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

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

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

山楂树之恋 | Under the Hawthorn Tree

The People’s Republic of China during the Cultural Revolution. Jing, a college student from town, is sent to a remote mountain village for ‘reeducation’. Jing is the personification of innocence. But her father has been put behind bars for being a ‘counter-revolutionary’ and so now Jing’s mother must try to support her three children on her own. Jing knows that not only her own future but that of her family now depends on how the authorities judge her efforts to be ‘reeducated’. Jing’s careful and inconspicuous behaviour comes to an end, however, when she falls in love with Sun, the engaging son of a high ranking officer. Given their completely different backgrounds, their love is not only hopeless, it is also dangerous. But their mutual attraction proves to be stronger than any of these obstacles. At first Jing resists Sun’s advances, but he refuses to give up, even when she returns to town. Before long, the two young people are passionately – but secretly – in love. Nobody must find out – least of all Jing’s mother, who already fears for her daughter’s future. But then Sun suddenly disappears, and when he reappears, something about him has changed. Jing has to rethink her perception of love, honour and loyalty. And stand up for her real beliefs.

Directed by Yimou Zhang | Starring : Dongyu Zhou, Shawn Dou, Meijuan Xi, Xuejian Li, Taisheng Chen | Presented at Pusan Film Festival, Berlin Film Festival, Melbourne Film Festival, Rio de Janeiro Film Festival, Valladolid Film Festival, Tateshina Kogen Film Festival

岁月神偷 | Echoes of the Rainbow

Told through the eyes of sticky-fingered eight-year-old boy Big Ears, Echoes of the Rainbow takes place in a close-knit grassroots community in 1960s Hong Kong. Big Ears’ mother and father run the neighborhood shoe store, and his older brother Desmond  is every family’s dream son – an outstanding athlete with grades worthy of Hong Kong’s best school. Their lives aren’t always happy, but the family sticks together through all the rough times, no matter how bad it gets.

Directed by Alex Law | Starring : Simon Yam, Sandra Ng Kwan Yue, Buzz Chung, Aarif Rahman, Paul Chun | Presented at Berlin Film Festival, Hong Kong Film Festival, Changchun Film Festival

团圆 | Apart Together

Over fifty years after the proclamation of the People’s Republic of China on the Chinese mainland and the founding of the island republic of Taiwan, permission is given for the first time for a group of ex-soldiers of the National People’s Party or Kuomintang to travel from Taiwan to China and be reunited with family members in Shanghai. These soldiers fought bitterly against Communist troops during China’s civil war from 1927 onwards, until they were forced to retreat to Taiwan in 1949. One of the comrades-in-arms travelling with the group to his former home in Shanghai is an ageing soldier named Lui Yansheng. His reason for embarking on this journey is not to see the family members he left behind on the mainland but to find the one and only love of his life, Qiao Yu’e, whom he was obliged to leave behind in Shanghai without a word of farewell, and their son, who was born after he took flight. After having made contact via letter, he manages to arrange a meeting during which he quickly realises that Qiao Yu’e, who has founded a family with an officer in the People’s Liberation Army, still feels the same way about him as before. It’s not hard for Liu Yangsheng to persuade his former partner to go back with him to Taiwan. He hopes that, by promising to leave his entire savings to her husband and their children, he will be able to secure the family’s agreement. But his proposal gives rise to a huge outcry in the family. Qiao Yu’e situation would seem to be quite hopeless – until her husband suffers a brain haemorrhage and almost dies…

Directed by Quan’an Wang | Starring : Lisa Lu, Feng Ling, Cai-gen Xu, Monica Mok, Xiaotian Mo | Presented at Berlin Film Festival, Melbourne Film Festival, San Sebastian Film Festival, Sao Paulo Film Festival, Palm Springs Film Festival

三枪拍案惊奇 | A Woman, a Gun and a Noodle Shop

Master director Yimou Zhang tackles an adaptation of the Coen brothers’ classic Blood Simple in this period dramedy full of slapstick and plot twists. When the owner of a Chinese noodle shop attempts to kill his adulterous wife, the fireworks fly. The proprietor also hopes to eliminate his wife’s woebegone lover, but complications and high-flying action arise courtesy of a rampaging band of feudal soldiers and the shop’s wacky employees.

