Review - Saturday Fiction

August 7, 2023
 
Saturday Fiction – China, 2019

There was a time when a new Gong Li film was cause for playing hooky. One year, I even missed the first day of the fall semester because I simply had to see The Story of Qiu Ju on its opening day, and it was opening in San Francisco at a time when I lived in Sacramento. In other words, in my mind, one of her films was such an important experience that I was willing to pay for two Greyhound bus tickets, transportation in San Francisco, plus a ticket and snacks at the concession stand. That’s how big of a fan I was. This was during the first half of Gong Li’s career, when she worked with Zhang Yimou and Chen Kaige in their prime and when her choice of roles seemed daring. In those days, a Gong Li movie was as important as it was entertaining. The same cannot be said of most of her films post-2000.

Lou Ye’s Saturday Fiction is not a return to form necessarily, but it may be the first movie in a long time in which the legendary actress gets to really sink her teeth into a role. In the movie, she plays Jean Yu, a popular actress returning to Shanghai ostensibly to return to the stage after a three-year absence. To say the timing is peculiar would be an understatement. Shanghai in 1941 was under Japanese occupation, home to thousands of Jewish refugees from Germany, and mired in poverty. It had two areas that were considered safe – the French Concession (now, the Luwan and Xuhui Districts) and the English Concession. Upon her arrival, Miss Yu goes from the airport directly to the French Concession, where she checks in at an upscale hotel operated by an eager fan who has bugged her phone and wants to be to be told the moment she makes an international call, actions that make less sense as the film progresses.

The first half of the film is devoted to creating a sense of mystery regarding Yu’s motives for returning. While she says she has returned to do a play, there’s talk of the peril her ex-husband is in and whether Yu has returned to help him flee the country. This is brought up by an obsessed fan who follows Miss Yu’s car and impresses her by demonstrating her knowledge of all of her lines from her current stage production, a la All About Eve, as well as hinting that she knows the whereabouts of her ex. We also learn Yu may be trying to rekindle her romance with Tan Na, the director of the play, with whom she apparently had an affair before she disappeared, and then there’s the attention the film gives to a Japanese official sent to Japan to inform government workers of changes in the country’s secret codes. Could Yu’s return somehow be connected to him?
 
The problem with such a set-up is obvious. Instead of characters talking to each other directly, they have to tiptoe around key topics and words. Say too much and the mystery is revealed. This results in a series of cryptic scenes that don’t ring as truthful as they need to and culminate in an outbreak of gunfire and violence that ends with dead bodies lining a busy street, several people with severe bullet wounds, and a character incredulously declaring that everything has gone as planned.
 
Fortunately, this scene announces the start of the film’s second half, which, now able to dispense with cryptic phrases, kicks into gear and delivers a series of exciting and tense scenes, each with real stakes and a growing sense of hazard. In these scenes, Yu sheds all pretenses and displays a ruthlessness that is both shocking and logical. It makes you wonder why Gong Li has never made a true action film – she clearly has the chops for it. (Full disclosure: I have not seen Operation Cougar, an early Zhang Yimou film about an airplane hijacking in which Gong Li plays a stewardess.)
 
The film is shot in black and white, likely to give it a noir-like feeling, and for the most part, it works. Scenes of rain-soaked sidewalks and Shanghai residents huddled around makeshift fires contrast impressively with the bright and clean atmosphere of the French Concession, establishing the existence of two Shanghais. There are also quieter moments during which the connection between Yu and Na is firmly established. You may wonder whether such strong feelings would still exist after such an extended absence, but the human heart can confound by suppressing feelings and desires for the one that got away and then allowing them to rise to the surface so suddenly that not to act of them seems a sin.
 
Unfortunately, writers Yingli Ma, Hong Ying, and Riichi Yokomitsu have injected the film with a plot device that is all too common in film and which never fails to lessen the amount of suspense a film can truly create. Like James Cagney’s 1945 film Blood on the Sun and Gong Li’s own 2010 thriller Shanghai, the film uses real historical events to build tension, but since audience already know how history unfolded, the outcome is never really in doubt. The question is not Will they succeed? but rather Will they get away?
 
Saturday Fiction is therefore a mixed bag. It is well made, has terrific performances from Gong Li, Mark Chao, and Tom Wlaschiha, and one of the best second halves that I’ve seen recently. However, it’s first half is clunky and hindered by its own plot structure. Among Gong Li films, it sits comfortable in the middle – not as good as some of those masterful early collaborations, yet not nearly as exhausting as some of her latter productions, such as Miami Vice, Hannibal Rising, and the overly long What Women Want. I’m glad I saw it. (on DVD in Region 1)
 
2 and a half stars
 
*Shanghai Fiction is in Chinese, Japanese, English, and French.

Review - Devils on the Doorstep

September 10, 2020

Devils on the Doorstep – China, 2000

Sometimes the best measure of a film’s quality is how you feel about it upon reflection. Does your mind focus on the film’s deficiencies or its strengths? Does the story become clearer or increasingly confusing? Do you find you still have unanswered questions, and if so, does the notion of watching the film a second time fill you with excitement or terror? I am sure we can all think of films that we have had less esteem for the more we pondered them. A few of examples from my own experiences are Inland Empire, Star Wars: The Force Awakens, The Elephant Man, and The Dark Knight Rises. It is rarer for reflection to enhance your esteem for a film unless that reflection is the result of dramatic events that cause it to be given a meaning or relevance that it likely was not intended to have. An example of this is the Marx Brothers’ Duck Soup. According to Groucho Marx, no thought was given to making a film that commented on the Great Depression or the rise of totalitarianism: Groucho had simply never played a president before.

I reflected a great deal after seeing Jiang Wen’s 2000 film, Devils on the Doorstep. It is a film that demands that viewers meditate on it, if for no other purpose than to ask yourself, What did I just see? Having seen the movie, I can understand this sentiment – I experienced it many times as the film progressed. To some, this can be frustrating, but I found my quest for clarity came from an interest in what was transpiring, not from an uncomfortable level of confusion. I have always questioned whether a movie should need to be seen a second time to be fully understood, yet with Devils on the Doorstep, I can see that a second viewing would indeed enhance my appreciation of the film’s complexities and enable me to see warning signs much earlier.

Devils on the Doorstep takes place in 1945 in a part of Northern China under Japanese occupation, and it begins with a Japanese general and his marching band, or more accurately a military unit that has morphed into a marching band. The general is on horseback, and in a style that is more common in holiday parades, he leads his men down from their base at the top of a hill through the main road of a small village that borders the sea. Their presence is greeted by a few of the village’s children, as well as an overly eager man named Er Bozi. The general hands out candy to the children, his face gleaming, his arms waving his swagger stick as if it were a baton. Exactly where they’re going is unclear, but later they return in the same fashion playing the same music, waving at the same children. Every day.

The procession seems surreal at first, yet upon reflection it makes complete sense. We later learn that the Japanese government has been in this area for eight years, and it is soon clear that whatever fear existed when they first arrived has somewhat abated. None of the villagers are soldiers, and there’s no evidence that the Chinese army is lurking nearby, so just what are they to do other than settle into a comfortable groove and wait for the war to end? In a later scene, the general decides to flex his authority with a villager who apparently went outside the village without permission. To deter him from making the same mistake again, the general carves a circle around him and orders him to remain there. The man simple runs away when the general turns his back.

The film’s central character is Dasan Ma, played masterfully by the director himself. When we first see him, he is locked in a passionate embrace with a woman named Yu’er (movingly played by Jiang Hongbo), whom we later learn is a widow and has been criticized for her relationship with San. Their late-night rendezvous is interrupted by a knock on the door, and when San asks for the knocker’s identity, an unseen voice simple says, “It’s me” Soon there’s a sword at San’s throat and me is leaving two rather big bags with him. Me says he’ll return in five days to collect them and threatens San with death if they are not cared for properly. If that weren’t enough, he adds a puzzling request, that San interrogate them. And with that, me is gone, his identity never disclosed, his face never seen.  He doesn’t return. (The word “me” becomes a running joke afterwards.)

