盲探 | Blind Detective

He used to be a highly gifted police detective but was forced to retire after getting blinded on duty. Since then he earns his living by solving cold cases for the police. She is an up-and-coming hit team detective who has been feeling guilty ever since her childhood friend went missing after she refused to go out with her ten years ago. On witnessing how brilliantly he solves a case, she decides to seek his assistance to find her friend. He accepts the invitation with his own personal agenda in mind.

Directed by Johnnie To | Starring : Andy Lau, Sammi Cheng, Tao Guo, Ying-Ting Yiu, Hoi-Pang Lo | Presented at Cannes Film Festival

过界 | Bends

Bends straddles the Hong Kong-Shenzhen border and tells the story of Anna, an affluent housewife and Fai, her chauffeur, and their unexpected friendship as they each negotiate the pressures of Hong Kong life and the city’s increasingly complex relationship to mainland China. Fai is struggling to find a way to bring his pregnant wife and daughter over the Hong Kong border from Shenzhen so as to avoid the 2nd child penalty in China, even though he crosses the border easily every day working as a chauffeur for Anna. Anna, in contrast, is struggling to keep up the façade of her ostentatious lifestyle, after the disappearance of her husband, amid financial turmoil. Their two lives collide in a common space, the car.

Directed by Flora Lau | Starring : Carina Lau, Kun Chen, Yuan Tian, Lawrence Cheng, Stephanie Che | Presented at Cannes Film Festival

天注定 | A Touch of Sin

An angry miner revolts against the corruption of his village leaders.  A migrant worker at home for the New Year discovers the infinite possibilities a firearm can offer. A pretty receptionist at a sauna is pushed to the limit when a rich client assaults her. A young factory worker goes from job to job trying to improve his lot in life. Four people, four different provinces. A reflection on contemporary China: that of an economic giant slowly being eroded by violence, A Touch of Sin weaves together four strands, spanning the bustling southern metropolis of Guangzhou to rural townships.

Directed by Zhang Ke Jia | Starring : Tao Zhao, Wu Jiang, Baoqiang Wang, Jia-yi Zhang, Luo Lanshan | Presented at Cannes Film Festival

一代宗师 | The Grandmaster

With martial arts getting more popular in the Thirties, more people seek to learn them via the professionals at Foshan in Southern China. Some of the experienced masters like to challenge their counterparts and undergoing battles. To have their whole concentration, it is their practice to lock up the venues and no one is allowed to leave during battles. No food and no rest before reaching any results. Ip Man is a young rich man extremely talented in martial arts, but he chooses to keep a low profile. Yet this doesn’t keep him out of these troubles ahead. One day he is trapped in this battleground so he has to use every means in order to get out of there. The masters are amazed by his abilities. Master Kung and his daughter Kung Yi are amongst, and the latter is attracted to this newcomer. A high warlord is assassinated by his own guard Yi Xian Tian. All masters in Foshan vow to take Tian down no matter what.

Directed by Kar Wai Wong | Starring : Tony Leung Chiu Wai, Ziyi Zhang, Chen Chang, Benshan Zhao, Hye-kyo Song | Presented at Berlin Film Festival, Belgrade Film Festival, Hong Kong Film Festival

二次曝光 | Double Xposure

Since debuting with her first feature Fish and Elephant in 2001, director Li Yu has gone from rough-and-ready documentary realism with non-professional actors to working with some of the biggest Chinese stars. This stylish and briskly paced psychological thriller, her fifth and visually most ambitious feature yet, plumbs thriller staples of dualities and doubling in dizzying permutations – past indistinguishable from present, reality entangled with illusion, guilt and terror shadowing feelings of love – to a clincher of an ending. Joan Chen in a supporting role impresses, as does Chinese superstar Fan Bingbing, playing a young urbanite whose façade of certainties and comforts – boyfriend, apartment and car – violently splinters in a moment of jealousy.

Directed by Yu Li | Starring : Bingbing Fan, Joan Chen, Shaofeng Feng, Siyan Huo, Anlian Yao | Presented at N/A

有种 | Beijing Flickers

Beijing is happening these days, but not everyone is living the golden life. Dumped, fired, evicted and abandoned by everyone (including his dog), a down-on-his-luck man finds solace with a circle of equally ill-fated friends, in this touching and lighthearted drama from independent Chinese auteur Zhang Yuan.