Directed by Yimou Zhang | Starring : Honglei Sun, Ni Yan, Xiao Shen-Yang, Dahong Ni, Benshan Zhao | Presented at Berlin Film Festival, Athens Film Festival, Helsinki Film Festival, Rio de Janeiro Film Festival, Edmonton Film Festival, Sitges Film Festival, Sao Paulo Film Festival, Mar del Plata Film Festival

白银帝国 | Empire of Silver

With this lush epic Palo Alto–based filmmaker Christina Yao tells a story both timely and timeless: a tale of love, succession and compromised ideals that chronicles the lives of a powerful family of Shanxi bankers during the waning years of the Qing Dynasty. Downright Shakespearean in theme, the film details a little-known piece of Chinese history while offering parallels to the current financial crisis with its shadowy world of unscrupulous market fixing and backroom deals. In the northeastern Chinese province of 19th-century Shanxi, a group of bankers amassed extensive wealth and power that allowed them considerable independence from the state. The fictional Kang family is one such clan, whose fortunes take a sudden turn for the worse when several of the family’s heirs meet tragic fates and civil unrest threatens the nation’s stability. Third Master, a hedonist and the Kang patriarch’s least favorite son, is now called upon to carry on their lineage. Torn between familial obligation and his own desire for love and happiness, he sets out to reform his father’s unethical business practices while shepherding the family through the country’s growing unrest. Full of swooping crane shots, monumental sets and massive landscapes, Yao’s debut recalls the opulent historical sagas of Chinese Fifth Generation filmmakers like Zhang Yimou as it combines a passionate tale of unrequited love and a fascinating glimpse of a rarely related episode in Chinese history.

Directed by Christina Yao | Starring : Aaron Kwok, Tielin Zhang, Lei Hao, Zhicheng Ding, Jennifer Tilly | Presented at Berlin Film Festival, Shanghai Film Festival, Hawaii Film Festival, San Francisco Film Festival, Mexico Film Festival

梅兰芳 | Forever Enthralled

Acclaimed Fifth Generation director Chen Kaige brings the tumultuous life of Peking Opera legend Mei Lanfang to the big screen in the highly anticipated biopic Forever Enthralled. The inspiration for Leslie Cheung’s character in Chen Kaige’s 1993 masterpiece Farewell My Concubine, Mei Lanfang was one of the greatest Peking Opera stars of modern China. An actor who specializes in female roles, he was renowned for his great beauty on stage and performed extensively around the world, famously introducing Peking Opera to Western audiences. Pulling viewers into a riveting world of musical allure and historical tumult in early 20th century China, Forever Enthralled follows Mei Lanfang’s amazing, inevitable rise to fame – from his bold challenges against his teacher as a teenager, to his US tour that brought New York to its feet, and finally to his refusal to sing during the Japanese Occupation period. Portrayed in youth by newcomer Yu Shaoqun and in adulthood by Hong Kong star Leon Lai, Mei Lanfang embodies the professional and emotional struggles of a man whose life belonged not to himself, but to the stage.