The bags turn out to contain a Japanese soldier and a Chinese translator, and the question becomes What do we do with them? There’s a rather humorous interrogation, an interesting conversation about the definition of a collaborator, a scene in which the solider is taught what he thinks are words that will enrage the villagers to such an extent that they’ll be sure to kill him, and a few sweet exchanges between San and Yu’er. There’s also a scene involving an assassin who calls himself “One-Chop” Liu that would make Quentin Tarentino blush with creative envy.

So, the film is a comedy – at least, until it isn’t. Remember these soldiers have been there for eight years, enough time for some of them to have become acclimated to the area and the people. But not all of them. See, Devils on the Doorstep is not Wen’s version of Mediterraneo, Gabriele Salvatores’s 1991 film about a group of Italian soldiers who become so enamored with the Greek island that they wash up on that they forget all about the war. No, some things are not so easily disregarded, particularly attitudes shaped by a lifetime of cultural indoctrination or beliefs that societies were vertically structured, and whenever people are not seen as equal, truly awful things can happen. This is reflected in the last hour of the film, and it is tough to watch. That said, it is also one of the most powerful, jaw-dropping conclusions I’ve ever seen.  

Upon completing Devils on the Doorstep, Jiang Wen did not direct a movie for seven years. It seems that Devils had upset the wrong people. It isn’t hard to see why. Since then, his films have been a bit easier to digest. There was 2007’s The Sun Also Rises, an average film that tells three interconnected stories involving people whose actions put them at risk. He had a big hit with his 2010 film, Let the Bullets Fly, about a bandit squaring off against a ruthless local official. It was so successful that it spawned a sequel in 2014 called Gone with the Bullets and Hidden Man, which is said to be the final film in his gangster trilogy. In other words, since Devils in the Dust, he has gone in a different – some might say safer – direction creatively. I get it. It’s a real loss, though. (on DVD from the good people at Home Vision Entertainment)

3 and a half stars

*Devils on the Doorstep is in Mandarin and Japanese with English subtitles.

Review - The World

June 4, 2020

The World – China, 2005

It is interesting to note just how important and empowering leaving the familiar is in American films regardless of whether the familiar is a particular part of a country, a local hangout spot for a group of friends soon parting for university, or a physical building in which someone spent much or all of his childhood. In most of these films, the act of leaving is the birth of adulthood and the start of a significant adventure, and by the end of the film, more times than not the protagonist, having risen to the occasion and stared down adversity, stands victorious. In a way, the familiar has to be left for the mature adult to reach his potential.

This is not so in many films from Asia. In that part of the world, leaving home is often the start of a tragedy. After all, the city is cruel and lonely; capitalism has turned formerly decent people into money-hungry corner-cutters; and young women are often left to fend for themselves in a world looking to exploit them and throw them away. Rarely do people leave home because they are seeking the greener pastures of independence and adventure. Instead, the catalyst is often poverty or academic failure, and while most American protagonists find solace and true love in the arms of someone they meet along the way, love can be extremely disappointing in Asian films, promising much but leaving most people’s hopes utterly unfulfilled.

Jia Zhangke’s The World is such a film, and as such, some of the scenarios it depicts will hardly seem revolutionary. What separates it from the pack is its setting – World Park in present-day Beijing. The park is advertised as a way of seeing the world without actually leaving Beijing, and its replicated structures include Egyptian pyramids, downtown Manhattan (including the Twin Towers), the Eiffel Tower (which curiously plays “Don’t Cry For Me, Argentina”), and the Taj Mahal, each significantly smaller than the original. No matter. Throughout the film we see plenty of customers - arms extended, a look of feigned fear on their faces - next the “Leaning Tower of Pisa” taking early versions of selfies. In other words, the park is Las Vegas meets Disneyland.

As the film progresses, we meet the park’s employees, all of whom seem to have left home to find economic prosperity in the big city. Most of them are employees of the park; some of them find work in the budding construction industry; a few supplement their income through illegal activity, while one in particular turns to cards in the hopes of improving his fortunes. The film focuses mostly on a performer named Tao (played exceptionally well by Zhangke-regular Zhao Tao) and her security guard boyfriend, Taisheng (Taisheng Cheng). Tao is a dancer at the park, and at work she carries herself with confidence and assurance. Taisheng has achieved an advanced position and quite enjoys the responsibility and prestige that comes along with it.

Early in the film, Tao’s ex-boyfriend makes an unexpected appearance. He is in Beijing to catch a plane to the Mongolian capital, Ulan Batur, a place that curiously has its own exhibit at World Park. The meeting is awkward, to put it mildly. At a restaurant, the two of them mostly sit in silence, and Taisheng’s sudden appearance only makes it worse, for one of the first things he enquires is how quickly the ex’s plane departs. He even drives him to the airport. Later, at a somewhat dingy hotel, a suddenly jealous Taisheng gently grills Tao about her feelings toward him. When she says she loves him, he asks her to “prove” it. It is all downhill from there.

Interspersed into their collapsing romance are several other moving side stories involving, for example, a childhood friend whom Taisheng helps find employment, the owner of a fashion sweatshop that produces knock-offs on demand, an employee with a gambling problem, and a relationship between a female entertainer and her increasingly unhinged boyfriend. There’s also the touching friendship that forms between Tao and a Russian employee of the park named Anna. Each story is a part of the film’s overall presentation of life in the big city for migrant workers, and unlike its American counterparts, few of these characters get to walk off into the sunset having found both love and stability before the fade out to the closing credits.

And in not doing so, the characters reveal the broken promise of the very place that employs them. The park is, of course, selling a lie. Its customers do not really see the world; eventually their photos will look as awkward to them as the one of Truman standing with his family in front of a rather minuscule version of Mount Rushmore does in The Truman Show, and taking the park’s sky train to India or Africa will soon only remind them of their inability to go to the real thing. For example, the only airplane most of the characters have been on is the one on display at the park, and that reality eats away at them, amplifying feelings of insecurity and jealousy. It makes it vital that something in their life work out, and in the absence of the means to change their financial fortunes, their hopes are placed on either love or luck.

There have been complaints that The World is too slow and unfocused, and there is some truth to this; at 139 minutes, the film has its fair share of slow moments and a few unnecessary characters. I also failed to see the point of the film’s brief, but recurring moments of animation. However, taken together, the stories contained in the film create a powerful impression of life’s fragility and of how fleeting bliss can be, even in a land as surreal and magical as World Park. And there is a cautionary tale about what can be lost in the rush toward capitalism. I was moved by The World, and I cared about its characters, even the cads. That says something. Plus I’ll probably never look at theme parks in the same way again. (on DVD as part of Zeitgeist Film’s box set China On Film: The New Millennium)

3 stars

*The World is in Chinese and Russian with English subtitles.
*And no, I don't get the ending either.

Review - Black Coal, Thin Ice

March 9, 2018

Black Coal, Thin Ice – China, 2014

For the longest time, I have been in the habit of buying films I have never seen. More often than not, this yields pleasant surprises. I fondly remember Damien O’Donnell’s East is East and Roberto Benigni’s The Monster, both of which I had purchased after reading brief descriptions of them during my research into upcoming DVD releases. To me, their excellence confirmed the wisdom of my rather expensive habit. Alas, purchases like Yinan Diao’s 2014 film, Black Coal, Thin Ice, do exactly the opposite.

The film’s central focus is a detective named Zili Zhang, played by Fan Liao. The beginning of the film finds him spending time with a young woman in a hotel. They silently play cards and then make love on top of the cards. Diao interrupts these moments by showing viewers the grisly discovery of human remains at a coal plant. We then see Zhang and the woman at a train station, where she hands him a certificate of divorce and tells him good-bye. And in just a few minutes, Diao has shown viewers the kind of break up that mostly exists in the mind of male songwriters. The difference here is that Zhang doesn’t feel as at peace with it as the pop stars do. What follows is a cautionary tale, one that could easily be entitled “The Problem with Investigating a Murder on a Broken Heart.”

