So Long, My Son (China, 2019)

 

Yaoyun and his wife Liyun once had a happy family - until their son drowned playing by a reservoir. And so Yaojun and Liyun leave their home and plunge into the big city, although nobody knows them there and they cannot even understand the local dialect. Their adopted son Liu Xing does not offer them the comfort they had hoped for either. Defiantly rejecting his 'foreign' parents, he one day disappears altogether. The married couple are repeatedly enmeshed in their memories.

So Long, My Son has everything that matters for me in a film. The outstanding performances by the actors hits every mark, and the actress who plays the mother is especially good. This story also demanded that high level acting to be as effective as it could be. So Long, My Son is an epic family drama about that big gap in our lives when someone passes away, set against the backdrop of China's tumultuous history and changing society. We're jumping back in time to get glimpses of events that will have such strong impact many years later, and after following the couple for so long the emotional weight of some scenes are absolutely devastating. All this would have amounted to a great film, but we also have the beautiful cinematography and composed camerawork which do huge favors for the heavy story. A long sit at barely over three hours, but well worth your time if you value true to life storytelling and what you get out of watching a film.  

Genre: Drama

Butter Lamp (China, 2013)

A young itinerant photographer and his assistant photograph Tibetan nomads in front of various backgrounds.

Short films can always impress me with how much they manage to express in a very limited amount of time. Butter Lamp may have a lot people wondering why we're watching a bunch of people getting their pictures taken, but others may find a lovely portrayal of a rich foreign culture, capped off with an ending which effectively comments on how the old meets the new and urbanization.

Genre: Short/Drama

Wrath of Silence (China, 2017)

Baomin is a miner who works far away from home because of some disputes he had with the townsfolk years ago, whilst his wife and son remain near the mountains running a small sheep farm. One day, Baomin learns that his son Lei hasn't come back from shepherding for two days. He goes back to find his son. His appearance back in town makes people anxious. Searching for his son, Baomin heads for the rough and dangerous mountains, but the resentment and distrust of the townsfolk leads them to turn a blind eye to the reality of a missing child, and the corruption and danger permeating their lives.

China continues to be a superpower when it comes to the slow-burning mystery drama genre, Ash is Purest White (2018) and Long Day's Journey Into Night (2018) being some of the most recent. Wrath of Silence gushes with a heavy mood and takes its time telling a story that's not in a hurry to get to all the violent parts, but more inclined to portray a desperate father's search for his son and how warped his morals can become in the hunt for the perpetrators. Not the ideal film for people with short attention spans but a treat for cineasts and lovers of thoughtful, beautiful cinematography. 

Genre: Crime/Drama/Mystery

Crosscurrent (China, 2016)

A young cargo ship captain named Gao Chun pilots his boat up the Yangtze River and ponders the recent death of his father. During the trip, he encounters numerous symbols representing China's past, present and future, including a mysterious woman who is present at every port along the way. 

Crosscurrent became one heck of a water divider (no pun intended) after its release, where one side praised the arthouse approach to a slow ride along the Yangtze river, and the other half didn't have the patience for what it wanted to show. I've read that this film was 10 years in the making, and while I don't know how much of that time was spent on shooting or writing, I'd say it was worth it. For me personally, Crosscurrent was an absolute shattering experience, and after some time I was swept away by Gao Chun's ambition to see the end of this seemingly never-ending, awe-inspiring river. 

To help portray the most breathtaking parts of China's nature and locales around the river, director Chao Yang had the help of Mark Lee Ping-bing who's responsible for the beautiful cinematography in Norwegian Wood (2010) and In the Mood for Love (2000), and it's obvious early on that the both lush nature and the eerie and empty ghost cities along the river are meant to be main characters of their own. The story can be seen as both minimalistic and hard to grasp with all the Buddhistic views on life and death, alongside the personal journey of a man dealing with the passing of his father while also bumping into a woman during his long voyage. It is all capped off with one of the darkest and most atmospheric cello-based soundtracks I've ever heard, where the orchestral strength reaches new heights with the help of melancholic, dark waves. This is a score worthy of a billion-dollar movie, but instead hides away in this rarely talked about film about a man going up the Yangtze river. An amazing film, which I'm sad to see being swept aside by other more accessible ones, but at least it's out there and showing what cinema can be at it finest moments, an unforgettable journey.