Directed by Kaige Chen | Starring : Leon Lai, Ziyi Zhang, Honglei Sun, Hong Chen, Xueqi Wang | Presented at Berlin Film Festival, Seattle Film Festival, Rio de Janeiro Film Festival, Ghent Film Festival

文雀 | Sparrow

From the acclaimed director of The Mission, Election, and Exiled, Johnnie To. “Sparrow’ is a common word used in Hong Kong street slang for pickpocket. The term refers to the special dexterity needed to pluck people’s wallets from their pockets… and possibly also to the necessity of having to flutter away quickly should one be discovered. Kei is one such ‘sparrow’ – and a very professional one at that. He and his three partners earn a good living from digging deep into the pockets of oblivious passers-by moving along the crowded urban canyons of Hong Kong. As far as Kei’s concerned, it’s all he needs to live a carefree life. Whenever he is not going about his business he loves to ride about the city on his bicycle photographing street scenes with his Rolleiflex camera. One day the gorgeous Chun Lei comes into his sights. Kei is fascinated. But behind Chun Lei’s good looks lurks a mysterious past. Kei falls in love with her – and he is not the only one. After having managed to turn the heads of his three colleagues, she reveals her true intentions: the sparrows must steal something of great importance to her.

Directed by Johnnie To | Starring : Simon Yam, Kelly Lin, Ka Tung Lam, Hoi-Pang Lo, Suet Lam | Presented at Berlin Film Festival, Fantasia Film Festival, Cinemanila Film Festival, Chicago Film Festival, Cleveland Film Festival, Wisconsin Film Festival, Mill Valley Film Festival

漂浪青春 | Drifting Flowers

The eponymous drifting flowers in Zero Chou’s film are three Taiwanese women living in different parts of the island state: a child, a young girl and an old woman. All of them are seeking their true identity in the river of life and their stories are artistically interwoven in a poetic narrative. As time ebbs and flows, as love comes and goes, their journey towards finding themselves never ends.First, eight-year-old Meigo discovers the bitter taste of first love when she accidentally sees her blind sister Jing kissing Chalkie, the tomboyish accordion player in their band. The little girl’s jealousy is so strong that the three are torn apart. In another time and another place, Lily struggles with her Alzheimer’s and her fragile memory of her youth. When her old friend Yen pays her a visit he brings an additional tragedy – afflicted with Aids, he has lost the will to live. And yet, between Lily’s hallucinations and Yen’s malaise, the two form an unexpected bond and rediscover the meaning of love and life. Finally, there is Chalkie, years before she left her hometown and joined the band. Back then, when she was still at school, the confused teenager bound up her growing breasts, despite her traditional family calling her a “boy-girl”. But then, an impromptu performance changes her life.

Directed by Zero Chou | Starring : Yi-Ching Lu, Serena Fang, Chao Yi-lan, Lai-Man Chui, Chih-Ying Pai | Presented at Berlin Film Festival, Hong Kong Film Festival

左右 | In Love We Trust

A divorced couple learns that the only way to save their little daughter, who suffers from a blood disease, is to have another child. Now both remarried, Mei Zhu and Xiao Lu are forced to test their love and their commitment to one another by putting their current relationships in danger. A story of parenthood, love, married life, betrayal, trust and giving, which touches upon changes in contemporary society and family life, as well as the moral and ethical dilemmas brought on by modernity.

Directed by Xiaoshuai Wang | Starring : Weiwei Liu, Jia-yi Zhang, Nan Yu, Taisheng Chen, Yuanyuan Gao | Presented at Cannes Film Festival, Berlin Film Festival, Hong Kong Film Festival, Karlovy Vary Film Festival, Pula Film Festival, Ghent Film Festival, Locarno Film Festival

苹果 | Lost in Beijing

Lin Dong and Wang Mei are a childless couple in Beijing, wealthy, approaching middle age. Lin owns a foot-massage parlor. One afternoon he rapes one of his workers, Liu Pingguo, who has nearly passed out from drinking alcohol with a friend. Part of the assault is witnessed by Liu’s husband, An Kun, a window washer. He’s angry with the boss and with his wife, and he seeks compensation. Lin’s wife counsels him and joins in revenge. Then, Liu realizes she’s pregnant and a set of emotional calculations ensues: Lin wants to buy the child, Wang agrees but has conditions, An Kun goes back and forth and barely contains his anger; Liu withdraws. The baby comes. Can anything be sorted out?

