Annual Top Films Lists

Top 150 Most Anticipated Foreign Films of 2020: #76. One Second – Zhang Yimou

Published on January 1, 2020

One Second

Will we ever be able to see Zhang Yimou’s One Second, which was yanked out of Berlin 2019 days before its premiere for not receiving approval from China’s censorship board? Most likely, it will end up premiering somewhere, though apparently 2019 was not in the cards. The low-fi drama stars Zhang Yi (Mountains May Depart, 2015) and Fan Wei, and was lensed by regular Yimou DP Zhao Xiaoding.

Gist: Co-written by Zou Jingzhi (The Grandmaster), the project is set in the mid-1970s in northwestern China, concerning a movie fan in a remote farmland and a homeless female vagabond.

Release Date/Prediction: It would seem it would only be fair for One Second to have its day in Berlin. Would it be weird if Yimou was re-invited to the Berlinale a year after being unceremoniously yanked from the program? Guess we’ll see.

Nicholas Bell

Los Angeles based Nicholas Bell is IONCINEMA.com's Chief Film Critic and covers film festivals such as Sundance, Berlin, Cannes and TIFF. He is part of the critic groups on Rotten Tomatoes, The Los Angeles Film Critics Association (LAFCA), the Online Film Critics Society (OFCS) and GALECA. His top 3 for 2021: France (Bruno Dumont), Passing (Rebecca Hall) and Nightmare Alley (Guillermo Del Toro). He was a jury member at the 2019 Cleveland International Film Festival.

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Annual Top Films Lists

Top 150 Most Anticipated Foreign Films of 2020: #76. One Second – Zhang Yimou