Chinese Movies:
Blind Shaft (Chinese with French subtitles) In the dark caves of one of the many illegal Chinese coal mines, Song and Tang murder a co-worker whom they have convinced to pose as Tang's brother. By forcing the mine's collapse upon their deceased colleague, and thereby making his death seem accidental, Tang and Song use their colleague's death to extort money from the mine's management. Pressured to cover up an accident which they believe to be the result of improper working conditions, the mine's owners give in to the two workers' blackmailing. After leaving with their hush money, Tang and Song hit a nearby town and soon come upon another potential "relative," this time an innocent 16-year-old boy named Yuan Fengming who has been forced to quit school due to his father's disappear- ance. Tang agrees to help Yuan find a job at a coal mine, but only under one condition - he must agree to pretend to be Song's nephew. As Tang and Song befriend their new victim, the boy's simplicity and naiveté gradually alter the partners' relationship. And at the last minute, the two men's scheme takes an unexpected turn. |
Green Tea (Mandarin with Traditional Chinese, Simple Chinese, and English subtitles) This is an urban love story based on a short novel named "Adiliya by the River" by Jin Renshun. Wu Fang is a university student who enjoys blind dates. During each date, she orders a cup of green tea and tells the story about another close friend named Langlang. Wu Fang and Langlang believe that green tea can forecast a person’s love. Chen Ming-liang falls in love with Wu Fang. But later he meets Langlang, a piano player in the bar, who has the same face of Wu Fang but with a completely different personality. That makes Chen fell into great confusion. Wu Fang and Langlang, what is the relation between them and who does Chen really love the most? http://www.kfccinema.com/reviews/drama/greentea/greentea.html |
The King of Masks (Mandarin with Chinese and English subtitles) The time is the 1930s, a period of political turmoil in the Sichuan province of China. Wang,the King of Masks (Zhu Xu), is an elderly street performer, the last of his line, without an heir. Tradition demands that he pass down the secrets of his art - but only to a son or grandson. This is a period in Chinese history when daughters can be sold or given away but sons are valued highly. Therefore the old man is amazed to encounter an eight year old boy being offered for sale by his penniless father. Desperate for a male heir, Wang buys the child. He and little Doggie (Zhou Ren-ying) hit it off, even after he discovers Doggie is really a girl! Then Doggie makes a terrible miscalculation in her attempt to provide him with the grandson he so desires. The King of Masks is put in jail and awaits execution … |
Peacock (Kong Que) (Chinese with English subtitles) The story is set in the 1970s in a small town in China. A middle aged couple has three children. The eldest son is obese and mentally challenged, therefore he is teased and outcast by others. The second child is an outgoing and energetic daughter, who is not afraid of doing anything to pursue her dreams or to survive. The youngest child is a shy and quiet boy who is ashamed of his older brother and tries to break away from the misery in his family. Breaking into three sections focusing on each of these siblings, the film allows us to look into the lives of ordinary Chinese people in the 70s. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0445506/plotsummary Summary written by YNOTswim |
Riding Alone for Thousands of Miles (Chinese with English subtitles) Takada, a Japanese fisherman has been estranged from his son for many years, but when the son is diagnosed with terminal cancer his daughter-in-law, Rie, summons him to the hospital. When his son refuses to see him, Rie gives him a videotape about the work his son was doing on a documentary film in a remote region of China's Yunnan province. Still troubled by the relationship, Takada decides to complete his son's work in part to develop an understanding of his son, and in part to do something for him. Once in China a series of obstacles and relationships bring him unexpectedly closer to both an understanding of himself and of his son. Summary written by docraven |
Sunflower (Chinese with English subtitles) It is 1976 and the death of Chairman Mao has brought an end to the tyranny of the Gang of Four. The painter Gengnian has spent years in a labour camp where his hands were permanently damaged. He returns home to his beloved wife Xiuqing and to his nine-year-old son Xiangyang, who, besides not recognizing him, is also deeply disturbed by the imposition of this new presence in his life. Refusing to acknowledge his clearly burgeoning talent in painting, Xiangyang lets a firecracker blow up in his hand – a desperate attempt to mirror his father’s injury and shatter Gengnian’s dreams for his son’s artistic career. Decades go by in a whirlwind of events that produce a new China oblivious to its past and traditions. Ironically, Xiangyang has become a renowned painter yet still has a difficult relationship with his father. Mature and luminous, Sunflower weaves subtle psychological insight into a rich narrative texture. Destined to lodge in the viewer’s memory as a brilliantly focused family snapshot, the film glows with an interior light that seems to settle like a sunbeam – shining with particles of memory – over visions of a China forever lost in the frenzy of modernization. - Giovanna Fulvi http://www.e.bell.ca/filmfest/2005/films_description.asp?id=269 |
Suzhou River (Mandarin with Traditional Chinese, Simple Chinese, and English subtitles) A lonely videographer living near the Suzhou River falls in love with Meimei, a performer at a night club, who is used to disappearing for days and then showing up again without a word. Mardar tells a strange story about kidnapping his girlfriend Mudan who was later so heart-broken that she jumped into the Suzhou River. Mardar is convinced not only that Mudan is still alive, but that Meimei is in fact Mudan.