Directed by Yu Li | Starring : Bingbing Fan, Tony Leung Ka Fai, Dawei Tong, Elaine Jin, Meihuizi Zeng | Presented at Berlin Film Festival, Tribeca Film Festival, Bangkok Film Festival

刺青 | Spider Lilies

When Jade, a web-cam girl visits Takeko’s tattoo studio she becomes entranced with the image of the spider lily and with Takeko as well. In order to get closer to the object of her desire, Jade asks Takeko to give her the same lily tattoo, challenging Takeko’s monastic existence and opening up memories which threaten to tear the two women apart.

Directed by Zero Chou | Starring : Rainie Yang, Isabella Leong, John Shen, Jay Shih, Ping-han Hsieh| Presented at Berlin Film Festival, Bangkok Film Festival

落叶归根 | Getting Home

Zhao is an ageing worker who toils away in Shenzen in order to earn a living. When his friend and colleague Wang suddenly dies, Zhao decides to transport his body back to his native town. He purchases two tickets for the cross-country bus, and pretends that his silent travelling companion has drunk so much alcohol that he has fallen unconscious. Shortly afterwards, the bus is attacked by armed bandits. Zhao asks the bandits to kill him first, so that he can stay with his dead friend forever. Touched by this display of loyalty, the robbers decide to let the bus go. But instead of thanking Zhao, the other passengers throw him and his dead friend off the bus. Pretending that his friend is seriously ill and must be taken to hospital immediately, Zhao tries to flag down passing cars. After spending the night in a hotel, Zhao discovers that all his money has been stolen and begins to lose heart. But he refuses to be browbeaten. Whenever he needs money, he rearranges Wong so that he looks like a beggar. And whenever he is hungry, he joins a funeral party and bawls his eyes out so that he can enjoy the food served at the wake. During his odyssey across China Zhao is obliged to get along with all kinds of people. Just before he reaches his destination, the old man and his dead friend are caught in a torrential downpour, so that now Zhao finds himself engaged in a struggle against nature.

Directed by Yang Zhang | Starring : Benshan Zhao, Dandan Song, Degang Guo, Haiying Sun, Ma Wu | Presented at Berlin Film Festival, Bangkok Film Festival, Cinemanila Film Festival, Vladivostok Film Festival, Vancouver Film Festival, Chicago Film Festival, St. Louis Film Festival, Kerala Film Festival, Wisconsin Film Festival, Edmonton Film Festival

图雅的婚事 | Tuya’s Marriage

Living conditions are deteriorating for those who lead a rural existence in north-western Mongolia. China’s industry is expanding – even into this inhospitable region – and the government is pressurising Monoglian shepherds to give up their nomadic way of life, move to the nearby towns and settle down as farmers. Beautiful and self-confident Tuya refuses to leave her pastureland. She’d rather stay here with her disabled husband, two children and one hundred sheep, and continue to pursue a life of privation in the endless expanse of the steppe. But all the hard work begins to take its toll on Tuya. Her husband Bater tries to convince her to divorce him, but Tuya refuses to comply even with his wishes. One day, she falls ill and for the first time begins to consider a divorce, because this would enable her to find someone to help her to look after Bater, the two children and their one hundred sheep. However, none of her suitors are prepared to take on Bater – until Tuya’s old classmate Baolier arrives on the scene. Having found a very nice nursing home for Bater, he persuades Tuya and the children to move to town. But, far away from the steppe and separated from his family, Bater finds it impossible to get used to life at the home. In desperation he slashes his wrists. When the news reaches Tuya, she realises that the time has come for her to act …

Directed by Quan’an Wang | Starring : Nan Yu, Ba’toer, Sen’ge, Zhaya, Bao’lier | Presented at Berlin Film Festival, Hong Kong Film Festival, Tribeca Film Festival, Karlovy Vary Film Festival, Chicago Film Festival, Rio de Janeiro Film Festival, London Film Festival, Portland Film Festival, Florida Film Festival, Wisconsin Film Festival, Maui Film Festival