Directed by Yuan Zhang | Starring : Zinuo Wang, Xiaofeng Li, Yulai Lu, Bowen Duan, Wenwen Han | Presented at Toronto Film Festival, Vancouver Film Festival, Thessaloniki Film Festival, Miami Film Festival

记忆望着我 | Memories Look at Me

Song Fang is the protagonist in her own soberly filmed docudrama, in which she returns from Beijing to the house of her parents in Nanjing. The film is largely set indoors, where Song shares everyday life and many memories with her parents, sister-in-law, brother and niece. Song is always on screen as they talk about relatives living and dead, about more or less successful careers, about old friends, illnesses and accidents, funerals and weddings. A young niece, Diandian, makes disarming comments that provide a lighter note. Between the conversations – that often take place around food – and rare excursions, we catch a glimpse of changing Chinese society. It is obvious that the norms and values of the older generation are being devalued, but that some deep-rooted traditions will probably continue for a very long time.

Directed by Fang Song | Starring : Yu-zhu Ye, Di-jing Song, Fang Song, Song Yuan | Presented at Locarno Film Festival, Vancouver Film Festival, New York Film Festival, Mar del Plata Film Festival, Entrevues Film Festival, Rotterdam Film Festival, Portland Film Festival, San Francisco Film Festival

搜索 | Caught in the Web

The story of three women whose worlds collide, Caught in the Web is a social commentary about the ‘sound bite’ society we are becoming, where perception becomes reality and judgments based on limited facts quickly spread, without regard for the truth or the damage they could cause.

Directed by Kaige Chen | Starring : Yuanyuan Gao, Chen Yao, Mark Chao, Hong Chen, Xueqi Wang | Presented at Toronto Film Festival

萧红 | Falling Flowers

While bombs destroy 1941 Hong Kong, Xiao Hong lays ill in a nearly abandoned hospital recounting her short life to an admirer.  Falling Flowers is the story of China’s Xiao Hong, a writer who is torn apart by societal expectations of women, fickle lovers, and her own complex needs.  As a young woman faced with the prospect of an arranged marriage, Xiao Hong leaves her family and follows her dream of attending university.  Overwhelmed by her financial situation she finds some support from her fiance but it does not last long.  Out of school, unwed, pregnant and trapped in a hotel for bad debt, Xiao Hong begins to crumble until a dashing reporter, Xiao Jun, visits her.  Their passion for art and literary success helps them overcome their poverty but is it enough to overcome the perils of war and his womanizing ways? Directed by Huo Jiangi, Falling Flowers is a beautifully shot period piece that skillfully tells the tragic tale of one of China’s important modern authors.

Directed by Jianqi Huo | Starring : Jia Song, Jue Huang, Renjun Wang, Chao Wu, Zhang Bo | Presented at Shanghai Film Festival, Hawaii Film Festival

浮城谜事 | Mystery

Lu Jie has no idea her husband Yongzhao is leading a double life, until the day she sees him entering a hotel with a young woman. Her world crumbles – and it’s just the beginning. A few hours later, the young woman dies beneath the wheels of a car. The police officer in charge of the case refuses to believe her death was accidental.

Directed by Ye Lou | Starring : Hao Qin, Lei Hao, Xi Qi, Ying Qu, Yawen Zhu | Presented at Cannes Film Festival, Vancouver Film Festival, Sao Paulo Film Festival

我还有话要说 | When Night Falls

Inspired by the notorious case of a young man’s 2008 murder of six Shanghai police officers, the remarkable new film from independent Chinese auteur Ying Liang focuses on the killer’s mother, as she both struggles to comprehend her son’s heinous act and is persecuted by a state that willfully ignores its own laws.