Zhang is called in to investigate the murder. We know he has a stellar reputation for solving cases such as these because one of his fellow officers tells him a variation of the standard plea, “You are the only one who can crack the case.” The officer’s faith is misplaced, though, for Zhang’s work is sloppy, and his interpersonal skills are – to put it mildly – lacking. In a telling scene, both he and his partner tell the deceased’s widow (Lunmei Kwei) that she is wasting valuable time by crying so much. Nice. Of course, things go from bad to worse. The casualties: two possible criminals, two veteran police officers, and two previously outstanding careers. The film then jumps ahead five years, to a time when it appears the real killer has resumed his homicidal ways.

There’s nothing particularly revolutionary about such a set-up. In fact, anyone who has seen Basic Instinct or Al Pacino’s Sea of Love will recognize many of the film’s twists and turns coming a mile away. However, those films had something that kept them afloat, that made them more involving than Black Coal, Thin Ice: well-established characters. If asked to describe Zhang, I would be at a loss for words. “Silent” and “moody” come to mind, but these words are inadequate because they say nothing about what drives him or what he ultimately wants out of life or his chosen career. The same can be said of Lunmei Kwei’s character in the film. Kwei plays the mysterious widow, Zhizhen Wu, yet like Zhang, this character says little, and Diao seems to think that audiences will just instinctively know the sentiments and motivations behind each character’s laconic state.  

The only character that breathes real life into the film is Zhang’s former partner. Played by Xuebing Wang, he is a decent man trying to do his best to make the world a better place. He is fair and gives Zhang respect at a time when others don’t, and if you suspect that this bodes ill for him, you’re correct. In this film, the good die early, the bad should be empathized with but aren’t, and the hero is a jerk. Cue the caustic voice inside me: “What’s not to like about that?”  Turns out, plenty.

For a movie like Black Coal, Thin Ice to work, something important must be at stake. Lives should be in danger, and time ought to be of the essence. Here, time seems to be on everyone’s side. Five years goes by without a murder, and even when they rear their ugly head again, the possible explanation for them allows characters to take their sweet time. There’s time to trail someone, time to wait for your clothes to be dry cleaned, and time for two characters to… come to think of it, I’m not sure what they do. It certainly isn’t love. It’s more like a form of entrapment. He is setting a trap for the killer; she’s setting a trap for him. And what it all culminates in is at best passive physicality and at worst sexual assault – on the supposed hero’s side. It’s enough to make you long for someone to swoop in and save her from the oppression of men until you realize that someone did attempt to do just that, and he too was both guardian and tormentor.

As I’m writing this, I can’t shake the feeling of disappointment. This is a film that should have been better. It had a lot going for it in the beginning, including a rather thrilling and shocking gun fight, yet once it jumps ahead in time, it becomes a challenge to remain invested in it. In the end, I didn’t care that the detective had redeemed himself or that the mystery had been solved. I was simply glad it was over. Now, a film can be dark, characters can be morally repugnant, and not every movie has to end with two people walking hand in hand into a brighter future, yet all that Black Coal, Thin Ice offers viewers is bleakness. Well, that and long stretches of silence. Yet it doesn’t offer viewers what they may need most in a film of this sort: a reason to stay committed, a character to latch onto and pull for. Black Coal, Thin Ice lacks this, and to me, this is a major problem, one that the film simply never recovers from. (on DVD and Blu-ray)

2 stars

Review - The Last Women Standing

December 14, 2017

The Last Women Standing – China, 2015

Before I get started, a confession: I watched the end credits of Luo Luo’s well-acted The Last Women Standing twice. Now normally when one does something as odd as that, it’s because there’s a particular actor whose name you want to know or because you missed the name of a friend of yours who worked on the film. Neither of those reasons applies in this case. No, I sat through rows of job titles and names in search of the company that had so badly butchered the subtitles on the Blu-ray disc that I had considered myself lucky to have found. Alas, it was nowhere to be seen. Therefore, it is incumbent upon me to issue the following warning: Anyone who lacks a working understanding of Chinese should stay away from The Last Women Standing, for if your copy is so haphazardly translated as mine was, you’re likely to tear your hair out in frustration and curse the unnamed company that had the audacity to release such gobbledygook and call it English. For the record, it’s get in the car, not get on, moody not moldy, and marry someone not marry with someone.

Okay, rant’s over.

No, I lied. It’s not. See, here’s the thing. At this stage in their career, neither Shu Qi nor Eddie Peng should be making films like this one. Shu Qi has earned a place among the great Chinese actress of her generation; Eddie Peng, while not having the same pedigree in the film industry as Shu Qi, has quietly carved out a place for himself in Taiwanese cinema. In a perfect world, the two of them would have their choice of scripts and the time to sift through them and separate the great from the good and the good from the atrocious. That they both decided to make The Last Women Standing indicates that they either cannot pick the films they make or – and this is the even scarier alternative – they saw something in Luo’s script that I completely missed – which is entirely possible given the problem mentioned in the first paragraph.

The Last Women Standing casts Shu Qi as Sheng Ruxi, a successful thirty-year-old woman who seems to have a lot going for her – a promising career, a nice apartment, few financial worries. The only thing she doesn’t have is a husband, and it is this void that makes her mother (Pan Hong) hang her head in shame. In fact, in the opening scene, she badmouths her daughter for not being married while she is sitting next to her at a wedding, and it only gets worse from there. She seems to be under the impression that having a single daughter in her thirties is the greatest shame a mother can have. There is some truth to this story line. I have had students relate to me superstitions about women over thirty no longer being able to have healthy children and worries that it is harder for women that age to find love. However, the film makes this the central issue in almost all of their conversations, and after a few minutes, I was ready for the film to move on and establish other aspects of their relationship. Sadly, the film doesn’t acquiesce. It just hammers the point home over and over again, and then it takes it to an even greater extreme.

Eddie Peng, for his part, plays a young man named Ma Sai. Ma Sai is five years younger that Ruxi, less experienced in the world, and somewhat socially inept. He is a gentleman, however. In one brief scene in an elevator, we see him extend his arm to ensure that Ruxi is not knocked in the head by a ladder carried by a construction worker. The two of them work together. She is his superior, and he seems genuinely interested in learning to do his job well. What they do not appear to be doing is developing romantic feelings for each other, yet as has happened in so many movies before this one, all it takes is a night sleeping in the same hotel room together (separate beds of course) for a mutual interest to begin to develop. Yes, those heartfelt conversations about love, inexperience, and bloody noses really do the trick, and in movies it never fails to win a woman’s heart when a man does not hit on a woman he shouldn’t hit on in the first place. I wonder what makes screenwriters think that this is so rare that it immediately makes someone a possibility for love.

This being a romantic film, it has its fair share of idiot moments, the most egregious of which involve Ruxi. In one scene, she stands at a window watching fireworks go off and asking aloud, “True love. Where are you?” In another, she utters words related to spaceships and changing the channels up in the heavens in an attempt to explain why it is so hard to find Mr. Right. There’s even a scene in which Ruxi practices saying “I like you” out loud because, you know, the words are so hard for her to say that she needs to practice. And of course there is the requisite break-up-and-exit-down-a-long-empty-pier scene, for in movies a man must always stand and watch helplessly as the woman he loves walks out of his life. Apparently, his legs and his mouth go utterly numb.

I suspect that the film would have found a groove had it focused more exclusively on either the relationship between mother and daughter or that of Ruxi and Ma Sai. Instead, we get subplots galore, the result of which is a film that spreads itself in so many directions that it can’t do justice to any of its characters. A subplot involving Ruxi’s boss goes nowhere, and it is unclear what lesson Ruxi is supposed to learn from a friend who makes a rather large sacrifice for an ex-boyfriend. There’s also a doctor (Xing Jiadong) who falls for Ruxi because…well, I’m not actually sure why he does. She is not his type, never agrees with him on anything, and looks as if she’d rather be anywhere but sitting next to him. He can’t be that desperate, can he?