|
Spring Subway (Mandarin with Traditional Chinese, Simple Chinese, and English subtitles) A twenty-something couple get lost in the doldrums of a seven-year-old marriage that seems to be coming apart for no particular reason. While the wife, Xiaohui, is drawn toward an affair with a customer, her husband Jianbin, who just lost his job, maintains the pretence of going to work by riding the Beijing subway all day. There, he observes a clutch of fellow passengers in the process of tentatively falling in love. The film jumps among these different romances he eavesdrops on: a garrulously jovial pudgy baker woos the equally voluble saleswoman of his dreams; and a curiously shy slacker gropes furtively in the overhead straps with a young commuter. Extra-marital peril looms when Jianbin finds himself drawn to an injured schoolteacher, whom he gently, though anonymously cares for as she recovers in hospital. |
20, 30, 40 (Chinese with English and Chinese subtitles) The lives of three disparate modern women get a refreshing once-over in 20 : 30 : 40, a romantic-drama-comedy from director Sylvia Chang. The three women never actually meet, although their paths do cross on occasion. Xiao Jie, a twentysomething Malaysian girl journeys to Taiwan with the promise of becoming a possible idol singer. Her producer pairs her with a Hong Kong girl with the hope that they'll be a twin sister pop duo, but the going is tough. Meanwhile, the girls become fast friends, but their interaction carries with it possible romantic implications. Thirtysomething year-old flight attendant Xiang has her own romantic issues: liasons with both a married dentist and a possessive music producer. Xiang keeps both men on strings, neither committing to nor fully cutting ties with either. Finally, Lily is the fortysomething married owner of a florist shop. However, when subbing for irresponsible employees, she makes a floral delivery and discovers that her husband has a second family! Driven to divorce, she heads back into the singles scene in a bold, and somewhat comic fashion.
|
Eat, Drink, Man, Woman (Mandarin with English, French, and Spanish subtitles) Senior Master Chef Chu lives in a large house in Taipei with his three unmarried daughters, Jia-Jen, a chemistry teacher converted to Christianity, Jia-Chien, an airline executive, and Jia-Ning, a student who also works in a fast food restaurant. Life in the house revolves around the ritual of an elaborate dinner each Sunday, and the love lives of all the family members. www.amazon.com |
Farewell My Concubine (Chinese with English subtitles) This movie intertwines two parallel stories. It is the story of two performers in the Beijing Opera, stage brothers, and the woman who comes between them. At the same time, it attempts to do no less than squeeze the entire political history of China in the twentieth century into a three-hour time-frame. www.amazon.com
|
Hero (Chinese, English, and French audio tracks; English and Spanish subtitles) In ancient China, before the reign of the first emperor, warring factions throughout the Six Kingdoms plot to assassinate the most powerful ruler, Qin. When a minor official defeats Qin's three principal enemies, he is summoned to the palace to tell Qin the story of his surprising victory. |
Blood Brothers (Chinese with English and Chinese subtitles)
Three close friends, poor fishermen from a small village on the outskirts of Shanghai, decide to move to the big city in search of new opportunities. Once in Shanghai, they are tempted by riches they once could only imagine, but they never expected to become involved with the criminal underworld. |
The Blue Kite (Cantonese with English subtitles) Banned in China, where the director was under close government scrutiny for making the film "without permission," "The Blue Kite" is the most acclaimed and controversial of all of the films to come out of the new Chinese cinema. Told from the perspective of a young boy, Tietou, it traces the fate of a Beijing family and their neighbors as they experience the political and social upheavals in 1950's and 60's China. The blue kite, given to Tietou by his father, is a symbol of hope and freedom, which he later passes on to the next generation. |
Endless Way (In Chinese, with English subtitles)
This film is a visual poem, just simply beautiful. The story quietly tells the hardships of bringing precious drinking water to a Hunan mountain village. All the villagers---men AND women, have to help, carrying the heavy water through a narrow, rocky pass to this mountain village. The main characters are Ah-ming and A-Shui, they love each other but Ah-ming is forced into an arranged marriage. Ah-ming's wife eventually leaves,and Ah-shui is forced to go the city for a while to find work. The story is told from the point of view of a visitor involved in a difficult dam project to help the village. This film won: |
