Echo [回响] (2023)

Echo is the latest in the iQiyi Light On series of crime dramas following closely on the release of the brilliant Why Try to Change Me Now? (aka Moses on the Plain). It involves 13 episodes of 40-60 minutes Set in the present in the fictional southern city of Xijiang (shot in Haikou and elsewhere…

Who Is He 他是谁 (2023) ep. 1-12

Who Is He (no question mark) is the latest Chinese crime drama on Youku, starring Zhang Yi fresh from his success in The Knockout (see below). Zhang stars as policeman Wei Guoping. It is 24 episodes of about 45 minutes and is ongoing at the time of writing. In 1988, a murderer is killing women…

The Commitment [麦子的盖头] (2019)

A low-key drama set in northern Guizhou in 1999 (Maizi's Veil in Chinese). Maizi (which means wheat) [a glammed down Xu Cenxi] is married to Ma Dougen (aka Bean) who is working in an enormous open cast mine. One day the mine owner Lao Yu [an excellent Wang Ting] comes to tell Maizi that something…

Why try to change me now? [平原上的摩西] (2023)

A slow moving (in a good way) and deeply evocative portrayal of life in China from the 1980s to the early twenty first century. This series (recently shown at the Berlinale ) is one of the best Chinese dramas ever. It involves six episodes of about 70-75 minutes each. The series evokes the life and…

Universe Memory [宇宙记忆] (2023)

A decidedly unusual film, nominally a sci-fi drama, about a woman [Liu Dai-ying] - an author with writer's block - who meets her ex-lover (or husband) [Steven Chiang] during a 'cosmic event' (involving the intersection of two parallel universes) only to discover that they both have different memories of their past.  Various characters - mother…

The Hand [手] (2004)

The Hand is currently showing as part of the excellent World of Wang Kar Wai season available in various cinemas. The film was originally released as one segment of the three-part Eros with films from Steven Soderbergh and Michelangelo Antonioni. Wong Kar-wai later developed it into an (almost) one hour stand-alone feature, though given how…