Yuanyuan Gao

Hong Kong action auteur Johnnie To indulges his silly side with this hilariously inventive sequel to his hit romantic comedy, two former lovers find themselves irresistibly drawn back together — despite the fact that each is engaged to someone else.

Nowadays the stellar universe of Chinese popular film is filled with romantic comedies full of sap, déjà vu, and worn-out clichés. But the proliferation of these poorly executed star vehicles doesn’t mean that the genre is tired out. In the hands of a master like Johnnie To, the rom-com has plenty of life yet. In Don’t Go Breaking My Heart 2, To’s sequel to his 2011 hit, he combines cinematic wit, brilliant dialogue, and inventive ideas, taking the genre into fresh new territory.Read More »

In a rare, but much welcome change of pace, Johnnie To came off the back of 2009’s disappointing multinational crime thriller, VENGEANCE, with two relatively light and fluffy romances. DON’T GO BREAKING MY HEART successfully navigated a complex and hard-to-predict love triangle through the tumultuous financial tsunami that hit Hong Kong harder than most. While the next film to be released in cinemas bearing To’s directorial moniker was LIFE WITHOUT PRINCIPLE, a similarly finance-obsessed work, it was a project To had in fact been tinkering with for a number of years already. Instead, once DON’T GO BREAKING… had been completed, the Milkyway Image crew headed north into the mountains of Yunnan, where Louis Koo and Sammi Cheng would star in snowbound love story, ROMANCING IN THIN AIR.Read More »

Synopsis
In the 1980s, encouraged by the government, a large number of families leave Chinese cities to settle in the poorer regions of the country, in order to develop local industry. The film’s main character is a 19 years old girl who lives in the Guizhou province, where her parents have settled. That’s where she has grown up, where her friends are and where she first experiences love. But her father believes that their future lies in Shanghai. How can they all keep on living together when they don’t share the same dreams?Read More »

The third film from award-winning Fifth Generation director Lu Chuan (Kekexili: Mountain Patrol), City of Life and Death (Nanking Nanking) is a devastating account of the massacre that occurred during WWII when Japanese troops took the city of Nanjing in December 1937, a tragedy remembered as the Rape of Nanking. Shot completely in black and white, this powerful war drama unflinchingly captures the shocking violence and brutality of the Nanjing massacre, from the mass executions of POWs to the raping and slaughtering of civilians, while providing a deeply human portrait of both the victims and the perpetrators.Read More »

The story begins on a bus, when white-collar worker Ye refuses to give up her seat to a senior citizen. Her defiance is videotaped by a journalist intern and played during a news show. The video sparks intense debate on and off the Internet. Some Internet users search for Ye’s personal information and post it all online. The issue soon brings tremendous changes to the families of both the journalist intern and Ye’s boss.Read More »