Directed by Liang Ying | Starring : An Nai, Kate Wen, Ming Sun | Presented at Jeonju Film Festival, Locarno Film Festival, Toronto Film Festival, Vancouver Film Festival, Warsaw Film Festival, Cinemanila Film Festival, Rotterdam Film Festival

亲密敌人 | Dear Enemy

With the lithium market in a dip, UA Capital Investment Banking, led by hotshot managing director Derek Lee, brokers a merger offer to Brandon Mining, one of the world’s big three lithium producers along with Anchor Exploration and Clayton Global. Investigative journalist Henry Ma, who runs financial blog Golden Touch, gets wind of the plan and makes it public. UA’s client is believed to be Anchor, and Brandon’s CEO Owenconsiders it a hostile takeover. His financial advisor is Derek’s onetime lover, Amy Liang, associate managing director of Global Alliance Investment Banking, who finally split up with Derek while on holiday together in Australia 10 months ago, frustrated by his workaholism. Amy’s old friend Rebecca, who works on Derek’s team, advises her not to do battle with Derek, for her own good, but Amy ignores her advice. The cat-and-mouse game starts with Amy and Derek finding themselves both on the same flight to London; Derek claims he is visiting his elder sister, clothes designer Lucy Lee , but both are trying to meet the elusive Chen Jiandong, Brandon’s biggest shareholder, to gauge where he stands. Amy finally tracks Chen down in South Africa but, as with Derek in London, he’s non-committal. Amy next chases a white knight but the move is stymied by Derek. Suspecting he has a mole on her team, she discovers who it is and plants false information. Realising he’s been outsmarted, Derek has a frank talk with Amy but they end up quarreling again, despite their residual feelings for each other. In a bid to rescue his position, Derek hires Henry to do some investigating for him.

Directed by Jinglei Xu | Starring : Jinglei Xu, Stanley Huang, Gigi Leung, Aarif Rahman, Christy Chung | Presented at N/A

白鹿原 | White Deer Plain

Wang Quan’an’s epic takes place towards the end of imperial China in a period of dramatic political and social upheaval. The film is set in the eponymous White Deer Village in Shaanxi Province where the two most important families – Bai and Lu – and their sons have always lived together in peace. But the turmoil leads to a fierce struggle for land ownership. A young woman new to the village soon finds herself caught between the two camps. Director Wang Quan’an uses the story of these two families as a metaphor for the fate of the Chinese people as first Chinese war lords are overrun by Japanese invaders, then civil war follows hot on the heels of the Second World War and finally the victorious Maoists begin waving their red flags. White Deer Plain is an adaptation of an historical novel of the same name by Chen Zhongshi which was blacklisted for many years on account of its explicit sex scenes. As in his earlier works Tuya’s Marriage and Apart Together, Wang Quan’an’s new work focuses once again on the fortunes of a female protagonist. Using her beauty as a way of gaining influence and a means of survival, the heroine of his latest film nonetheless manages to remain true to herself and those she loves.

Directed by Quan’an Wang | Starring : Fengyi Zhang, Kitty Zhang Yuqi, Gang Wu, Wei Liu, Taisheng Chen | Presented at Berlin Film Festival, Hong Kong Film Festival, Montréal Film Festival

这里，那里 | Here, There

Three interwoven stories of contemporary China. In the snowy forests of northern China, a lonely man herds reindeer and busies himself with his daily tasks, looking forward to visits from his wife and son. In Shanghai, a young restaurant worker becomes drawn to a troubled young woman and tries to care for her. In Paris, a young Chinese student is robbed of his passport. He receives unexpected help from an elderly compatriot who knows the ins and outs of their new city.

Directed by Sheng Lu | Starring : Yulai Lu, Lu Huang, Anliao Yao, Deshun Wang, Yan Bo Bai | Presented at Pusan Film Festival, Tokyo Film Festival, Edinburgh Film Festival

我十一 | 11 Flowers

One of China’s foremost Sixth Generation directors, Wang Xiaoshuai (Beijing Bicycle, Shanghai Dreams) tells a striking, autobiographical coming-of-age tale set in the final days of China’s Cultural Revolution. Eleven-year-old Wang Han lives with his family in a remote village in Guizhou province. When Wang is selected to lead his school through their daily gymnastic regiment, his teacher recommends that he wear a clean, new shirt in honor of this important position – a request that forces his family to make a great sacrifice.