Going to School with Dad on my Back (Mandarin with English subtitles) Based on a true story, this film portrays the difficulties many children from poor families in rural areas in China have to complete a meaningful education. The father of a poor family can only afford for one of his two children to go to school. The son is chosen, but even getting to school is dangerous, as he has to cross a river to get there. |
Raise the Red Lantern (Mandarin with English subtitles) Zhang Yimou (Ju Dou) directed this fascinating, visually formal 1991 film about an educated woman (Gong Li) who is sent off to become the newest wife of a feudal nobleman in 1920s China. Nearly isolated in his spooky, palatial home, she develops relationships with several of the other wives and slowly becomes aware of a hideous legacy of punishment toward more willful women. The film has a brittle and dry quality that is deliberate, but also suggestive of Zhang working through various explorations of his own style (which he resolved in his next film, The Story of Qiu Ju). Gong Li, one of the world's great actresses, is superb. --Tom Keogh |
The Road Home (Mandarin with English subtitles) A young man returns to his native village after the death of his father, the village's schoolteacher, who died while trying to raise money for a new schoolhouse. His body is in a neighboring town; the young man's mother insists that it be brought back on foot, lest his spirit not find his way home. From this starting point, the young man recounts the tale of his parents' courtship, which involved a red banner, mushroom dumplings, a colorful barrette, and a broken bowl. The Road Home is beautifully filmed, particularly the luminous face of Zhang Ziyi (from Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon), whose performance is a heartrending portrait of hope and yearning. A simple but deeply emotional film. --Bret Fetzer |
Shower (Mandarin with English subtitles) Many Chinese movies understandably focus on the tragic era of the Cultural Revolution. This movie, on the contrary, presents us with the dark side of the "new" China. A man takes a shower in an efficient public shower, which looks like a mix between a porto-potty and a robo car-wash. It gets the job done in a short amount of time so that the user can get on with his life. We then meet the Yuppie businessman behind the efficient shower who is presently returning to his hometown because he believes his father is dead. As it turns out, his father is not dead. His son’s arrival creates a juxtaposition of two worlds. The father runs a public bathouse, which unlike his son’s efficient shower, serves as a social center where people bond and problems get resolved. Alas, a modernization plan calls for the bathhouse to be torn down... |
The Story of Qiu Ju (Cantonese with English subtitles) This humorous fable of justice traverses the north of China. The kick is never shown, but the entire film is based around it. It's winter in the remote Shaanxi province. Pregnant Qiu Ju is married to laidback farmer Qinglai. When village chief Wang kicks him during an argument, she sets out to ensure that her husband receives medical attention--and an apology --which remains as elusive as a dragonfly in December. Defying all stereotypes of the passive Chinese woman she remains unbowed by the frustrations of bureaucracy in her quixotic search for dignity. |
To Live (Chinese with English subtitles) One of the best films of 1994, To Live is a bold, energetic masterpiece from Zhang Yimou. Continuing his brilliant collaboration with China's best-known actress Gong Li (Raise the Red Lantern), Zhang weaves an ambitious tapestry of personal and political events, following the struggles of an impoverished husband and wife from their heyday in the 1940s to the hardships that accompanied the Cultural Revolution in the 1960s. They raise two children amidst a Communist regime, surviving numerous setbacks and yet manage, somehow, to live. Both intimate and epic, Zhang's film encompasses the simplest and most profound realities of Chinese life during this controver- sial period, and for their honesty, Zhang and Gong Li faced a two- year ban on future collaborations. To Live is a testament to their art, transcending politics to celebrate the tenacity of ordinary people in the wake of turbulent history. --Jeff Shannon |