As the film reached its final act, I was sure it would resolve one of its two main plots, yet here I was again unpleasantly surprised. Instead of a final moment of reconciliation, we get a long heartfelt monologue from Ruxi’s father (Shih-Chieh King) because apparently fathers can always be counted on to tell their children not to live for someone else and not to settle for anything but the best. And so there the film is: at its end with two completely unresolved story lines, and an ending that left me scribbling only one word into my notepad: “WHAT?!” I couldn’t even bring myself to write a few comments about what I liked and disliked about it. Maybe I was still processing things. More likely I just didn’t care. (on DVD and Blu-ray in Asia)

2 stars

*The Last Women Standing is in Mandarin with truly horrible English subtitles.

Review - Coming Home (2014)

July 21, 2016

Coming Home – China, 2014

For the first twenty-five minutes, Coming Home is a wonder to behold, and then it stumbles, almost as if it is unsure what it is supposed to be and what it is trying to say. At times, it resembles a Nicolas Sparks film, filled with sentimentality and forced emotions; other moments may remind viewers of aspects of Christopher Nolan’s Memento, for while revenge is not necessarily on the mind of the film’s female protagonist, she seems to have an extremely rough time forming new memories. The role is played by the always reliable Li Gong, yet not even she can convey a purpose to what we are seeing, nor for that matter can she make the film’s heavy-handed and obvious symbolism feel less forced.

The film, directed by the legendary Yimou Zhang, is set in the waning years of the Cultural Revolution, and what it depicts about that time, while not being as novel as it once was, is still enormously powerful. In its early scenes, we learn that a man named Lu (Daoming Chen) has escaped from custody. His wife, Feng Wanyu (Gong), who has not seen him for the last ten years, is asked to pledge that if he contacts her, she will facilitate his re-apprehension. This is also asked of their teenage daughter, Dandan, who acquiesces immediately. Dandan (Huiwen Zhang) is not only a believer in the revolution but also a skilled ballet dancer with real potential for greatness. But there’s more to her pledge than that. She has no relationship with her father, no history to draw upon when she hears vile accusations leveled against him. This part of the film ends with the family divided both personally and physically, and the rift seems wide enough for it to be permanent. All of this, I was greatly moved by, and I was excited about seeing what would come next.

At this point, the film flashes forward in time. The revolution has ended unsuccessfully, Mao is dead, and China is attempting to put its fragile pieces back together. In fact, that could well be the metaphor for the remainder of the film, yet on a smaller scale. For the rest of the film, we watch as the family tries unsuccessfully to come to terms with the events of the past; all the while, the specter of the Cultural Revolution hangs over them, haunting their every move. One character in particular, Yu, is figuratively frozen in time, unable to remember events that occurred after the fateful day that concludes the first part of the film, and therefore neither she, Lu, or Dandan is able to forgive, forget, or move on. They seem stuck in time, prisoners to memories that no one should have, let alone have an active role in.

And it is this very theme that grounds the film and prevents it from becoming what it was clearly intended to be. In fact, the film begins to resemble the very thing that one character is advised to create, a sense of déjà vu. Scenes begin to be repetitive, questions that should be asked are unnecessarily put aside so that they can come up later on, and what should be a clearly understandable metaphor becomes muddled in tediousness. Yes, many people found it tough to move on during this time in history; yes, many also found it hard to forgive themselves for some of the choices they made; and yes there were those who took advantage of people who were emotionally vulnerable through sweet-sounding promises of assistance and additional resources. However, by making Yu mentally incapable of dealing with these things, the film has nowhere to go. It becomes a mystery into why she is that way, rather than an investigation into just what it takes for the family, a clear metaphor for the country as a whole, to forgive and move on. In other words, the film is a little like Groundhog Day, sans the ability to learn and mature from being able to repeat actions.

And so the film develops a pattern – try, fail, contemplate, try again, fail again, contemplate again. This goes on for more than an hour, and while revelations are indeed forthcoming – some of them quite tragic – they remain shrouded in intentionally vague recollections that offer more questions than answers, thus, necessitating further attempts to elicit information. And thus it repeats itself – try, fail, contemplate, try again, fail again, contemplate again. In truth, it’s a bit tiresome and much less interesting than the subject matter and director would lead you to expect it to be. Good performances all around, but a disappointment nonetheless. (on DVD and Blu-ray)

2 and a half stars

*Coming Home is in Mandarin with English subtitles.  

Review - About Love (2004)

October 1, 2015

About Love – 2004, Taiwan/Japan/China

Films like About Love are nearly impossible to pull off successfully. In fact, the last one I saw that did so was Hal Hartley’s Flirt, which used the same dialogue in three very different situations and was fascinating to watch. All too often, though, films that are made up of different stories loosely surrounding a common theme are a mixed bag, usually comprised of one that is good enough to warrant being expanded into a feature film, one that is mildly interesting, and one that is best forgotten. Think 2004‘s Eros. Unfortunately, not even that last description can be applied to About Love, a film so jumbled and amateurish that it doesn’t contain a single memorable character or truly convincing love story, a sin for a film that has the audacity to call itself About Love.

The film begins on a promising note. In its first few moments, we are introduced to two artists in Japan, Yao (Bo-Lin Chen) from Taiwan and Michiko (Misaki Ito) from Japan. They are both struggling – he creatively and emotionally, her emotionally due to her long-distance relationship. In one scene, she notes poignantly, “It took four second to end a three-year relationship.” The cad. Eventually, the two meet. It is a brief meeting, brought on by a near encounter between her and his bicycle. He notices she is crying, and literally just like that, he is completely enthralled by her. What follows in one of the most immature and juvenile displays of affection I have seen in a film, one that would only seem romantic were if done by an inexperienced young high school student. Here, it comes across as neither realistic nor involving. Instead, it reeks of desperation, an attempt at being so cute that no one will notice how utterly pitiful such an action would be for adults to engage in in real life.

The second story takes place back in Taiwan, and in it we are introduced to Ah Su (Mavis Fan), a young woman building a wall unit at odd hours of the night. She can’t lift it, so she calls a young man named Tecchen (Ryo Kase), who she may have met at a bar, and tells him to come over. Once there, she asks him to help her lift the unit and then to paint it. His facial expression reveals that this was the last thing he thought he would be doing. Sparks fly briefly, but she halts them – a bit too roughly, I might add – saying that she was just using him to get over her ex. He seems okay with that.

Thus far, this portion of the film – if one ignores the moment that the pair pointlessly breaks into dance - has been fine. However, like the previous segment, it soon finds itself veering into ridiculousness. In no time, the two of them are off to find Ah-Su’s ex and ask him if he is willing to talk to her, presumably about a reconciliation.

Oddly enough, the problem with the segment is the very reason it is initially interesting. Tecchen is not from Taiwan and speaks very broken Chinese. This has great potential in a movie about love, for what better message to emphasize than love’s ability to transcend words. Alas, it quickly becomes evident that the segment’s writer intends to use the technique strictly for comic relief, and in a later scene, we are supposed to laugh when he is unable to convey Ah Su’s ex’s message to her. The problem is that viewers can easily decipher what Tecchen says; therefore, there is no reason for her not to be able to. And if she is able to figure out her ex’s message, but chooses not to reveal her understanding, what does it say about her that she keeps harassing Tecchen about his inability to translate it accurately? The first option is the result of a poor screenplay; the second would reveal a character who doesn’t deserve the effort Tecchen is making for her.

In the film’s final segment, we are swept across the Taiwan Straits to Shanghai, where a Japanese teacher from the film’s first segment arrives to… well, I’m not exactly sure what he arrives to do. He doesn’t seem to be teaching Japanese or learning Chinese. In fact, it appears that he gets a job in a restaurant and simply waits around for his girlfriend to reply to his letters. While there, he befriends the daughter of a woman he is renting an apartment from, and she develops a crush on him. In one scene, he appears to realize this, but by the very next scene, he has apparently forgotten it, so much so that in a later scene he is absolutely stunned to discover that she had feelings for him. Of course, by now, it is too late – for both him and the movie.