Genre: Drama

An Elephant Sitting Still (China, 2018)

In the northern Chinese city of Manzhouli, they say there is an elephant that simply sits and ignores the world. Manzhouli becomes an obsession for the protagonists of this film, a longed-for escape from the downward spiral in which they find themselves. Among them is schoolboy Bu, on the run after pushing Shuai down the stairs, who was bullying him previously. Bu's classmate Ling has run away from her mother and fallen for the charms of her teacher. Shuai's older brother Cheng feels responsible for the suicide of a friend. And finally there's Mr. Wang, a sprightly pensioner whose son wants to offload him onto a home.

An Elephant Sitting Still is one of the most moving  and memorable film experiences I've had in a long time. It manages to say so much about human nature, and accomplishes to flesh out the extremely exposed and vulnerable characters we get to follow through one whole day. There's a big chance the 4-hour running time will scare people away, I know I certainly saw the film way later than I could've, but it's wild how I actually can't think of anything they should have left on the cutting room floor. Every scene builds up towards a goal and every character are a thread which the viewer will follow until their inevitable convergence. Together with the carefully planned, long continuous shots there's a beautiful and melancholic post-rock inspired soundtrack so the themes of guilt, bullying and alienation are in a happy marriage with cold, melodic guitars and atmospheric ambience.  

The bleak and oppressive atmosphere hangs over the film like grey, never moving, ever-present rain clouds. The saddest thing though, is the fact that the films director Bo Hu ended his life during the post-production at age 29, making Elephant his first and last feature-length film. The testament to his skill and attention to detail shines in every scene, and how he made all the characters truly come alive is awe-inspiring. A masterpiece from a visual artist who left us all too soon.

Genre: Drama

Long Day's Journey Into Night (China, 2018)

Luo Hongwu returns to Kaili, the hometown from which he fled 12 years earlier. As memories of an enigmatic and beautiful woman resurface - a woman he loved and whom he has never been able to forget - so, Luo Hongwu begins his search for her.

Here's a film which was caught in a bit of controversy at its release. It was marketed as a film for the general public, and nothing more of its contents were disclosed, so after the premiere there was an outrage from mislead viewers. You see, Long Day's is an art-house film and not at all the quick-paced detective drama people first thought. Film critics loved the film though and it won  a prize for Best Cinematography. That award was an obvious choice given how this movie shines with beauty. Some shots are a wonder to behold, and there was a huge buzz surrounding it's last 59-minutes which amazingly is a single no-cut tracking shot. 

For film fans in search of that kick you get when watching a fantastic director put his soul into his film. More mainstream viewers should approach with care, due to the film's tempo and overall long, lingering shots. 

Genre: Drama/Mystery

Shadow (China, 2018)

In a kingdom ruled by a young and unpredictable king, the military commander has a secret weapon: a "shadow", a look-alike who can fool both his enemies and the King himself. Now he must use this weapon in an intricate plan that will lead his people to victory in a war that the King does not want.

Zhang Yimou, director of visual spectacles such as House of Flying Daggers (2004) and Hero (2002), is back with another film that unleashes itself upon its viewer rather than getting watched. Zhang uses his usual style of amazing looking battles in slow-motion, rain drops which gets cut in half and sword strikes with terrifying precision. This is a film where brutal martial arts are being treated as beautiful poetry, and every punch flows as smooth as a stream through a bamboo thicket. The color palette rarely moves out of the gray, black and white so that the feeling of watching an old Chinese ink painting only gets stronger. Hand in hand with these jaw-dropping fight scenes we're treated to a bombastic Shakespeare-like historical drama, both intimate and epic in scope with political intrigue, and affection between fighters. A true return to form for Zhang.   

Genre: Action/Drama/War

Mountains May Depart (China, 2015)

China, 1999. Childhood friends Liangzi and Zhang are both in love with Tao, the town beauty. Tao eventually decides to marry the wealthier Zhang. They soon have a son, Dollar. From China to Australia, the lives, loves, hopes and disillusions of a family over two generations in a society changing at breakneck speed.

Jia Zhangke, director of Touch of Sin (2013), is back with his latest feature film Mountains May Depart. I've noticed how he has a special liking for epic scopes in movies, where the plot can span over many, many years. Here we follow a woman through her adult life and it's very easy to get attached to the characters because we stick with them for so long. Great actors and a superb sense of progression in China's society from 1999 all the way to 2025, Mountains May Depart is a realistic portrayal of a few lives during  a couple of eventful decades.

Genre: Drama

Coming Home (China, 2014)

Lu Yanshi and Feng Wanyu are a devoted couple forced to separate when Lu is arrested and sent to a labor camp as a political prisoner, just as his wife is injured in an accident. Released during the last days of the Cultural Revolution, he finally returns home only to find that his beloved wife has amnesia and remembers little of her past. Unable to recognize Lu, she patiently waits for her husband's return. A stranger alone in the heart of his broken family, Lu Yanshi determines to resurrect their past together and reawaken his wife's memory.