伊莎贝拉 | Isabella

On the eve of Macau’s handover to China, police officer Shing is having the worst time of his life. Suspended for suspected corruption, he tries to find solace with an elfin creature by the name of Yan, whom he just picks up. As he tries to smooth-talk her to bed, she suddenly snaps back with the biggest turn-off imaginable: that she is the daughter he never knew existed!While Shing desperately tries to hold himself together, his bachelor life inevitably falls apart as Yan insists on living under his roof. Together the two of them start roaming through exotic Macau, tracking down Yan’s missing puppy and striving to acquaint with each other. No sooner has Shing grown into his new role as a father than he finds his hands full: when Yan is not fighting with his girlfriend Kate, she is being bothered by her dorky classmate Fai.

Directed by Ho-Cheung Pang | Starring : Isabella Leong, Chapman To, Josie Ho, Kwok Cheung Tsang, Anthony Wong Chau-Sang | Presented at Berlin Film Festival, Hong Kong Film Festival, Tokyo Film Festival, Fantasia Film Festival

看上去很美 | Little Red Flowers

Qiang is a four-year-old little rebel, possessed of a pair of luminous eyes and a precociously indomitable will. His father deposits him at a well-appointed residential kindergarten in post-1949 Beijing, since his parents are often away. Life at the kindergarten appears rich and colourful, made up of a variety of cheerfully sunny rituals and games meant to train these children to be good members of society. But it’s not so easy for Qiang to adapt to this kind of carefully organized, minutely scrutinized collective life. A fierce individualist in miniature, he tries but fails to conform to the model his teachers enforce. Yet he still craves the reward that the other students win: the little red flowers awarded each day as tokens for good behaviour. But Qiang doesn’t win any flowers: he can’t yet dress himself, and doesn’t play together with the other kids. He even dares to talk back to the strict Teacher Li and Principal Kong when they try to impose some discipline on him. Gradually, his charisma and bravado start to win over his classmates: their stealthy little rebellions gain steam when he succeeds in convincing everyone that Teacher Li is a child-eating monster in disguise. When their attempt to capture her is thwarted, Qiang’s resistance develops a more disturbing dimension, and he is forcibly ostracized from his companions. Will he succumb to the adult-enforced conformity around him, or will he insist on growing up his own way, by his own rules?

Directed by Yuan Zhang | Starring : Bowen Dong, Yuanyuan Ning, Zhao Rui, Xiaofeng Li, Chen Manyuan | Presented at Sundance Film Festival, Berlin Film Festival, Bangkok Film Festival, Hong Kong Film Festival, Chicago Film Festival, Marrakech Film Festival, Espoo Film Festival

结果 | Before Born

Before Born is a surreal mystery about modern Chinese life that has garnered comparisons to L’avventura, Michelangelo Antonioni’s classic 1960 film. The film tells the story of a private detective, Huang Guangliang, hired to gather evidence of an affair by a man named Li Chonggao. When he arrives in the coastal city of Beihai in search of his target, he discovers that he has disappeared and instead meets an enigmatic young woman who is also looking for Li.

Directed by Ming Zhang | Starring : Li Huang Zhong Liao, Kwong Leung Wong, Baihui Xu, Xiaxi Huang | Presented at Berlin Film Festival, Hong Kong Film Festival