And that is all there is to the film. Three incomplete love stories that reveal neither insight into nor an understanding of love. Instead, we are treated to tales of such immaturity and falseness that I began to wonder if anyone involved in the construction of the film knew anything about real love. Here, we have the equivalent of high school crushes, the kind that people later talk about as having been steps in their maturation, not as evidence of their achievement of actual mature love. This is unfortunate, for the performances in the film are not bad, and the third segment is indeed watchable. However, in the end, About Love is too cute for its own good, frustratingly simplistic, and utterly forgettable. It is about nothing of substance and offers nothing worth taking to heart about love. (on DVD)

2 stars

*About Love is in Japanese, Chinese, and English with English subtitles.

Review - The Road to Fame

September 24, 2015

The Road to Fame – China, 2013

Perhaps no film has taken me back to my high school days in the same way that Hao Wu’s brilliant documentary The Road to Fame did. The film looks at the students who make up the senior class at Beijing’s Central Academy of Drama, and seeing them fluctuate between moments of great confidence and sudden bouts of doubt reminded me of my last year at the San Francisco School of the Arts, when I too had dreams of being a great actor and singer. I say great because what actor ever envisions himself struggling or only finding work in commercials? In fact, I have no doubt that older viewers will see in the film’s subjects former classmates who had the audacity to dream big and who refused to prepare a Plan B.

The documentary follows these students as they prepare for what is essentially their senior project, a collaboration between the academy and Broadway. It seems only logical that the play chosen to be their final performance before entering the real world is Fame, a musical that follows a series of high school students from their acceptance into a performing arts school to their graduation and entrance into the real world. In many ways, these students are just like those found at schools all over the world – at times, they are distracted by thoughts of the future, sometimes they cut class – a common symptom of “senioritus” – and often they talk as if they know exactly what they want to do in the future.

And yet, in other ways, what these students are going through is uniquely Chinese, as well as being unique to this generation of Chinese students. Theirs, we are told, is a generation that has only known economic prosperity. Born in the 1980’s, they have seen the results of Deng Xiaoping’s economic policies, and as they grew, so too did China’s stature in the world and its economic might. Many of these students are open about how little they’ve had to do to get what they want, and one of them openly brags about the luxurious house that his parents bought for him. It is telling that this character has made money not through a part-time job, but through trades on the stock market. However, the film also makes clear that this generation of graduates has fewer protections than previous ones – the government, we learn, is no longer guaranteeing graduates of the school employment.

As the film progresses, we get to know several of the students. The most memorable for me was Chen Lei, and I found myself investing quite a lot in her eventual success. I recognized her stubborn determination and the way that performing seemed to be a force that she couldn’t resist. Her dreams had been my own at one point. The film focuses on other students as well. There’s a young man trying his hardest to be a successful singer and dancer, and another hoping to make it in television. Each of these characters has real talent. In fact, for the first half of the film, I was convinced that Wu was only focusing on students whom he knew had made it. The film is a richer and more meaningful experience because this is not the case.

Wu could easily have focused exclusively on the teenagers and their aspirations, yet he has higher goals. He wants viewers to see the sacrifices that were made to give some of these children a chance at success. To this end, Wu devotes a great deal of time to the students’ parents and teachers. In several poignant scenes, parents speak of hardship and sacrifice, yet also of pampering their children and seeing in them their sole reason for living. Chen Lei’s mother, for example, has dreams of living with her daughter for her entire life, and it pains her to learn that her daughter has other ideas. Many of the parents we see in the film know that the odds are against their children’s achieving superstar status, yet they get great pride from the fact that they gave their children the opportunity to pursue their dreams. The teacher’s in the film have the students’ best interests in mind, yet their methods are not as effective as they used to be, and their students seem to be taking their advice with a grain of salt. Gone, the teachers tell us, is the sense of duty that their generation had, replaced by a quest for personal glory and an easy life. In many scenes, they voice real concern for these students in the future. They are also extremely upfront about having resorted to what some would consider excessive physical punishment, and the manner in which they relate this is somewhat telling.

As the film progresses, reality crashes in on these students. Making it will require incredibly tough skin, which many of them have not acquired, and even with it, the kind of success they are seeking is almost impossible. One of the saddest parts of the film is watching Chen Lei go from being assured and positive to doubting and pessimistic after just one unsatisfactory audition, yet one of the films most uplifting moments comes when a young man who is convinced he doesn’t have what it takes to make it is chosen for a major part. Theater is like this. It crushes some dreams, while making other people’s a reality. (on DVD in Region 3)

3 and a half stars

*The Road to Fame is in Chinese and English with English subtitles.

Review - Where Should I Go?

May 21, 2015

Where Should I Go? – China, 2011

Junhu Li’s moving documentary Where Should I Go? follows two rural families as they try to make a better life for themselves in the big city. In both cases, their attempts involve sacrificing a great deal for their young sons, whom they seem to regard as their family’s best and only hope. Consider, for a moment, what this involves. It entails uprooting entire families and moving them to the city; in the case of one family, it means splitting a family in two and unintentionally creating an irreparable chasm between the matriarch of the family and the two daughters left behind in the countryside.

In the film’s opening scene, we watch as Zhi-li Zhang, a 35-year-old mother of three, returns to her rural home only to find the house a pigsty and one of her daughters AWOL. Her concern, if one wants to call it that, is expressed in the form of anger and physical confrontation, and it does nothing to re-establish the familial bond that they must have once had. We learn that at some time in the past Zhi-li left with her son to join her husband in the city; her daughters remained to fend for themselves. The parents’ thinking was that their son would get a better education in the city and that there was only enough money to spend on one “decent” education.

The other family the film follows is that of Xiu Qing Yang, a widowed mother of two in her forties. Her plight differs from Zhi-li’s slightly, in that she has brought both of her children to the big city and purchased residential permits for each of them. This enables them to go to school. However, school in the big city is so expensive (twice as much as for them as someone born there) that she can only afford to send her son to school, and to do that, she has to use most of her daughter’s wages.

The film works on several levels. It lays bare the plight of migrant workers who feel they have no hope of survival if they don’t go to the city. However, as the film reveals, what awaits them is often a life of hardship, one in which their days are often filled with long twelve hour shifts (only eight of which are paid), demanding bosses who do not appear to be following labor laws, and wages so low that they cannot afford even secondhand furniture. It is telling that Xiu Qing works as a cleaning lady and her daughter waits tables at a night club. They live paycheck to paycheck with no real chance of upward mobility. The film also brings to light the great chance some people take when they put all of their eggs in one basket. Of the two young boys we meet, only one of them seems to have a bright academic future. The other seems aware just how good he has it and has decided to take full advantage of that fact.

Unfortunately, with a running time of just 60 minutes, the film is not able to explore its subject matter in as much detail as one would like, and at times I felt as if I was only getting a cursory understanding of the families and their plights. I would like to have known more about Zhi-li’s daughters and just who is looking out for them when their mother is gone, and I wanted to know more about how Xiu Qing’s daughter felt about the life she had in the city. After all, it couldn’t have been what she had envisioned that first day she learned that she was moving. In hindsight, it may have been a mistake a film of this length to stretch itself so thin. By trying to tell two stories, we get an incomplete picture of both of them, and the film lacks the focus that made Lixin Fan‘s Last Train Home so compelling.

Still, Where Should I Go? is worth-watching. Its characters are worthy of our empathy, even as they make choices that most of us would deem to be ill-advised. And the film ends with scenes of such power that I found them hard to shake. In these fleeting moments, we are presented with a microcosm of the irreversible consequences of China’s mass exodus out of the countryside, two daughters alone – one looking as if she is barely holding it together and the other, now a high school dropout, with no real future ahead of her. It is truly heartbreaking, and one can only hope it serves as a wake-up call. (on DVD in Region 3)

3 stars

*Where Should I Go? is in Chinese with English subtitles. The subtitles have occasional grammar and spelling errors. 