Coming Home is the ninth collaboration between director Yimou Zhang and actor Gong Li. Some of their work includes Raise the Red Lantern (1991), To Live (1994) and Red Sorghum (1987), and Coming Home follows the tradition of being a well-played emotional drama. It's actually quite heartbreaking and you desperately wish for a happy ending.   

Genre: Drama

Still Life (China/Hong Kong, 2006)

Coalminer Han Sanming comes from Fengyang in Shanxi to the Three Gorges town Fengjie to look for his ex-wife whom he has not seen for 16 years. The couple meet on the bank of the Yangtze River and vow to remarry. Nurse Shen Hong also comes to Fengjie from Taiyuan in Shanxi to look for her husband who has not been home for two years. The couple embrace each other and waltz under the imposing Three Gorges dam, but feel they are so apart and decide to have a divorce. The old township has been submerged, while a new town has to be built.

Still Life is a story about searching for what has been lost. In a town that's slowly being flooded during the construction of a dam, a man and a woman tries to find family and husbands. The beautiful mountains and rivers serves as a contrasting backdrop to the more desperate plot. 

Genre: Drama

Shower (China, 1999)

Shenzhen businessman, Da Ming, goes home to Beijing when he thinks his father has died. He finds his father hard at work at the family's bathhouse (the false message was a ruse of Da's mentally-handicapped brother, Er Ming, to get Da home). Da stays a couple days, observing his father being social director, marriage counselor, and dispute mediator for his customers and a boon companion to Er. Da is caught between worlds: the decaying district of his childhood and the booming south where he now lives with a wife who's not met his family. When Da realizes his father's health is failing and the district is slated for razing, he must take stock of family and future.

Shower is a film that spends it time developing a father-and-son relationship inside of a bathhouse. The premise makes it sound like a quirky comedy but there's a lot more to it than that, and halfway through the film it drastically changes tone. A good drama, with both humor and grief. 

Genre: Drama/Comedy

Night Train (China, 2007)

Wu Hongyan is a young woman working as a prison guard during executions of female convicts. She feels lonely after her husband died, and she takes a night train to another city to visit a dating service. After a series of unsuccessful dates, she meets Li Jun. It quickly becomes obvious that he is hiding a secret: he is the widower of one of the female convicts of which Wu Hongyan assisted in the execution. Li Jun is torn apart by his feelings, as he is both attracted to Wu Hongyan, and having a desire for revenge for his executed wife.

Night Train is a very somber film, with dark themes and presentation. It's a good film for those who don't necessarily need everything to tie up nicely with a warm, happy ending. For those who don't go mad when it's revealed that there's no light at the end of the tunnel. 

Genre: Drama

Black Coal, Thin Ice (China, 2014)

An ex cop and his ex partner decide to follow up on investigation of a series of murders that ended their careers and shamed them, when identical murders begin again.

I remember wanting to see this film for the longest time, and now it's here. With full force. Black Coal, Thin Ice feature some of the best cinematography that I've ever seen from China, It looks amazing and really fits the noir-ish feel of the film. What also elevates the film is the great story and pacing, this isn't your average cop thriller but an extremely well-made and clever film. There's literally nothing stupid about it, is another way you could describe it. 

So all in all, Black Coal, Thin Ice is realistic and dark and exactly the kind of crime films I want to see from China in the future.

Genre: Crime/Drama/Mystery

The Road Home (China, 1999)

City businessman Luo Yusheng returns to his home village in North China for the funeral of his father, the village teacher. He finds his elderly mother insisting that all the traditional burial customs be observed, despite the fact that times have changed so much, and that it involves many people carrying his father's body back to the village - the road home. As Yusheng debates the complications involved in organizing such a big feat, he remembers the magical story of how his father and mother first met and got together.

The Road Home features a very simple but yet effective story of love at first sight. In the main role we have Ziyi Zhang, who's had prominent roles in great films such as Hero (2002), House of Flying Daggers (2004) and Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000). She's  all kinds of amazing and carries this film on her back with a superb performance as an innocent, shy but also curious young girl who just can't stop thinking about a boy.

It's a film that's not just your average run-of-the-mill love story, but a warm and delightful little movie. 

Genre: Drama/Romance

Red Sorghum (China, 1987)

In 1930s China a young woman is sent by her father to marry the leprous owner of a winery. In the nearby red sorghum fields she falls for one of his servants. When the master dies she finds herself inheriting the isolated business. 

