil used in the power generation process. It mainly relies on domestically mined coal and has sufficient spare capacity.
Official data shows that coal power has long played a "backbone" and "ballast" role in ensuring the safe and stable supply of electricity in China. Coal power accounts for less than 40% of the installed capacity, providing about 60% of the power generation.
According to data from the National Energy Administration of China, China's total primary energy production will reach 5.13 billion tons of standard coal in 2025, breaking through the 5 billion tons mark for the first time. The effectiveness of energy supply guarantee is the best year in the "14th Five-Year Plan". Data from the China Coal Industry Association shows that China's coal output will reach 4.83 billion tons in 2025, a year-on-year increase of 1.2%, setting a record high.
At the same time, the proportion of clean energy power generation such as wind power and photovoltaics continues to increase, further reducing dependence on single fossil energy. In 2025, China's large-scale industrial hydropower, nuclear power, wind power and solar power and other clean energy power generation were 3,421.3 billion kilowatt-hours, a year-on-year increase of 8.8%, accounting for 35.2% of the industrial power generation above designated size, an increase of 2.1 percentage points from the previous year.
Zou Ji, CEO of the Energy Foundation and President of China, said that China's energy structure is still dominated by coal, but the proportion of wind, solar, water, and nuclear in primary energy and their power generation capacity and power generation efficiency have become the main supporting factors for new energy sources.
Since the "14th Five-Year Plan", China has built the world's largest renewable energy system. In 2025, the country's new non-fossil energy power generation will account for 112.1% of the entire society's new electricity consumption, and renewable energy power generation will reach approximately 4.0 trillion kilowatt hours, exceeding the combined electricity consumption of the 27 EU countries (approximately 3.8 trillion kilowatt hours). Zheng Shanjie, director of China's National Development and Reform Commission, said that by the end of the 15th Five-Year Plan, most of China's new electricity demand will be met by new clean energy power generation.
Electricity is the "food" for economic development. Lu Ting said that China’s power system is both on the track of low-carbon transformation and has shown strong resilience to oil and natural gas price shocks. Its unique structure makes the manufacturing industry almost unaffected by the LNG and oil price fluctuations currently sweeping the global market. China's manufacturing industry, especially export companies, may gain greater comparative advantage in power supply. (over)
Approval|Black Jade Red
It seems like it’s been a long time since we’ve seen a film in which the real-life encounter between the protagonist and the actor is so intertextual.
In December 2025, the movie "Marty Supreme" will be released in North America. The film, which tells the story of the gambler-like life of Marty Mauser, an American table tennis player who relied on his talent and arrogance in the early 1950s, has received widespread praise and has a Rotten Tomatoes fresh rating of 97%. Timothée Chalamet, who plays Marty, received unanimous recognition for his performance.
In January 2026, the North American box office of "Marty Supreme" broke the previous record of "The Universe" (2022), also produced by the American independent film company A24. In early February, the film's global box office exceeded US$147 million, and subsequently became A24's highest box office with a global box office of US$180 million. Starring Timothy won the 83rd Golden Globe Award for Best Actor in a Musical/Comedy and the 31st American Critics' Choice Movie Award for Best Actor. "Marty" also swept a total of 9 Oscar nominations this year from technical to acting categories. He is also regarded as the most powerful contender for Best Actor at this Oscar.
At the end of February, Timothy, who seemed to be dazzled by the victory, said casually on a talk show that "opera and ballet are arts that no one cares about" and he did not want to engage in such work. Realizing that the trouble came from his mouth, he immediately tried to make amends, but to no avail. He was criticized on a large scale, and world-renowned theaters such as the Metropolitan Opera, the Royal Ballet, and the Los Angeles Opera, as well as a large number of ballet and opera singers, publicly criticized and boycotted him. Some theaters also mockingly use "Timothy" as a promotional code, which you can enter to get a discount when purchasing tickets.
