Amazo Chinese Films

Lost in Beijing is banned in China and its filmmakers are banned for two years from making films in China. What kind of nonsensical time-out is that? I want more of them to fall through the cracks and make films like Lost in Beijing--which is nothing like Farewell My Hero's Kingdom of Flying Yellow Flowers.

sitenoise at the movies: Lost In Beijing

I smiled from ear to ear watching this movie from the time sensitive boy was introduced until the very end. This is an exceptionally well done film.

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sitenoise at the movies: Blue Gate Crossing (Lan se da men) (2002)

A thoroughly engaging film on the surface. The creative camera angles, the mostly gray/green color palette accentuating a sense of disease or decay, the original music and sound design, and the beauty of the actors add up to a sensuous ninety minute delight.

Charlene Choi is magnificent as the schizophrenic, sad and lonely Winnie.

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sitenoise at the movies: Diary (Mon seung)

Director Yibai Zhang's got a real knack for capturing a city on film. His previous work "Longest Night in Shanghai" showed the glamour of that city at night. This one captures the gray industrialism of Chongqing. There's a mystery brewing beneath this slice of life low-key indie that's never fully explained, only suggested. Solid performances from Karen Mok's beautiful legs and especially Wenli Jiang. It's great to see mature independent minded stuff like this coming from the mainland.

sitenoise at the movies: Lost, Indulgence (Mi Guo) (2008) China

Blind Mountain is an essay on the collision of traditional and contemporary culture. It's not pedantic, nor is it belittling to the realities of the culture at its source, but it's hard not to see it that way, especially through twentieth-century, western eyes. The film does a remarkable job of showing that it's not a matter of simply enforcing contemporary law. It's much deeper and difficult than that.

We can talk all day long about the genius or pretension of director Hsiao-hsien Hou, and the magnificent cinematography of Pin Bing Lee, the soothing chill-room techno soundtrack, but in the end this is a Shu Qi vehicle and the film rests on her shoulders. If you like her, you'll like the film. If you don't, you probably won't. There's no plot. We just follow her around for a couple hours. I think she does a great job.

No surprise to learn director Xiaoshuai Wang studied painting before becoming a director. This is a marvelously composed film. The screenplay is brutal sharp with one large unnecessary gimmick toward the end. I'm glad this theme was done art-house and not commercial melodrama, which it could easily be. The four main performers are solid and compelling, with lots of shots of faces on bodies doing nothing but carrying burden within. And they all pull it off.

Baby Gong and Bingbing Li ... if that's not enough, this is a surprisingly good contemporary love story from the mainland. It's hip like we don't usually see from there. Director Dayyan Eng is the first foreigner in the history of the Chinese academy awards to have a film nominated for Best Picture. The story is a familiar one: boy wants girl (Li) out of reach while his best friend (Gong) secretly wants him, but it's played well and Baby Gong is especially worth checking out.

This is a beautiful film, a colorful love poem to, about, and starring, Chinese actress Zhao Wei. The woman is photographed so adoringly it's almost creepy. She plays two different and distinct roles in the film: a bespectacled graduate student and a sultry piano lounge singer--so librarian fetishists and jazzy drunks alike can fantasize out loud. The funny part, though, is that we're supposed to play along with the notion that donning a pair of bookish glasses suddenly makes Zhao one of those women "who become attractive over time", ya know, ugly. Yeah, right.

sitenoise at the movies: Green Tea (Lü cha) [2003]

"Because it is only when we make love that you understand that I'm gentle."

That's all the character development I need. This is an ambitious film about the stalled maturation of an idealistic but troubled young woman flanked by the Tiananmen Square protests, the collapse of the Berlin Wall, and the handover of Hong Kong to mainland China. The direction is a little chaotic but it reflects the nature of the film. The soundtrack is impeccably chosen and the film is ultimately very sad. I was glued to this 140 minute masterpiece.

More: sitenoise at the movies: Summer Palace

This is the best plotless film where nothing happens I've ever seen. The film focuses on three characters, their loss and loneliness. If there is a story arc it's that each of them finally reaches out to make a connection, a sexual connection, with varying degrees of success. Throughout the film we simply observe them doing, well ... not much of anything, but practically every scene is cut so that you wish you could stay with it for at least a moment longer, to be with that person in that situation for just a bit more time. You can't make a film like this without masterful execution of the crafts of acting, cinematography, and direction. Check, check, and check. I was stunned by this film ... even without considering its symbolisms and allegories.

Somehow, thirteen year old Wei Minzhi, who appears unable to act her way out of a paper bag turns in the performance of a lifetime. Blushing, awkward body language, a drifting gaze, and an pre-adolescent thespian's grasp of dialog pacing, filmed docu-realistically, come together to create the most endearing character I've seen in a long time. The film employs nonprofessional actors throughout, mostly children, to amazing effect. It's painful to think that this film portrays a reality of rural China so the story all by itself will probably make you cry. Seeing the story presented by a cast of real people makes it all the more powerful. The stubborn persistence of Wei's character, at first unrealistic, becomes poetic and inspiring. The ending might seem a little contrived but if ever there was a story that deserved a happy ending it's this one. A remarkable film.

This is a wonderfully surreal 90 minutes spent with interesting characters involved in interesting situations, not so much story wise but in each of the set-pieces on display. It's an experimental film using it's own internal logic telling its story in non-linear fashion but it's easy to follow because it's engaging. One of the reasons Chinese independent films can be so good is that the directors of many of them, like this one, are able to employ top tier actors. Zhou Xun is one of mainland China's best contemporary actresses and Xia Yu is no slouch. He's the captain of goofy suave. The film hops around space and time, sometimes during a single conversation and one of the most remarkable features of this production is the sound design. It remains a constant through all the jumping around making it easy to hang on to the roller-coastering ride. Very well done film.

Maybe the color palette confines itself to a too small range of gray but it is effective. Maybe a few scenes are overly dramatized for effect but I can hardly imagine anything comparing to the real events that transpired. This isn't a documentary and it's not a perfect film but it is an incredibly moving one. There was a bit of an uproar in China over this film claiming it did not demonize the Japanese enough. A member of the Politburo intervened on behalf of the film to keep it in theaters. There's that to chew on. I honestly can't separate recommending the film from recommending being aware of this ugly bit of history. You could just read a wikipedia entry on the Rape of Nanjing but you could also just watch Dr. Phil or Oprah instead of ever going to the movies. It's about like that.