Directed by Xiaoshuai Wang | Starring : Ni Yan, Jinchun Wang, Wenqing Liu, Renlang Qiao, Yi Zi | Presented at Toronto Film Festival, San Sebastian Film Festival, Pusan Film Festival, Tokyo Film Festival, Les Arcs Film Festival, Rotterdam Film Festival, Göteborg Film Festival, Istanbul Film Festival, Taipei Film Festival, St. Louis Film Festival, Fribourg Film Festival

夺命金 | Life Without Principle

Life Without Principle tells the story of three characters: an ordinary bank teller turned financial analyst is forced to sell high risk securities to her customers in order to meet her sales target; a small-time thug delves into the futures index hoping to earn easy money to post bail for a buddy in trouble with the law; a straight-arrow Police inspector, who has always enjoyed his middle income lifestyle, is suddenly desperate for money when his wife puts a down payment on a luxury flat she can’t afford and his dying father wants him to look after a young half-sister he never knew he had.

Directed by Johnnie To | Starring : Ching Wan Lau, Richie Ren, Denise Ho, Myolie Wu, Hoi-Pang Lo | Presented at Venice Film Festival, Toronto Film Festival, San Sebastian Film Festival, Vancouver Film Festival, Pusan Film Festival, Mar del Plata Film Festival, Wisconsin Film Festival, San Francisco Film Festival, Edinburgh Film Festival, Changchun Film Festival, Locarno Film Festival

人山人海 | People Mountain People Sea

Lao Tie knows in his heart that he must help find his younger brother’s killer, despite his own problems. He has only recently returned home penniless to the remote mountain community after years away working in the city. Although the police identified the murderer as ex-con Xiao Qiang from a neighbouring village, they were not able to stop him from escaping. Lao Tie decides to hunt down his brother’s killer. He begins a journey that will unleash his long-suppressed inner pain and rage.

Directed by Shangjun Cai | Starring : Zhenjiang Bao, Hong Tao, Jianbin Chen, Xiubo Wu, Yanming Li | Presented at Venice Film Festival, Toronto Film Festival, Stockholm Film Festival, Nantes Film Festival, San Francisco Film Festival

桃姐 | A Simple Life

Based on a true story, the film centres on Ah Tao, an amah who has worked for the Leung family for four generations. She lives with and takes care of Roger, a film producer who is the only member of the Leung household still living in Hong Kong. Roger returns home one day and finds Ah Tao unconscious after a stroke. Convinced she has becoming a burden, Tao resigns and moves into a retirement home. But upon her arrival, she continues to be taken care of by Roger, who realizes just how important she is to him. He decides to do his best to watch after the person who has nurtured him all his life. But Ah Tao’s health is fast deteriorating. Hui has always excelled when telling stories of everyday life. In A Simple Life, she delivers a rich and heartwarming drama that not only deals with the many abandoned old people in Hong Kong, but also exquisitely captures the unique relationship between the amah and the family for which she cares. In an age when loyalty between employers and employees is fast disappearing, A Simple Life highlights a culture that has almost ceased to exist in Hong Kong: one in which a person devotes their life to serving a family, and in return is cherished as much as any other relative.

Directed by Ann Hui | Starring : Andy Lau, Deannie Yip, Hailu Qin, Fuli Wang, Paul Chun | Presented at Venice Film Festival, Toronto Film Festival, Vancouver Film Festival, London Film Festival, Stockholm Film Festival, Dubai Film Festival, Palm Springs Film Festival, Rotterdam Film Festival, Okinawa Film Festival, Durban Film Festival, Istanbul Film Festival, Sydney Film Festival, Munich Film Festival, Portland Film Festival

賽德克·巴萊 | Warriors of the Rainbow: Seediq Bale

Set in 1930’s Formosa – now Taiwan – Warriors of the Rainbow: Seediq Bale tells the true story of the Wushe Incident in which aboriginal Seediq tribe warrior Mouna Rudo led his people to rebel against the Japanese occupation. Rudo’s men of 300 fought with ancient gun, spears and minimal weaponry and seeking to reclaim their land, their dignity and their honor, they took on the Japanese army of 3000 for two weeks.

