Beijing International Film Festival 2021 – BJIFF TALENTS for Young Filmmakers

BJIFF TALENTS (part of the recent 11th Beijing International Film Festival) is a Chinese language short film training program for young filmmakers helping them go from screenwriting to film-making. The program paired senior producers with young filmmakers. Five young directors: Chen Linpeng, Chen Yujia, Huang Xiaopeng, Maierhaba Yisilayin and Zhou Jinghao, were selected.  In the…

The Possessed [中邪] (2016)

Quite a decent little horror movie - especially given the difficulties in making horror in the PRC. The film opens as a documentary with college students Ding Xin [Dong Tianwen] and Lu Meng aka Mengmeng [He Jia] making a documentary about 'fortunetellers' in rural China (shot in Shandong province). Then they come across Aunt Wang…

Taipei Suicide Story [安眠旅舍] (2020) and other Taiwanese shorts

We see a couple entering a hotel. The next morning, several bodies are being removed and the cleaning staff are routinely cleaning the rooms. The head of the cleaning team complains bitterly about the mess left by suicide by charcoal burning but the desk manager Zhi-Hao [Tender Huang] points out that the hotel can hardly…

The Old Town Girls [兔子暴力] (2020)

Initially shown at the Tokyo International Film Festival in late 2020 but only recently released in Chinese cinemas (August 2021), this is an interesting, if not totally coherent, drama from debut director Shen Yu. Set in 2018, the film opens with three parents reacting in panic after they receive a call to say that their…

Invisible Alien [太空群落] (2021)

A stunningly original online scifi film. Since 2019's hit Wandering Earth, there has been an increase (albeit from a very low base) in the number of Chinese scifi movies, including a number of online films (such as Mutation on Mars (2021)). Invisible Alien is a standout amongst these movies. Despite being made on a (presumably)…

Yesterday’s Wine [与往事干杯] (1995)

Xia Gang (born 1953) is one of the more interesting but underrated directors of the 1980s who continues to work today having directed over 20 films. Chronologically he forms part of the Fifth Generation, graduating from the BFA in the early 1980s. But his contemporary urban films did not fit with the generally rural and…

Le Festival Allers-Retours Cinéma d’auteur chinois

The Paris-based Allers-Retours Festival returns for its fourth edition from 17 September to 1 October 2021. Its has an interesting line-up of 17 films - unfortunately only available offline. The festival aims to to promote contemporary Chinese cinema in France in its diversity of styles and tones. It includes both shorts and full-length features, documentaries,…

Dianyingblog Festival of New Chinese Film

Having just watched the excellent JAPAN CUTS: Festival of New Japanese Film 2021, and bemoaning the lack of a similar online Chinese event, I decided to create my own (imaginary) festival. I have selected below 9 recent feature films (released since January 2020, i.e. during COVID, though some may have had a festival showing in…

Bipolar [只是一次偶然的旅行] (2021)

This film involves a rather more metaphysical journey than our last review though Tibet is again invoked. A wealthy young womana {Dou Jingtong aka popstar Leah Dou, daughter of Faye Wong] arrives in Lhasa and books into a luxury suite at an expensive hotel. The hotel has a rare lobster which is supposed to bring…