Chinese

Synopsis
A Yangtze Landscape utilizes a non-narrative style, setting off from the Yangtze’s marine port Shanghai, filming all the way to the Yangtze River’s source, Qinghai/Tibet – filming a total distance of thousands of kilometers. Experimental music and noise recorded live on scene are used in post-production, painstakingly paired with relatively independent visuals, creating a magically realistic atmosphere contrasted with people seeming to be ‘decorative figures’ right out of traditional Chinese landscape scrolls.Read More »

There is a lot to admire about this pointed modern-day political satire, but you’ll have to get over a few hurdles. One of them is the unnecessary length, another is the distracting use of a circular frame – a device that references Chinese art and hints at its heroine’s constrained plight, but often makes the viewer feel as if they’re peering through a keyhole.Read More »

Chinese-Canadian writer-director Johnny Ma follows his 2016 feature debut, Old Stone, with this touching drama. Zhao Li is the manager of a rundown theatre on the outskirts of Chengdu, China, inhabited by a small troupe that performs the art of Sichuan opera to disinterested audiences night after night. When she receives a notice of demolition for the theatre, Zhao Li hides the news from everyone else, fearing that the threat of their home’s destruction could spell the end of their close-knit family. As she struggles to search for a new theatre for them to work and live in, elements of Sichuan opera and its fantastic characters slowly begin to seep into Zhao Li’s world.Read More »

Synopsis:
Lo Wei was twenty years into his notable career when he wrote, directed, and co-starred in this tale of a murdered lord, a hired killer who unknowingly becomes friends with his intended victim, a vicious bandit chief, a kind blind woman, and a death duel which explodes into an ambush and then a slaughter. Star Yueh Hua would go on to an exceptional acting career, while Lo himself would give both Bruce Lee and Jackie Chan their “big breaks.”Read More »

Meili is a character portrait of a young woman in much need of love.Read More »

NYFF wrote:
Since his 2012 feature When Night Falls, a stinging critique of state power that the Chinese authorities attempted to suppress, the director Ying Liang has been forced to live in exile in Hong Kong. His return to feature filmmaking is a characteristically precise and powerful work, and an autobiographical one, inspired by his own precarious situation and based on a reunion with his in-laws. Read More »

Synopsis:
The time has come, as it does every two years, for the senior members of Hong Kong’s oldest Triad,
The Wo Shing Society, to elect a new chairman. Fierce rivalries emerge between the two eligible
candidates. Lok, respected by the Uncles is the favourite to win. But his rival Big D will stop at
nothing to change this, including going against hundreds of years of Triad tradition and influencing
the vote with money and violence.Read More »

In China, middle class Fang Lei only has to care for her daughter. Safe in a loveless but peaceful marriage, she spends much of her time shopping. One night, a young lover appears in her dreams. Soon Fang Lei is no longer able to separate reality from dream and regards him as her real husband.Read More »

Synopsis:
A cruel, twisted husband (Wang Rong) has made life a living Hell for his sickly wife (Tien Ni), a habit that extends to new family servant Chan Si Kai, who’s initially brought on to help care for the wife, but grows to help her in another way entirely! The two conspire to murder the husband and dispose of his body, but what starts as a murder-revenge plot ultimately becomes a tale of the undead!Read More »