Directed by Te-Sheng Wei | Starring : Ching-Tai Lin, Umin Boya, Masanobu Andô, Vivian Hsu, Mei-Ling Lo | Presented at Venice Film Festival, Toronto Film Festival, Pusan Film Festival, Vancouver Film Festival, Dubai Film Festival

中国姑娘 | UFO in Her Eyes

Constantly hunting for new ways to express her volcanic dynamism and wealth of ideas, Xiaolu Guo has created a vocabulary of her own, both visual and linguistic, that reflects her sense of being caught between Chinese and English, and her experience growing up during her home country’s wild transition from totalitarian enclave to the new shrine of global capitalism. An “alien” at home and in the global intellectual elite, Guo is an ideal interpreter of the sense of alienation gener­ated by social upheaval and globalization, phenomena for which UFO in Her Eyes is a sophisticated and amusing metaphor. In a remote village in Southern China, under a hundred-year-old camphor tree, Kwok Yun, a thirty-something agricultural worker, copulates with her secret (and married) lover, the local school headmaster. On her way home, she sees a strange stone on the ground. When she picks it up, the world around her turns white, as if illuminated by supernatural light. She faints, and wakes up to find a giant white man with hairy legs who has been bitten by a snake. Yun must have been visited by a UFO. UFO in Her Eyes is surrealist and ironic, but also pierced with melancholy and beau­tiful photography. With startling detail, Guo reshapes reality into a hyper-vivid portrait of chaotic contemporary Chinese society.

Directed by Xiaolu Guo | Starring : Ke Shi, Udo Kier, Mandy Zhang, Li Dou, Zhou Lan | Presented at Toronto Film Festival, Hamburg Film Festival, Ghent Film Festival, Göteborg Film Festival

Hello！树先生 | Mr. Tree

Shu, a bachelor, is an unreliable worker in his village’s motor-repair shop. He tends to stay silent, like a forgotten tree in the wilderness. When the villagers are forced to evacuate due to the expansion of the local mining activities, Shu goes to the provincial capital to ask his friend for a job in a tutorial school. There, Shu falls in love at first sight with Xiaomei, a deaf-mute girl. On the night before their wedding, Shu’s dead father, his elder brother and his elder brother’s murderer appear in his dreams. The wedding is a disaster, and Xiaomei leaves to rejoin her mother. The worries and intuitions that have long flashed through Shu’s mind start to make sense to him. He begins to make prophecies, and many of them come true.

Directed by Jie Han | Starring : Baoqiang Wang, Zhuo Tan, Jie He, Bo Liu, Jing An | Presented at Locarno Film Festival, Toronto Film Festival, Pusan Film Festival, Vancouver Film Festival, London Film Festival, Rio de Janeiro Film Festival, Rotterdam Film Festival

秋之白华 | The Seal of Love

China, the early 1920s. Following the 4 May Movement in 1919, when students and radicals demontrated against foreign oppression, Yang Zhihua moves from Zhejiang province to Shanghai and ends up studying sociology at Shanghai University, where she becomes friends with Feng Xiaoxuan, a student of English who’s come to the big city to escape a marriage. In class, Yang falls under the spell of radical teacher Qu Qiubai and perseveres with her studies despite the opposition of her husband Shen Jianlong, by whom she has a young daughter, An’er. Yang becomes Secretary of the Women’s Section of the KMT’s Shanghai Executive Branch, where she works with Xiang Jingyu, wife of Communist revolutionary Cai Hesen, at a time when the Communists were planning to unite with the KMT under Sun Yat-sen’s “Three Principles of the People” reform movement. Yang’s husband finally leaves her in Shanghai and she joins the fledgling Chinese Communist Party, working closely alongside Qu. Following the death of Qu’s wife, in summer 1924 Yang and Qu visit her husband and arrange for her divorce. Following demonstrations in Shanghai, Qu, now married to Yang, becomes a wanted man but manages to escape arrest. In 1927 he and Yang are selected for the CCP’s Central Committee, but the Party is torn by in-fighting. In 1928, they move to Moscow as CCP delegates, but in 1930 return to Shanghai, where Qu, ousted form the Central Committee, works as a translator with writer Lu Xun. But by 1933 Qu’s safety is becoming more and more perilous and he’s forced to leave Yang in Shanghai and flee the city.