Red Sorghum is based on a novel by Chinese Nobel prize winner Mo Yan, and was directed by Zhang Yimou, whom you might recognize as the man behind incredible films such as Raise the Red Lantern (1991) and Hero (2002). With Red Sorghum he portrays a woman's struggle to run a winery, but encounters hardships around every corner. I like how the color red is dominant throughout the film; the liquor, the  cloths, the paintings, the blood. 

Genre: Drama

Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress (China/France, 2002)

In 1971 China, in the lingering grip of the cultural revolution, two university students, Luo and Ma, are sent to a mountain mining village as part of their reeducation duty to purge them of their classical western oriented education. Amid the backbreaking work and stifling ignorance of the community, the two boys find that music, and the presence of the beautiful local young women are the only pleasant things in their miserable life. However, none compare to the young seamstress granddaughter of the local tailor.

Here's a winner. Balzac is based on a novel by Dai Sijie, and when the time came for a movie version, Dai himself chose to be the director. That was a great move, because Balzac turned out to be a beautiful and poetically stunning piece of cinema. There are many shots that looks amazing, especially those that incorporate the view from the small village and around it. Acting-wise it's nothing short of fantastic, the casting is flawless and at the end it's easy to get sentimental about the time spent with these characters in their youth. 

          

Genre: Drama/Biography/Romance

Riki-Oh: The Story of Ricky (China, 1991)

The story is set in the year of 2001 in a prison owned by a major company. A new prisoner sees his friends being harassed and killed by the guards and seeks his revenge.

Riki-Oh is the kind of movie where you can see a dog get split in half by a kick, and where people punch through stomachs with superhuman strength. One major downside with the movie is that it's so obvious when a doll is used because they look kind of cheep. That aside, some effect are great, like when a fat guy gets his stomach ripped open and blood is gushing out. It's a B-martial arts movie where body parts are getting torn off, bodies are exploding and bad guys being pushed down meat blenders. If the practical effects just had been a little better it would have been one of the most disgusting films ever, but now it ranges from decent to terrible, but terrible in a hilarious way. 

Nothing too serious, but fun if you're in the mood for it. 

Genre: Action/Comedy

Suzhou River (China, 2000)

Mardar, a motorcycle courier in his mid-twenties, is one day asked by a shady alcohol smuggler to deliver his sixteen-year-old daughter, Moudan, to her aunt. Mardar and Moudan grow fond of each other. But their tender happiness is disrupted when Moudan thinks that Mardar has kidnapped her for a ransom. She is so disappointed in him that she jumps off the bridge into the Suzhou River. Mardar is now suspected of murder. When, a couple of years later, he comes out of jail he meets the dancer Meimei, an alter-ego of Moudan, and becomes fascinated by her.

With great cinematic style, Suzhou River portrays a love story with much credibility and emotions. The cinematography has been compared to that of Wong Kar-wai (Fallen Angels, Chungking Express) due to its dreamy and surreal nature, and in terms of acting it's a slam-dunk. Good stuff.

Genre: Drama/Romance

Kung Fu Hustle (China/Hong Kong, 2004)

Set in Canton, China in the 1940s, the story revolves in a town ruled by the Axe Gang, Sing who desperately wants to become a member. He stumbles into Pigsty Alley, a slum ruled by eccentric landlords who turns out to be the greatest kung-fu masters in disguise. Sing's actions eventually cause the Axe Gang and the slumlords to engage in an explosive kung-fu battle. Only one side will win and only one hero will emerge as the greatest kung-fu master of all.

You might have heard of or seen this one already because it became quite big upon its release. Kung Fu Hustle is  filled with insanely cartonish action and lots of slapstick fun, it plays around with the whole Hong Kong martial arts-genre and has a blast with it. There's no shortage of imaginative fighting styles, my favorite is the two men who shoot swords by playing a huge stringed instrument. Watch it if you like something that's not too serious or slow.

Genre: Action/Comedy/Crime

Beijing Bicycle (China, 2001)

Newly-arrived in Beijing, country boy Guei gets a job as a bicycle courier. But when his bike is stolen, he only manages to persuade his boss to let him keep the job by promising to track the bike down. After some searching, he finds it in the possession of schoolboy Jian and resolves to take it back. Over the following days, as the bicycle passes back and forth between them, the two boys find their fates being bound closer and closer together.

Beijing Bicycle tells a story about youth that's bleak as the bleakest of things. The plot might be a bit thin, but it's still an effective tale of adolescence that pulls no punches and isn't afraid of leaving its main characters in the dirt. It might be somewhat of a downer for viewers who need retribution and happy endings, but for others it certainly is a ride worth taking. A tragic ride on a bike. 

Genre: Drama