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