Directed by Jianqi Huo | Starring : Shawn Dou, Jie Dong, Jiaming Guo, Chunde Yi, Kira Mi | Presented at Shanghai Film Festival

最爱 | Til Death Do Us Part

The peacefulness of a rural village has been disrupted by an outbreak of a disease, which the locals call ‘a fever’. Villagers learn very quickly that there is no cure for the disease and refuse to have anything to do with the infected. Lao Zhuzhu is a teacher at the now-abandoned village school and the father of Zhao Qiquan, the blood merchant responsible for causing the outbreak. He decides to make amendments to the villagers on behalf of his unrepentant son by inviting all the infected villagers, including his younger son, Zhao Deyi, to live with him at the village school, where they will look after one another. One day, Shang Qinqin, donning a red jacket, arrives at the school compound to join the small community…

Directed by Changwei Gu | Starring : Ziyi Zhang, Aaron Kwok, Wenli Jiang, Zeru Tao, Cunxin Pu | Presented at Rome Film Festival

万有引力 | The Law of Attraction

Four short exposé on love and attraction of the sexes in the big city: a business traveler is delayed due to the malfunction of the airport’s security device, but unexpectedly it sparks off a romance between him and the security officer; a couple’s marriage is in crisis when the repeated attempt to have a child fails; a traffic accident is in reality a trap set by a jealous husband for punishing his unfaithful wife; and a pair of young junkies trying to start anew.

Directed by Tianyu Zhao | Starring : Karen Mok, Jingchu Zhang, Tao Guo, Leon Dai, Zhang Wen | Presented at Montréal Film Festival

将爱情进行到底 | Eternal Moment

China, the modern day. I: Yang Zheng recalls how he graduated in 1999, contacted his onetime college girlfriend Wenhui in the US in 2001 and married her when she returned to China in 2003. Since he has become a successful CEO, she has become a full-time housewife. But one evening, when he comes home intending to watch his favourite sports programme on TV as usual, suddenly he doesn’t recognise the woman he married. And when he moves out to a hotel, she doesn’t come looking for him. II: Wenhui, divorced and with two young twin sons, is working as a shopgirl in Shanghai, while Yang Zheng, about to be divorced, is a car mechanic in Beijing. Neither has seen the other for over a decade, but they both attend a 10th anniversary college reunion in Shanghai organised by their friend Jiawei. They end up spending a whole night together, recalling past times and re-igniting old fires. III: Yang Zheng traces a drunken happy-birthday call from Wenhui to Bordeaux, and flies from Beijing to see her for the first time in over a decade. At Bordeaux train station, Wenhui is waiting to welcome Chuchu, the mistress of her boss Pan Xiao,  head of specialist wine retailer YH Global. Wenhui introduces Yang as her boyfriend. She later tells Yang that Pan is actually her husband, not her boss. With Pan temporarily away, Wenhui, Yang and Chuchu spend time together.

Directed by Yibai Zhang | Starring : Jinglei Xu, Yapeng Li, Xuebing Wang, Chapman To, Jie He | Presented at N/A

黑血 | Black Blood

Not everything is progress in China. Less and less rain means that the inhabitants of Inner Mongolia have to do everything to survive. For instance, sell their own blood. And in order to sell enough blood, you have to drink. A drama of fate shot in impressively expressive black-and-white. In a remote mountain village in the northwest of China, close to a nuclear test zone, the poverty-stricken Xiaolin sells his blood to pay his daughter’s school fees. Together with his wife Xiaojuan, he tries to set up a business. At first that seems very lucrative, but then fate strikes: it turns out that both Xiaolin and Xiaojuan are infected with HIV. Just like thousands of other poor people, who illegally sell their blood to be able to buy something as essential as water. Black Blood, supported by the Hubert Bals Fund, tells a small and personal story against the background of an ecological disaster. In the valley where the film was shot, there is also in reality no water anymore. ‘Water is more valuable than blood and many villages have already been deserted,’ according to Zhang Miaoyan. Zhang films the poor odd-jobbers for more than two hours in hypnotic black-and-white and – very briefly – in equally stunning colours.