In March, at the 98th Academy Awards, Timothy missed out on the Best Actor award. "Marty Extreme" scored "0 out of 9 nominations". As the film's producer and starring actor, he couldn't hide his disappointment. The Oscar's failure may have indirectly caused the film's box office failure in the mainland market. Despite Timothy's vigorous promotion in China, the film's box office in its first week was less than 3 million yuan, and the cumulative box office forecast as of press time was less than 4 million yuan.
Timothy's frivolous personality and experience of having tasted some sweetness with his talent, but was beaten by fame and fortune, are exactly the same as the Marty he played.
Marty is a dazed young man in a Jewish immigrant community, struggling all day long on the Lower East Side. He resists the worldly stability of being a shoe store manager planned by his uncle, and wants to use his table tennis talent to achieve a kind of success that will go down in history and be noticed by the world, where there will be champagne, luxury suites, and front-page headlines - this is exactly the kind of Upper East Side image that director Woody Allen created for Timothy in "A Rainy Day in New York."
With an outstanding performance, Timothy bid farewell to his previous literary and artistic image of "Sweet Tea" (this is the nickname given to him by Chinese audiences based on the pronunciation of his name and image and temperament), and found Josh Safdie, who has a very authorial image and style, as the director, and used table tennis player Marty Reisman. Reisman)’s experience and character’s spirit, and with a sleek and powerful new screen image, he customized this ambitious performance award-winning “Oscarbait” for himself.
Marty's thunderous speech in the film is no less controversial than Timothy's real-life remarks. Before the semifinals, he told reporters, "I am the ultimate product of Hitler's defeat." He also said before the finals against Japanese player Endo, "Tomorrow I will drop the third atomic bomb on their heads." But I don’t know if he was “guilty for his words.” Regardless of the so-called Academy Award wins, the judges of the Film Association wanted to use the result of no Oscars to teach him and this film a lesson.
This is exactly what the capitalist, pen and ink king Milton Rockwell does to Marty in the film.
After Marty lost to the Japanese player Endo in the London International Table Tennis Competition in 1952, Rockwell wanted to use match-fixing to hold a challenge match before the next international championship held in Japan, and arranged for Marty to lose to Endo again. It is intended to promote products in the Japanese market through the strategy of manipulating national emotions. Marty fiercely refused and attacked Rockwell's son who died in the Pacific War. "I find it funny that you want to please the Japanese so desperately and they kill your son." However, a series of chaotic events in the later period caused Marty to be unable to raise travel expenses to the World Championships in Japan, so he had no choice but to turn back. Finally, Rockwell asked Marty to take off his pants in front of everyone and hit him on the butt with a bat to humiliate and teach him a lesson, claiming that he was angry with his dead son.
Through the above carefully designed dangerous lines and character settings, "Supreme Marty" not only brilliantly demonstrates the subtle psychology and entanglements behind different positions, identities and ethnic groups after the end of World War II, but also vividly brings us back to the gap of an era and the life atmosphere where politics follows us like a ghost. Behind every action and choice, there is politics and position.
In 1952, the "San Francisco Compact" officially came into effect, and the occupation led by the U.S. Allied Forces ended. Japan regained its sovereignty and could re-participate in international affairs including sports events, so Endo appeared in international events in 1952. For Endo, a table tennis player from defeated Japan, and Japanese nationals, the court is a battlefield. After Endo defeated American player Marty, he was regarded as a national hero. The film shows this through a newsreel showing Endo being embraced after returning home from victory.
Entrepreneur Rockwell wanted to use Marty's failure to please the Japanese market. In his eyes, fascism targeted the Jews, but in the Pacific War, "my son died to liberate you." The Japanese and the Jews were respectively the direct and indirect causes of his son's death. Rockwell confuses the murder of Jews in the early days of fascism with the later Japanese-American War. This successful capitalist used the death of his son to package himself as a victim and a failed father. But in business, he was able to temporarily or selectively forget that his son died in the war with Japan, which shows the logic of capital that business overrides everything.