Review - Be a Mother

March 5, 2015

Be a Mother – China, 2011

I hate having to repeat myself, but when a film as good as Be a Mother is treated so shabbily upon its home video release, it is nothing short of a tragedy. Presumably, the purpose of releasing a film on DVD or Blu-ray is to enable it to be seen in as many households as possible. This includes foreign markets, for if this were not the case, there would be no sense in spending any time or money preparing the film for international film festivals and investing in subtitles. It is unfortunate then that so little care actually went into to subtitling the film in English. Oh, there are subtitles all right, but no one with even a basic knowledge of English grammar would mistake then you piece of mind to work as correct English. It’s enough to make you wonder who actually did the translating, a person or a computer?

Knowing that the film has been so poorly subtitled will likely dissuade a large number of people from watching the film - it has certainly made me less willing to buy one of Cineplex Development Co.’s products - and this is unfortunate, for Zhong Yu’s film is both engaging and timely. It tells the story of a well-off married couple living in southern China who wants to have a child. This seems simple enough, but much is standing in their way. The man, Zhang Qing (Alex Fong), works in Britain and is often gone for months at a time; his wife, Fang Yun (Wang Pei), has a successful career as a news reporter, and she finds a sense of purpose in her job. There’s also the added weight of her three previous miscarriages, which have made her extremely hesitant to become pregnant again. A family friend suggests they try surrogacy, and they eventually hire a young woman named Li Yan (Qin Lan) to carry their child.

Given such a set up, one might reasonably expect a film in which characters argue passionately about the pros and cons of surrogacy and debate its morality. However, to the film’s credit, it is neither for nor against the practice. It is simply about one family who turns to it and the consequences of that individual decision. It should not be read as a commentary on surrogacy in general. That said, what happens in the film should give couples contemplating it some added considerations.

After signing a contract that is probably not legally binding, Li Yan essentially becomes a member of the household. Yet just who is she in the family, and just what is her role? In certain scenes, she is like a trusted roommate, in others a housekeeper. As time goes by, however, she develops a relationship with Zhang Qing that is eerily similar to that of a traditional, loving wife, the kind that Zhang might actually enjoy having based on an earlier conversation we witness him have with a friend. Li even makes a point of waving to him after he has left the house. Writer Haiping Wang could easily have turned the story into one about a secret romance, yet he resists this, preferring instead to let the audience draw its own conclusions. It is the right decision.

As the film progresses, we get additional clues as to the complexity of the situation. For example, Zhang’s parents appear confused as to how to refer to Li, and in one surprising scene, they treat her better than their daughter-in-law. In another scene, Fang explains to Li the benefits of a mother’s reading to her unborn baby, and Li immediately agrees to do so, not realizing that Fang intends to read to the baby herself. In films such as this, writers often feel the need to make one of the characters less sympathetic than the others, and for some time, it looks as if Fang is to be this character. However, this is a smokescreen, for while the film initially builds this impression, it then systematically breaks it down, revealing a character far too complex to be fit neatly in a box either labeled hero or villain. In fact, while I admired all three of the film’s lead characters, I couldn’t help feeling a stronger amount of empathy for Fang, especially given all that happens in the film’s latter half.

Director Yu Zhong gets excellent performances out of his cast, and he demonstrates a knack for getting very telling close ups. In one, he brings his camera close as Li coaxes the married couple into putting their ears to her stomach. Then he focuses on the pained expression on Li’s face, one hidden from the eyes of Fang and Zhang. It is all we need to understand the conflicted feelings running through her. Zhong also uses nature and camera movements to convey time lapses effectively. In one scene, the camera focuses on a tree outside the family’s home, and the passage of time is conveyed through the changing colors of the leaves on the tree. He is less successful in his use of a Cupid statue resting on a fixture in the living room. The statue seems to change positions and expressions, yet its connection to the action taking place was vague, and I eventually gave up trying to interpret it.  

Towards the end of the film, it takes an unexpected and jarring turn. I won’t give it away, but I immediately felt it was a cop out, an example of a writer or director having boxed himself into a corner and needing an escape hatch. However, what followed it revealed a great deal; it exposed a tortured soul, an until then uninitiated quest for love, and a deep chasm between husband and wife. It truly represents a point of no return.

The film is said to be based on a true story, and if the details depicted here and explained briefly just before the closing credits are accurate, there indeed was no happy ending. This should come as no surprise, for if one thinks about it, a Hollywood ending would have been entirely unearned. This is a story that has only one realistic conclusion, and it is not the creation of a new, non-traditional family. By the end of the film, these characters have been completely undone by what has transpired, and to present that as anything else would be an insult to the audience’s intelligence. It’s nice to have a picture that recognizes that and isn’t afraid to show it. (on DVD in Region 3)

3 and a half stars  

*Be a Mother is in Chinese with some of the worst English subtitles I have seen in some time.

Review - Whisper of Minqin

February 26, 2015

Whisper of Minqin – China, 2013

Wen-Ming Wang’s moving documentary Whisper of Minqin is not an unbiased film. How could it be? This is a film likely made in secret, as far away from the prying eyes of local officials as could be, and throughout the film, viewers are given clues as to why this may have been the case. There’s talk of thugs seeking to “persuade” local people not to submit formal complaints to officials in Beijing, and at one point, we’re told that someone with a great deal of power has turned off the water supply, leaving residents with fresh water only once every five days. If this is indeed the truth, it is unlikely that local government officials would be willing to speak on camera; in fact, it is much more likely that they would actively try to prevent the film from being made in the first place. Still, films such as these often feel incomplete without dissenting voices, for without the other side’s point of view, it is all too easy for a film like this one to be dismissed as having too obvious an agenda.

To make the film, Wang followed a family living in Minqin County (in China’s Gansu Province) on and off for over two years. Wang himself is originally from the region, and because of that, he has personally witnessed the effects of desertification there. (He even sent his own son away after a particularly terrible sandstorm in 1993.) During one of his trips to the area, he met a ten-year-old student named Fang Fei He, whose dreams mirrored his own at that age. Facing the camera, Fang Fei explains two of her dreams: to become a government official and to see the world. By the end of the film, she has given up one of these.

As this transformation takes place, viewers are presented with some sobering facts about the region. Here are just a few: The area has been hit by over 1,300 sandstorms, 350,000 residents have moved away, and most of the population between the ages of 20 and 35 has abandoned the region. On more than one occasion, we hear of family members who have not returned for years – not even for Chinese New Year. It is as if we are witnessing life in this region for the last time, for after the elderly have passed on and the young have departed, it’s hard to see anyone remaining here willingly.

Through archival footage and Wang’s own narration, we see what the area once was, a land replete with lush fields and an abundance of vegetation, and it is easy to see why people would have once been proud to call it home. This is in stark contrast with the barren wasteland seen in more recent footage. In fact, the situation appears to be so bad that only 5% of Minqin remains usable. Wang lays the blame for this not on climate change but on failed government initiatives over the past 65 years. This timeframe coincides with the Great Leap Forward, a time of disastrous agricultural policies that historians estimate resulted in the death of tens of millions of people. The insinuation is that past mistakes are creating present-day suffering. Again, no government official appears on camera to refute these claims.

As I watched the film, I wanted more and was frustrated by the film’s inability to provide it. I wanted to hear officials respond to charges of culpability, even if all they did was toe party lines and answer in broad generalizations. I also wanted Wang to be more of a reporter and ask follow-up questions. For example, in one scene he is told that one of the elderly men in the area is being bullied by his son. It was a revealing comment, yet Wang does not press him on it. Perhaps it is not considered culturally appropriate to do so; however, not doing so just seems journalistically negligent. Unfortunately, this is a frequent pattern. At key moments, what should be powerful and add to the tragedy of the situation comes across as half-hearted and incomplete. There are reasons for this, I know, but the film suffers as a result.

