Lili Alone [朵丽] 2021

Excellent short movie by director Zou Jing. . It got the Critics Week Short Film Discovery Award at Cannes. Lili [Huang Lili] lives with her gambler husband and child in a village in rural Sichuan. Her father needs an operation but she has no money and her husband refuses to take responsibility for her father…

Knock Knock [不速来客] (2021)

Knock Knock (Unexpected Visitors in Chinese which makes more sense) is (yet) another 'cock and bull story' - a black comedy crime caper - albeit one of the better of this sub-genre. The film opens as petty thief Lao Li [Fan Wei] is going through an empty apartment in a run down residential block. A…

Wu Hai [乌海] (2020)

Set in and around Wuhai city (Inner Mongolia or Nèi Měnggu) , this film focuses on businessman Yang Hua [Huang Xuan] who in serious financial difficulties after the collapse of his dinosaur park. His friend Lu Yu [Wang Shaohua] has borrowed his remaining money to invest in his own venture - a bizarre glamping resort…

Wild Grass [荞麦疯长] (2020)

Based on the publicity materials (below) and the Chinese title, one might assume that this is a romantic drama involving the three leads. In fact, it is three separate stories which are poorly linked together. The first (and best) story involves Yun Qiao [Ma Sichun] who lives in a small town and dreams of moving…

Contemporary Murmurings of China’s New Ethnic Minorities – An Online Film Exhibition

The Chinese Independent Film Archive (CIFA) is currently running an online exhibition of short films by ethnic minority film-makers including Mongolian, Tibetan and Uyghur directors. In total there are seven films ranging from 10 to 38 minutes, mainly features but including some documentaries. These cover a wide range of styles and topics and certainly provide…

Xie Fei: A Retrospective

Asian Pop-Up Cinema has recently organised a retrospective of the works of Xei Fei, one of the most interesting Chinese directors of the 1980s and 90s (a member of the so-called Fourth Generation). Born in 1942, Xie grdauated from the Beijing Film Academy in 1965 - more or less exactly the wrong time from a…

The Pavilion [八角亭谜雾] (2021)

This is the latest in iQiyi's Light On series after a considerable break in 2021 and well worth watching. The production team deserve credit for putting together an interesting line up. Wang Xiaoshuai is credited as chief director (with TV drama director Hua Qing) while Duan Yihong and Hao Lei are amongst the actors. Wang…

Dead & Beautiful [诡祭] (2021)

A modern vampire tale which quickly degenerates into Crazy Rich Vampires. Opening in a neon-lit Taipei, this film - written and directed by David Verbeek - focuses on five young men and women, the scions of (very) wealthy families. To describe them as obnoxious and shallow would be overly generous. Bored by being so rich,…

Fish’s Tears [鱼不在水里] (2009)

Fish's Tears (Fish out of Water is the original Chinese title) is an unusual art house movie but not one that lives up to its pretensions (or pretentiousness). Di Feng [Fan Shanghong] is a freelance photographer (and would-be detective) who is hired by a mysterious woman to take photos of her husband with another woman.…

The Skin [夺皮] (2020)

An online horror film (on iQiyi) which does not deliver on its ambitions. The film opens with model Zhong Tonghui's [An Ran] memories of her mother as a young child and the mother's suicide. Back in the present, Tomghui receives an invitation to her aunt's funeral (in fact the aunt is a friend of her…