Marty, who lives in a Jewish community in the United States, has no "hatred of country and family" for the game like Endo. What he wants to achieve is the success of Vanity Fair, which is ancillary to winning the championship. He does not represent a group, only himself. In his own words, "I live in a community where it's every man for himself." Another Jewish table tennis player in the film, former world champion Kretzky, after Rockwell discovered the concentration camp number tattoo on his arm, told the story of how he narrowly escaped death in a concentration camp with his skills and how he covered his body with honey in the wild and returned to the concentration camp to be licked by his roommates to supplement nutrition. The contrast between the attitudes and behavior of the two Jewish players leaves nothing to be desired.
Kretzky's memories are presented through real-life photography. Although it may seem awkward, this was an intentional move by Josh Safdie, the film's director and co-writer. The film chose Géza Röhrig, star of the classic Nazi Holocaust film "Son of Saul", to play Kretzky. This time he no longer passively cleaned up the Jewish prisoners who had turned into corpses in the gas chambers, but took the initiative to save them.
Using restless images, tense rhythm, frequent scenes, fast editing and non-routine stories to express the disordered life of a morally flawed protagonist is what the directors Safdie Brothers are good at.
In 2025, the Safdie brothers stopped collaborating as a creative duo for the first time, and coincidentally both chose to shoot sports-character movies (brother Ben Safdie shot UFC legend Mark Cole, starring Dwayne Johnson). "Supreme Marty"'s grasp of the times and presentation of complex characters allowed the director to achieve new breakthroughs and meanings while continuing his personal characteristics and advantages. Therefore, "Supreme Marty" can surpass all his previous works and become the best of Josh Safdie's current career.
The films of the Safdie brothers have a distinct authorial attribute, and the core driving force of the characters in their lenses is a gambler's mentality. The protagonist who is full of complexity will always rationalize his gambling behavior in his actions, because what lies behind it is often the only glimmer of hope left after he has spent everything.
At the same time, in the gambling and struggle of life, the current situation of social life, which is mostly from the bottom, is also presented. In "Heaven Knows What," it's a drug-addicted girl's choice and wandering among dating partners. In "Good Time," it's a brother's desperate attempt to help his cognitively impaired brother escape from prison. In "Uncut," Gems) is about a drug-addicted diamond dealer who uses an opal that NBA players regard as having spiritual power to make a comeback in the casino. In "Marty Supreme", it is about the table tennis player who wants to win his future in a life that goes against his wishes.
Unlike the director's previous series of backfired O. Henry-esque endings, Josh Safdie has Marty win the game at the end, but his approach is still poignant. In order to make a comeback in the Japanese World Championships, Marty had to attend the exhibition match designed by Rockwell and lost to Endo again as agreed. When he learned on the spot that he had been disqualified from this year's tournament and was humiliatingly assigned to kiss a pig, he chose to reveal the truth about match-fixing on stage and challenge again. After experiencing the shock of the first failure and the humiliation of the second failure, this time he fought for himself.
The film arranges a wonderful paradox here. Victory will bring nothing to Marty. Rockwell warned that if he did this, not only would he not get paid, but he would not even be able to return to the United States on the plane he came from because he was penniless. So in this game, Marty no longer fights for the fame and fortune attached to success, but only fights for success itself. This kind of design also gives the characters a color of existential philosophy, making them more profound and vivid.
Marty, who returned to the United States on a US military withdrawal plane, saw his newborn child. He was filled with tears after refusing to acknowledge the child before. Will he embark on a new and stable life path this time? Is this path actually good or bad?
Marty achieved nothing but success after failure in previous competitions and life. "Marty" failed to win an Oscar after winning awards with a bright future. Between the two intertextualities, we cannot measure the excellence and success of a film solely by the Oscar, because treating the Oscar as the ultimate victory is as ironic as the stories Safdie wants to tell us in his film.
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