Purple Butterfly [紫蝴蝶] (2003)

After two undistinguished opening films and then the great critical success of Suzhou River, Lou Ye got to make a much bigger budget movie with big stars including Zhang Ziyi. A story of cross and double-cross in Republican China, the film opens in the north east (already under partial Japanese occupation) in 1928. Student Ding Hui…

Suzhou River [苏州河] (2000)

A brilliant film of betrayal and duplicity (both in its usual sense and in the old sense of 'the state of being double') written and directed by Lou Ye. The unseen narrator, a video-cameraman, meets mermaid Meimei [Zhou Xun] (OK she performs in a mermaid costume in a bar, the Happy Tavern) and they fall…

The Day the Sun turned Cold [天国逆子] (1994)

An unusual tale of love and murder in the freezing north east. In 1990, Guan Jing [Yu Zonghua], 24 year old worker in a large factory, reports his mother, Pu Fengying [Siqin Gowa], to the police for having murdered his father 10 years earlier. The film flashes back to Guan's harsh upbringing. His father, Guan…

The Missing Gun [寻枪] (2002)

Directed by Lu Chuan, this film is set in a small town in Guizhou province (southwest China) where Ma Shan [Jiang Wen] is a local policeman. He gets blind drunk at his sister's wedding and wakes up the next day to find his gun is missing (not lost, as he insists). With no memory of…

Waiting Alone [独自等待] (2004)

Beijing, early 2000s. Chen Wen [Xia Yu of In the Heat of the Sun] is the co-owner of a small bric-a-brac shop and an (unpublished) horror writer. He hangs out with his (male) friends including his partner Liang [Gao Yalin]. But his real interest is would-be girlfriend and budding TV actress Liu Rong [Li Bingbing].…

The Equation of Love and Death [李米的猜想] (2008)

A typically convoluted plot from director Cao Baoping (Cock and Bull). Li Mi [Zhou Xun] is a taxi driver in Kunming.  Her boyfriend, Fang Wen [Deng Chao] disappeared four years ago but she still receives letters from him. She recites a series of numbers to herself and her passengers trying to figure out the reason…

Lost, Indulgence [秘岸] (2008)

Lost, Indulgence is an interesting but ultimately less than fully successful film from director Zhang Yibai (Spring Subway). Taxi driver Wu Tao (Eric Tsang though he barely appears in the film) crashes into the Yangstse river in Chongqing. He disappears, presumed dead, but his passenger, nightclub girl Su Dan [Karen Mok] breaks a leg very…

So Much Rice [好多大米] (2005)

So Much Rice (written and directed by Li Hongqi, Winter Vacation) is independent cinema at its most deadpan. Its apparently an exercise in 'anti-narrative'. Mr. Mao [Han Dong] runs away from his girlfriend while playing a game of hide and seek and goes to stay with his friend Xiao He [Zhang Yaodong] in order 'to…

The Banquet [夜宴] (2006)

The Banquet is a stunning looking film by Feng Xiaogeng, a very loose adaptation of Hamlet. In this version, set around 900, the Emperor has married Wan [Zhang Ziyi] who was in love with the Hamlet figure, Prince Wuluan [Daniel Wu]. Wuluan is sent away to follow his artistic instincts. But when the Emperor's brother…

Memory of Love [重来] (2009)

Memory of Love opens as surgeon Li Xun [Li Naiwen] and his wife He Sizhu [Yan Bingyan] attend a party at which his colleague Qian Cheng [Wang Jianing] announces his engagement to girlfriend LiLi [Wang Chuan]. The following day, two people seriously injured in a car crash arrive in Li's hospital. They turn out to…