What does come across effectively is the resilience of many of the residents and their admirable determination to preserve their land for successive generations. They seem aware that the odds are stacked against them, yet there they remain – on land without water, in constant peril from both the elements and powerful entities that seek to force their relocation. “We will stay,” they repeatedly say. “Only death can drive us off our land.” The odds are against them, and they know it. They are a small group – just nine families consisting of 49 individuals; their adversaries, on the other hand, have time, money, and power on their side. In one particularly telling scene, one of the families returns to find their home in ruins. We watch as they pay their respects to their ancestors for the last time, pack up their things, and drive off into the dusty sunset, perhaps never to return. It may only be a matter of time before the rest join them.

In the end, Whisper of Minqin is moving and heartfelt, and viewers will feel for the families the film follows. After all, audiences love a David-and-Goliath story, and the film gives them a pretty good one. Director Wang doesn’t get everything right, but most of the film’s problems are understandable given the circumstances. I found myself rooting for Fang Fei and her family, as well as recognizing the signs of an ever-growing disillusionment. At critical moments, Wang focuses the camera on the faces of his film’s subjects, and their eyes all seem to be saying the same thing: “This just isn’t right.” (on DVD in Region 3)

3 and a half stars

*Whisper of Minqin is in Chinese with English subtitles.

Review - Beginning of the Great Revival

July 31, 2014

Beginning of the Great Revival – China, 2011

Rumor has it that when Beginning of the Great Revival was initially released in theaters, it appeared on practically every screen in China, making it impossible for moviegoers to see anything else. This is said to have resulted in the film having much more impressive box office numbers than it might otherwise have had and for claims to be made as to its quality and mass appeal. All of this may be true, for the film is clearly cinematic propaganda, reminiscent of such classic Russian films as Battleship Potemkin and The End of St. Petersberg, albeit without their exquisite pacing and groundbreaking camerawork. As for the film’s quality, well you know what they say: Quality is in the eye of the beholder.

Like the 2009 film The Founding of a Republic, Beginning of the Great Revival, directed by Sanping Han and Jianxin Huang, requires an encyclopedic knowledge of both major incidents and important individuals from Chinese history. Significant events - sometimes even entire wars - are referred to in shorts texts that appear over historical vignettes, and names continuously appear to the right or left of important figures even if those figures do not play a role in anything that follows. Miss these, as I did a few times, and you may be momentarily confused. Also like The Founding of the Republic, the film is not for people looking for a critical, in depth analysis of history, specifically the events that followed Emperor Puyi’s abdication of the throne in 1911, and it is not a film that questions the chaotic events that eventually culminated in the creation of China’s current system of government. Rather, the film can be seen as representing the government’s official version of events, and as such, the film is a mild curiosity.

For the first hour, the film’s pacing is practically insufferable. The film cuts to the next scene too rapidly, and rarely is the significance of what we have just seen made clear. Instead, what we see is too often just a parade of seemingly important characters speaking vaguely about what China should and should not be. At other moments, the film shows viewers apparently significant events, yet does not bother to explain what was at stake during them or what was gained from them. For example, in one scene, a character departs for Japan to seek Dr. Sun Yat-sen’s counsel and then returns to wage war. Does this lead to Sun Yat-sen’s return? Does the ensuing military victory have an impact on the larger struggle? The film doesn’t say. It just moves on to the next key conflict.

The second half of the film slows down significantly, and as a result, it is slightly more involving. Most interesting is its portrayal of the May 4^th movement. The movement is portrayed as having begun as the result of the actions of two teachers and been carried to fruition by students who took up the cause and went to the streets to make their displeasure known. The students are depicted as being both serious and dedicated to their cause, yet they are also shown to be somewhat extreme. This is demonstrated in their disturbing habit of writing down their grievances in their own blood and their absolutely unwillingness to entertain alternate views. In this sense, they are like many of today’s protesters, many of whom only align themselves with people whose viewpoints match their own and have a hard time hearing the opposition.

In fact, the students often seem on the verge of violence, especially during scenes in which they surround and confront professors that have publicly disagreed with their tactics. At one point, the film shows them attacking the home of officials whom they blame for enabling Japan to occupy Shandong, and it is unclear exactly what they intend to do with the official and his wife if they succeed in capturing them. During the scene, the young students plead with soldiers them to recognize their commonality and not attack them. They insist that they represent the entire Chinese population, and they call on the soldiers to assist them in their efforts. Scenes like this one made me recall the sentiments expressed at the end of Battleship Potemkin, yet there was less of a sense of satisfaction in them, perhaps because they do not immediately restore order and calm. This is the beginning of the storm, not a sign of its impending conclusion.

The film also functions as an origin of sorts for the man who would later hold the moniker chairman, Mao Zedong, played by Ye Liu. Here, he is a young man, full of questions, discovering the plights of the people and formulating his own political beliefs. This involves a great deal of discussion with his change-minded professors and a lot of reading about the rebellions and political systems of other countries. Here, his rise is more cinematic than realistic, full of short moments of excitement and drive, but void of any in depth exploration. Sadly, the film does not examine just what made him so charismatic that he would emerge as leader above everyone else at that time.

Viewers know the conclusions that Mao, his teachers, and his fellow students ultimately come to in advance, and many scenes in which they discuss China’s future end with characters asking or being asked deep philosophical questions and then staring into the camera as if contemplating ideas that are beyond words. There are too many of these moments, and instead of creating suspense, they grow increasingly tedious. There is also a subplot involving Mao and his courtship of the woman he eventually married which begins promising, yet is unfortunately underdeveloped. As portrayed in the film, they spent their time together doing nothing more than reading and formulating new political theories. Romance was set aside, as the film portrays it, for the betterment of the country.

The film boasts a cast on some of the most famous actors and actresses from Hong Kong and China. Yun-Fat Chow has a short, but memorable role as Yuan Shikai, the general who tried as hard as he could to become emperor. Other A-list actors appear for a few short moments and then disappear completely before you have time to recognize them. In fact, the cast list on IMDB is a rather remarkable who’s who of famous people, many of whom I hadn’t even realized were in the film. One actor I did recognize, though, was Taiwanese American pop star/actor Leehom Wang, who plays Lo Chia-lun, and his presence stirred mixed feelings in me. I can understand Wang’s interest in expanding his fan base and ensuring his ability to tour and make films in China, but it is an open question whether he should have agreed to appear in this particular film.

In the end, Beginning of the Great Revival is a version of history told at lightning speed. It is incomplete and one-sided, as well as being rife with cliché-filled dialogue concerning the nobility of the students’ struggles and the dishonor of those who stand in their way. The film even ends with a rather rosy epilogue about China’s future. In short, the film is clearly meant for a domestic audience, and it is doubtful that it will have much appeal outside of that market. However, towards the end of the film, a curious event happens that made me reflect upon the often ironic nature of history. In the scene, a small group of students sit around a table and draft what is essentially a political platform. The scene itself is as exciting as watching molasses drop, yet it fascinates nonetheless because, you see, the students actually take a vote. Imagine that. (on DVD and Blu-ray)

2 stars

Review - My Lucky Star

July 10, 2014

My Lucky Star – China, 2013

Stop me if this sounds familiar. An innocent young woman meets a dashingly handsome man who’s secretly a secret agent. There’s a case involving an item that almost everyone is dying to get their hands on. The woman is seen with him and mistaken for his partner. He rescues her and takes her to a remote island in the middle of nowhere, where he teaches her a technique that can enable her to escape someone’s grasp if she ever has to. Later, there are chase scenes, a mix-up with a truth serum, and inexplicable escapes, and all the while the woman wonders aloud if he is her Mr. Right. Can you guess the movie? Given these details, many people, myself included, would have guessed Tom Cruise’s 2010 film Knight and Day, yet all of these cinematic moments can also be found in Dennie Gordon’s 2013 film My Lucky Star, starring Ziyi Zhang and Taiwanese American pop star/director/actor Leehom Wang.