Directed by Miaoyan Zhang | Starring : Mengjuan Liu, Danhui Mao, Yingying | Presented at Rotterdam Film Festival, Kerala Film Festival, Cannes Film Festival, Las Palmas Film Festival, Jeonju Film Festival, Montréal Film Festival, Rome Film Festival, Thessaloniki Film Festival

非诚勿扰2 | If You Are the One 2

After the soul-searching trip to Hokkaido, Xiaoxiao has gotten over her bitter affair with Mr. Fang, somewhat disillusioned with romantic relationships. But one man still gives her mixed feelings: Qin Fen is a considerate and funny guy for sure, yet he’s too moody and childish to be the man she wants to walk down the aisle with. Although Xiaoxiao has tried to convince herself that Qin is her Mr. Right, she’s too conscious of the difference between liking and loving. On the other hand, Qin is pretty sure he wants to end his bachelorhood with Xiaoxiao. In a bid to find out whether they really suit each other, the two rent a villa in the scenic Sanya to begin their “trial marriage”…

Directed by Xiaogang Feng | Starring : You Ge, Qi Shu, Honglei Sun, Chen Yao, Fan Liao | Presented at N/A

赵氏孤儿 | Sacrifice

For more than four generations the members of the Zhao clan have held the highest positions in the land. Zhao Dun is currently chancellor and his son, Zhao Shuo, a general in the royal army. He is married to the king’s older sister, Zhuang Ji. Tu’an Gu, the Zhao’s arch-enemy, is not content to accept the clan’s power and influence; he incites a massacre which decimates the entire Zhao clan – over 300 members of this family fall victim to the carnage which leaves no-one alive. As her husband faces death, Zhuang Ji goes into labour and gives birth to the last Zhao. She dies in childbirth and the doctor, Cheng Ying, takes the baby into his care. This news reaches Tu’an Gu and, angered that his plan to wipe out the clan might be thwarted, he takes all the babies of the city hostage until the last descendant of the Zhao is found. The doctor Cheng Ying has also just become a father. When Tu’an Gu’s soldiers arrive to take away his son, his wife hides her own child and gives the soldiers the little Zhao, pretending that he is her child. Shortly afterwards they find the baby that Cheng Ying’s wife was hiding. Taking him to be the last member of the Zhao clan, Tu’an Gu has the boy killed. The townsfolk’s children that were being held hostage are given back to their families. The last Zhao now grows up as Cheng Ying’s son in the doctor’s house. Years go by. Cheng Ying decides to take his step-son with him to serve at Tu’an Gu’s court. Tu’an Gu becomes a patron of the last Zhao. But Cheng Ying has other plans in mind – plans in which his step-son will play a central role.

Directed by Kaige Chen | Starring : You Ge, Xueqi Wang, Fengyi Zhang, Xiaoming Huang, Bingbing Fan | Presented at Berlin Film Festival, Mill Valley Film Festival, Rio de Janeiro Film Festival, Abu Dhabi Film Festival, Chicago Film Festival

让子弹飞 | Let the Bullets Fly

Set during the Age of the Warlords in the 1920s, this comic western is the highest grossing Chinese film ever. When circumstances force an outlaw to impersonate a county governor and clean up a corrupt town, the Robin Hood figure finds himself in a showdown with the local “godfather”. Full of surprises and grounded with a smart, humorous script, Let the Bullets Fly’s battles are fought with guns and wit.a

Directed by Wen Jiang | Starring : Wen Jiang, Yun-Fat Chow, You Ge, Bing Shao, Fan Liao | Presented at Tribeca Film Festival, Locarno Film Festival, Pusan Film Festival, London Film Festival

黑白照片 | Shanghai Shimen Road

In the late 1980’s Shanghai, a 16 year-old boy, Xiaoli, comes of age surrounded by his neighbors and grandfather. His best friend is a girl named Lanmi, a couple years older than him. But Lanmi slowly drifts away from him, lured by the new opportunities which come as China opens up to foreign goods and businessmen. At the same time, the 1989 events force Xiaoli to grow up and to let go of his teenage dreams.

Directed by Haolun Shu | Starring : Ewen Cheng, Xufei Zhai, Lili Wang, Shouqin Xu, Yang Xiao | Presented at Rotterdam Film Festival, Pusan Film Festival, Marrakech Film Festival, Lille Film Festival, Warsaw Film Festival, Sao Paulo Film Festival