Chinese Film Night 2011-2012

Coordinator: Dr. Petra Fachinger (Department of English)

Wednesdays, 7:30pm, Kingston Hall, Room 200

Winter Programme

 

1 February 2012

Tangshan dadizhen/Aftershock. Dir.Xiaogang Feng, 2010. China. In Mandarin with English subtitles. 135 min.

Feng Xiaogang's movie is a turbo-charged emotional blockbuster-epic about the Tangshan earthquake in 1976, which destroyed an entire industrial city, killed 242,000 people and coincided with seismic political changes: Zhou Enlai and Mao Zedong died within months of the event. The terrible quake leaves two seven-year-old twins buried under rubble; rescue workers brutally tell their mother they can only save one child – which is it to be? The implications and aftershocks of this horrendous Sophie's Choice dilemma reverberate through the decades as the characters grow older and China changes unrecognisably. There's no doubt about it: this film's an unashamed heart-wringer and a tear-jerker, but it packs an almighty punch and the computer-generated imagery at the very beginning, as Tangshan crumbles into nothingness, is impressive and pretty scary. (Peter Bradshaw www.guardian.co.uk)

15 February 2012

San qiang pai an jing qi/A Woman, a Gun and a Noodle Shop. Dir. Yimou Zhang, 2009. China and Hong Kong. In Mandarin with English subtitles. 95 min.

Twenty-five years ago Joel and Ethan Coen, rising stars of American independent cinema, made their debut with “Blood Simple,” a twisty tale of adultery and revenge with an obvious debt to “The Postman Always Rings Twice.” Six years later Zhang Yimou, a star of China’s rising fifth generation of filmmakers, contributed his own variation on the “Postman” theme with “Ju Dou,” his second feature as sole director. And now, for no good reason but with reasonably happy (which is to say grisly) results, Mr. Zhang has honored the unlikely affinity between himself and the Coens with a faithful remake of their first movie, a replica of “Blood Simple” [….]. Anyone who sees both “Blood Simple” and “Noodle Shop” will be struck by the obsessive formal discipline that unites these otherwise disparate filmmakers, and also by Mr. Zhang’s preservation and alteration of certain details from the original: a combination lock; tobacco-smoking paraphernalia; murder weapons. The most important of those is still a gun, but in the world of “Noodle Shop” this is a novelty rather than standard equipment. The action has moved from modern semi-suburban Texas to a rocky and desolate valley in northwest China at some unspecified point in the feudal past. Squadrons of imperial police thunder through the mountains on horseback, but otherwise an eerie quiet predominates, throwing the deceptively simple story into sharp relief. [….] And though it begins with some exaggerated, almost clownish business and includes a handful of clean and mordant sight gags, “A Woman, a Gun and a Noodle Shop” has a gravity that is surprising, given that it is basically the pastiche of a pastiche. [….] (A.O .Scott www.movies.nytimes.com)

21 March 2012

He ni zai yi qi/Together with You. Dir. Chen Kaige, 2003. China. In Mandarin with English Subtitles. 118 min.

In Beijing, Xiaochun's country bumpkin father convinces down-at-heel professor Jiang (Wang Zhiwen) to take his son under his wing. Jiang, a heartbroken recluse who lives in a hovel surrounded by stray cats, teaches Xiaochun to play [the violin] with his heart. But when Xiaochun moves on to his next teacher, Professor Yu (played by Kaige himself), things prove rather different. An urban teacher with an eye on financial success, Yu is more interested in fame and fortune than consummate musicianship. Which route should Xiaochun take? Held together by a richly eclectic score that sets Debussy and Strauss against traditional Chinese folk music and some compositions by the director, this unashamedly sentimental film plucks the heartstrings until they're all aquiver. [….] Undoubtedly a bold departure for Kaige - who made his name on grand historical epics such as Farewell My Concubine and Temptress Moon - this is slick, professional but unremittingly safe filmmaking that tick-tocks from scene to scene with the clockwork precision of a metronome. More populist than classical, Together With You is destined to be a crowd-pleasing drama. [….] (Jamie Russell www.bbc.co.uk)

4 April 2012

A Great Wall. Dir. Peter Wang, 1986. USA and China. In English and Madarin. 97 min.

The first American feature film shot in China amounts to rather more than an album of holiday snaps, thanks to the unfamiliarity of the resort and the universality of the situation. A Chinese-American computer executive (Peter Wang) takes his family to visit relatives in Peking. Both branches of the family are enormously curious about each other, so there is plenty of experimenting with language, lipstick, electric blankets, music and squat toilets. Ideological differences are kept at arm's length, and the concept of privacy which is debated would have been as incomprehensible in Imperial China as it is to the Red Chinese. There's no Chinese word for it. Comparative economics don't get much of a look in either, beyond the statistic that a bottle of Coke costs half a day's wages. West confronts East only at the ping-pong table, and the star of the film is Peking itself, still an elegant city of shady courtyards, tree-lined avenues and ancient pagodas, despite Godzilla-type redevelopers. Author: BC Time Out Film Guide