In My Lucky Star, a prequel to 2009’s modestly entertaining, yet ultimately underwhelming Sophie’s Revenge, Zhang plays a young directionless woman named Sophie who works as a travel agent, but dreams of becoming a successful comic book artist. She has a rather active imagination, which makes sense given her goals in life, and a small problem distinguishing fact from fiction, a plot point dropped almost as quickly as it is brought up. In the beginning of the film, we see the story she is writing as it plays in her head, and it doesn’t take a genius to notice that the heroine in her stories bares an uncanny resemblance to herself. In the opening scene, she pictures the damsel in distress being rescued just in the nick of time by a dashing secret agent who just happens to look exactly like an agent who is assigned to retrieve a diamond that can somehow power a weapon lethal enough to destroy an entire European city. I’d love to be able to explain how it does this, but the film is intentionally vague in this department. Go figure.

Eventually the agent and the artist meet up. The agent is suave and remarkably clever, able to keep an eye on a key suspect and help Sophie retrieve belongings after they fall out of her suitcase. Also like Roy Miller in Knight and Day, he initially uses her as a cover for his covert activities, while also furnishing her with a new dress. Sound familiar? At first, Sophie is unaware of the espionage going on around her, and for good reason. After hearing all about the handsome guy she met, her friends back in Beijing have convinced her that what she needs to do is “hit that,” as if sex is the end-all cure for shyness, boredom, and unrealized dreams. All this is played for laughs of course, and it might be less offensive than it is if the jokes actually produced laughter. In addition, the film relies on some of the most disrespectful stereotypes of modern women, namely that they are slightly airheaded, unrealistic in love, and obsessed with wealth and the easy life it affords them. Sure, there are people like this, but they don’t always make the best subjects in movies.  

The film is not a complete disaster. Gordon has moments of inspired creativity, and during the most memorable of these, she adroitly cuts from live action to animation. One result of this is an almost seamless splicing of two worlds – the cute, Walt Disney-like world of cartoons, in which anything is possible, and Sophie’s much more mundane existence, in which nothing seems to be going her way. The technique gives viewers a sense of just how deep Sophie’s romantic and naïve views run, and a later in which she is asked to look at some people on a fishing boat and explain what she sees has a natural sweetness to it. Unfortunately, Gordon also displays a tendency to go overboard with fast cuts and edits which all too often stifle the casts’ attempts to fully convey their characters’ personalities. And we get over-the-top speeches that should have been toned down and cornball dialogue that even the best of actresses would have a hard time delivering convincingly.

Ziyi Zhang is a talented, versatile actress, yet as good as she is, not even she can make Sophie a believable character. As written, Sophie falls somewhere between cute and annoying, and she never appears calm or coherent enough for it to be believable that someone would fall in love with her in a matter of days. She makes unrealistic comments during dangerous situations, acts cowardly on cue, and then inexplicably develops the courage to travel halfway around the world to save the day. Luckily, she travels by map, a la the Muppets. Otherwise, she would never have made it in time.

At one point during the film a thought rushed into my head and I had to write it down. It goes like this, “What’s the point?” What’s the point of going to such great lengths to get quality talent only to give them such pitiful material to work with? At times, Zhang and Wang seem as if they are in different films. She plays most scenes as if she were in a parody of a Bond film, while he acts as if he were trying to actually play Bond. This makes it virtually impossible for the two characters to actually connect in any realistic way, and their eventual pairing comes across as forced rather than earned.

There was a time when a Ziyi Zhang movie meant something, when the mere appearance of her name on a poster or film promotion was indicative of not simply a quality performance but also a film that had the potential to challenge and delight audiences worldwide. My Lucky Star does not completely dispel this impression, but it does demonstrate just how hard it is to continue to produce such an impressive body of work. I’m still a fan, but after The Horsemen, Love for Life, Dangerous Liaisons, and now My Lucky Star, I find my faith beginning to fade. (on DVD and Blu-ray in Asia)

2 stars

*My Lucky Star is in Mandarin Chinese with English subtitles.

Review - Under the Hawthorn Tree

August 22, 2013

Under the Hawthorn Tree – China, 2010

Legend has it that below a particular hawthorn tree in the Chinese countryside, several soldiers sacrificed their lives for their country. As each one was struck down, their blood seeped into the ground and was absorbed by the hawthorn tree, making the tree stronger and turning its normally white flowers a shade of red. It is a tale that is recited proudly by a young man to a group of high school seniors sent into the countryside as part of Mao’s drive to “build classrooms in the fields.”  Later, it is revealed that one of these students has been given the task of recording the tales associated with that particular hawthorn tree, which begs the question: If the legend is common knowledge, what is the point of sending someone all the way there to write it down? Of course, it is hard to make sense of much of what happened during the Cultural Revolution.

The chaos of those years provides a backdrop for the events depicted in the film, but in truth, it should be said that Zhang Yimou’s Under the Hawthorn Tree is not as overtly critical or political as his earlier masterpiece To Live. It is a story of survival during trying times and a love story set during years that were difficult for both romance and love. As we are reminded throughout the film, at that time, one misstep, one rumor, one charge of scandal or impropriety could lead to lifelong ruin.

Early in the film, Jing, the young woman writing about the hawthorn tree, is introduced to a young man named Sun, who is in the area as part of a Geological Exploration Unit. Jing first sees him from afar, and it is obvious that she is affected by him immediately. Grins keep creeping onto her face, and her eyes grow a bit wider than usual. The feelings are mutual. However, for Sun’s part, he plays it cool. He laughs, makes small talk and offers Jing and her young companion a piece of candy. She initially declines his gift, but eventually changes her mind. It is a pattern that repeats itself throughout the film, and each of Sun’s gifts brings them a little bit closer until one day they are walking hand in hand through the forest.

Under the Hawthorn Tree could easily have followed in the footsteps of Joan Chen’s heartbreaking film Xiu Xui: The Send-Down Girl, yet Zhang does not seem interested in telling that side of the sent-down girl’s experience. While there is one instance of a man wooing and abandoning a young woman after he has “succeeded” with her, this is not Jing and Sun’s story. Theirs is a story involving a mutual attraction, a budding romance, an unfortunate separation, and a brief loosening of the society-imposed restraints that seek to ensure that they do not cross particular lines. To maintain the focus on the two lead characters, Zhang employs intertitles to move from one of their meetings to the next. The technique is slightly off-putting at first, but it is ultimately the right one. In each successive scene, it is clear that they are grower closer.

Zhang Yimou is a master at making these kinds of films, and anyone who has enjoyed his early work will no doubt enjoy this one as well. It is perfectly paced, thoroughly believable throughout, and extremely touching. In fact, it may be one of the best romances in the last decade. Zhou Dongyu is a revelation as Jing. She is able to capture and express to the audience an amazing array of emotions, and she often does this sans dialogue. Shawn Dou is equally impressive as Sun, and it is easy to see how torn he is over his youthful, often conflicting emotions. He is the perfect gentleman, but we can tell that there is much he wishes to do with Jing that he must not do. In fact, his performance brought to mind Toshiro Mifune’s role as the repressed doctor in Akira Kurosawa’s underappreciated The Quiet Duel.

In another decade, Under the Hawthorn Tree would have opened in big-market cities throughout the United States simply because it bore the phrase directed by Zhang Yimou. Those days have clearly passed. According to IMDB, the film opened in China in September 2010, has been shown at several film festivals, and had brief theatrical runs in just a handful of countries in Asia and Europe. It has not opened in North America, and it not available on either DVD or Blu-ray in the United States. This is a shame, for the film is a real treasure. It is superbly directed, has a beautiful, moving script, and contains some of the sweetest characters I’ve seen in a film for quite some time. In addition, unlike many contemporary romances, there is not a single scene in the film that does not feel authentic, forced, or overly scripted. It is a film that deserves to be discovered. (on DVD in Region 3)

4 and a half stars

*Under the Hawthorn Tree is in Chinese with English subtitles.