Tag: Chinese Cinema
Girls on Wire | 2025 Berlin Intl. Film Festival Review
Mad Bills to Pay: Qu Stages Miserabilist Soap Opera
If Girls on Wire settles on anything clear to say it’s quite simply that crime doesn’t...
Living the Land | 2025 Berlin Intl. Film Festival Review
Land of Steady Habits: Meng Reflects Familial Upheaval in Quiet Saga
“Isn’t it queer: there are only two or three human stories, and they go...
Final Cut?: Lou Ye’s “An Finished Film” is…. Not Finished
It was arguably the most engaging film at this year's Cannes (Thierry Frémaux might have included it in the competition if not for Caught...
Caught by the Tides | Review
The Tide is High: Zhangke Splices Thwarted Romance Across Changing Times
Filmmaker Jia Zhangke presents something of an experimental anomaly with his latest feature, Caught...
Some Rain Must Fall | 2024 Berlin Intl. Film Festival Review
Mistress of Misery: Yang Explores the Turmoil of Transformation
Here comes the rain again, falling on her head like a tragedy. Or so is the...
Return to Dust | Review
The Good Earth: Ruijun Crafts Poignant Portrait of Transformative Love
Director Li Ruijun returns to familiar themes in his sixth feature, Return to Dust, a...
Are You Lonesome Tonight? | Review
Unhappy Together: Shipei Concocts Romantic Neo-noir
Director Wen Shipei strikes an oddly satisfying balance between broody Neo-noir and simmering romance with his debut Are You...
Top 200 Most Anticipated Foreign Films of 2023: #97. Liu Jian’s Art College 1994
A Portrait of the Artist As a Young Man
Identified as the film that was pulled from the Directors' Fortnight less than a week before...
Top 200 Most Anticipated Foreign Films of 2023: #191. Anthony Chen’s The Breaking Ice
The Breaking Ice
His Camera d'Or winning Ilo Ilo (2013) and TIFF Platform section preemed Wet Season (2019) followed by his contribution with the Cannes...
Mob Mentality: Gu Xiaogang Putting Final Touches on “Dwelling by the West Lake”
After quietly breaking out of Cannes back in 2019 with Dwelling in the Fuchun Mountains - a Critics' Week closing film, Chinese filmmaker Gu...
Miao Now: Long Day’s Journey Into Night’s Bi Gan Set to Shoot in 2022
As of late Chinese filmmaker Bi Gan has been keeping busy with one finger on the shutter button, and one eye in the viewfinder....
Cliff Walkers | Review
A Cliff Too Far: Yimou Navigates Tortured Times in Period Espionage Thriller
Arguably the most successful and prolific of the Fifth Generation of Chinese filmmakers,...
The Best Is Yet to Come | 2020 Venice Film Festival Review
Disease Beat: Jing Revisits the Turn of the Century with Saccharine Debut
Whenever the protégé of a major contemporary auteur branches out into their own...
Interview: Aoqian Sun – Over the Sea | 2019 PYIFF
Before first-time Chinese filmmaker Sun Aoqian became a ravenous student of cinema, he was born to a family of farmers. Much of his childhood...
Video Interview: Bi Gan – Long Day’s Journey Into Night
After the critical success of his poetically wistful debut Kaili Blues in 2015, 29-year old Chinese auteur Bi Gan has followed up with a...
Off Set 2018 TIFF Portrait Series: Hidden Man
We first discovered Jiang Wen in Zhang Yimou’s Red Sorghum (1988), and so it was with a certain delight when TIFF announced that Yimou’s...
Three Adventures of Brooke | 2018 Venice Film Festival Review
Of Time and the City: Yuan Qing Delights with Tender, Dainty Rohmerian Debut
An airy, relaxed tale of meandering bliss and the pursuit of meaning...
