Last letter [你好，之华]

Released: 2018   Viewed: July 2019 The film (Hello, Zhihua in Chinese) opens with the funeral of Yuan Zhinan who (we discover later) committed suicide. In attendance are her younger sister Zhihua [Zhou Xun], Zhinan’s children Mumu [Deng Enxi] and Chenchen and Zhihua’s daughter Saran [Zhang Zifeng]. After the funeral, Chenchen goes to stay with Zhihua…

Free and Easy [轻松+愉快]

Released: 2016  Viewed: July 2019 Free and Easy is an absurdist comedy-tragedy which is ultimately not very funny and whose characters are not interesting enough to be tragic. Zhang Zhiyong [Zhang Zhiyong] is a soap salesman wandering around a wintry, desolate post-industrial village (set around Hegang in northeastern Heilongjiang province). He offers soap samples to…

The Young Play Games, the Old Play Tai Chi [青年人打游戏，老年人打太极]

Released: 2012  Viewed July 2019 Yang [Sheep to his friends] is a 31 year old loser. He lives with his parents in a room which looks like a garbage dump and does nothing all day but drink, watch Japanese porn (which he buys from an illicit street vendor with a bad leg) and hang out…

Mystery [浮城謎事]

Released: 2012  Viewed: July 2019 Mystery begins with a bang. Two cars are racing recklessly though a torrential downpour (shot in the sprawling metropolis of Wuhan which straddles the Yangsze river). Suddenly a woman appears in front of them and one crashes into her. The driver, Jiaming, appears more concerned about the disruption to his day…

Crossing the Border- Zhaoguan [过昭关]

Released: 2018 (commercially 2019). Viewed: July 2019 Crossing the Border is a small drama about age and youth - life and death, dedicated to director Huo Meng‘s own grandfather. Li Fuchang [an excellent Yang Taiyi] is a 77 year old grandfather living alone in a house with a leaky roof in rural Henan province (central China).…