Reviews of Chinese films
Far East Film Festival 2021 After going entirely online in 2020, FEFF is back in hybrid form in 2021. It has not been greatly helped by Chinese film distributors. Last year there were only 4 mainland features and this year only 7 (of which Cliff Walkers is only available off-line). Like Father and Son is… Continue reading Like Father and Son [拨浪鼓咚咚响] (2020)
This post continues the reviews of short films on Xinpianchang (in the category Drama short films). The films reviewed here focus more on relationships than the social issues raised in some of the initial films reviewed. All have English subtitles. In Summer Will Never Fade [没有人跳舞的城市] (2018), student Xiaohe (left above) is being bullied at… Continue reading More Xinpianchang shorts
As we have seen in a number of recent posts, Chinese shorts are often more interesting and imaginative than full-length movies, perhaps because they are less pressured by the twin constraints of money and censorship. This post covers a number of recent short films (15-30 minutes) on the Chinese online platform xinpianchang.com (in the Drama… Continue reading Short drama films on Xinpianchang
A comic take on gender discrimination in the workplace, this longish (40 minutes) short movie is much more successful than some mainstream movies which have broached the subject such as The Truth about Beauty. Advertising company director An Jian [Wang Jinxin] is representative of the gender discrimination which many Chinese women face at work. He… Continue reading A Different Man [不一樣的他] (2020)
Cliff Walkers (aka Impasse) is Zhang Yimou's latest release. A spy thriller set in 1930s Manchuria, it's low on both suspense and thrills. Four Soviet-trained Chinese agents are dropped into Japanese-occupied Manchuria in the 1930s to rescue a witness who can testify to Japan's crimes against humanity in the region. (A museum located in the… Continue reading Cliff Walkers [悬崖之上] (2021)
The Tour, directed by Tsai Yuhan (born in Taiwan and moved to the mainland in the early 2000s), tells the story of Juan [Huang Jiefei] and her daughter Li Qing [Bai Xiaoying] who travel from Taiwan to Dongguan, Guangdong province, in search of her husband who is a factory manager. But they discover that he… Continue reading Three short films about life: The Tour [私家車](2018); The Story of Bin [小斌] (2018) and The Pregnant Ground [怀孕的大地] (2019)
A film about a young girl's experience of seven days in the 1990s. The film set in a very rural part of central China (presumably Chongqing where the director is from) looks at events over seven days in 1992 mainly from the perspective of 12 year-old Xiaoxian [Ge Wendan]. It is one of the best… Continue reading Mama [妈妈和七天的时间] (2020)
This is the directorial debut of screenwriter Yuan Yuan (袁媛) who wrote, amongst other films, Go Away Mr Tumour. Xiao Yu [Papi Jiang aka Jiang Yilei] is a 27 year old aspirant screenwriter who moved to Beijing when she was 18 and has now lived in nine different apartments. Her roommate moves out to live… Continue reading Tomorrow will be Fine [明天会好的] (2021)
Ignore the irrelevant title (see below), this low-budget on-line movie, directed by An Sufan, shows considerable promise. A better title would be A Cruel Story of Chinese Youth. The film opens as a young man chases and attacks a young woman on a deserted mountain trail. Because they are both descending a steep incline, the… Continue reading 少女的私房逆吻 [The Girls with their Inverse Kiss] (2016)
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