无极 | The Promise

When the world was young, laid a Kingdom between the Land of Snow and the Barbarian Territory where gods and men lived side by side and promises were lies. When the poor and starving orphaned girl Qingcheng meets the Goddess Manshen, she accepts to become the wealthy beauty of beauties with the curse that she would lose every man she loves, unless three things happen: snow falls in the spring, time moves backwards and the dead comes back to life. Years later, the slave Kunlun helps the Great General Master of the Crimson Armor Guangming to defeat a barbarian army with almost seven times more warriors, and Kunlun becomes his slave. When Guangming is wounded, he asks Kunlun to wear his armor and save the king from the cruel Duke of the North Wuhuan that put the Imperial City under siege with his army. However, Kunlun kills the king to save Princess Qingcheng and promises her to never let her die. Princess Qingcheng falls in love for the man of the crimson armor that she believes is General Guangming. When Snow Wolf saves Kunlun and brings him to the Land of Snow, he recollects his childhood when his mother and sister were killed by the evil Wuhuan. Kunlun decides to return to the Kingdom to face Wuhuan and fight for his love.

Directed by Kaige Chen | Starring : Dong-gun Jang, Hiroyuki Sanada, Cecilia Cheung, Nicholas Tse, Ye Liu | Presented at Berlin Film Festival, Moscow Film Festival

孔雀 | Peacock

Whereas most Chinese art house movies do actual medical damage to viewers with their chic nihilism and long, boring shots of people riding around in trucks, Peacock is a balm for your soul. The Cultural Revolution is China ‘s national trauma, a harrowing decade of turmoil and destruction where everyone just tried to hold on and survive, and when it ended in 1976 millions emerged blinking into the sunlight, astounded that they were still standing. Peacock follows an average family in the average town of Henyang through the eight years after the end of the Cultural Revolution as they pick up their lives as if nothing happened. It’s a great leap forward for the three adult children of the Gao clan. Anchored by a series of family meals, the kids are trying to make it in the world – Weihong, the daughter has to learn that her dream man isn’t going to solve all her problems; eldest brother Weiguo is a simple-minded fat guy who’s an unmarriageable weight around his parents’ necks; and the middle son, Weiqiang, is the typical middle child, narrating the movie and taking every injustice in life as a personal affront. A two-hour plus movie about a family in post-Revolutionary China sounds deadly, but in the hands of Gu Changwei it becomes essential viewing for the dejected, downtrodden and just plain weary. This is a film that traffics in the belief that it doesn’t matter how bad today gets because as long as we’re alive there’s always the hope for a better tomorrow.

Directed by Changwei Gu | Starring : Jingchu Zhang, Yulai Lu, Li Feng, Meiying Huang, Yiwei Zhao | Presented at Berlin Film Festival. Helsinki Film Festival, Brothers Manaki Film Festival, Sao Paulo Film Festival

天边一朵云 | The Wayward Cloud

The most audacious film to date from visionary director Tsai Ming-liang, The Wayward Cloud is about a porn actor and the museum tour guide who enters into a strange relationship with him, unaware of his profession. Hsiao-kang is the same alienated youth whose chance encounter with Shiang-chyi provided the spark that fueled Tsai’s earlier films. Once again, these two lost souls cross paths—he now works as an actor in no-budget porn films, and she wanders around Taipei, hoarding bottles of water because of a serious drought. In fact, the government is recommending that people eat watermelons to hydrate themselves. This fruit sets in motion a perverse (and often hilarious) symbolic theme throughout much of the film. As in his earlier film The Hole, Tsai adds trashy, campy musical numbers into the narrative. These sequences play against the raw sex scenes, creating a bizarre, existential chaos. The filmmaker has created a perfectly realized alternative universe in his ongoing exploration of sex, bodies, and loneliness. His stationary camera perfectly illustrates the isolation and exploitation the characters are trapped in—yet the film is as funny as it is emotionally tortured. Tsai’s characters are indeed wayward clouds, drifting through life without purpose, in a world without water. And prepare yourself for the film’s unbelievable final scene, which manages to be both weirdly erotic and profoundly disturbing.

Directed by Ming-liang Tsai | Starring : Kang-sheng Lee, Shiang-chyi Chen, Yi-Ching Lu, Kuei-Mei Yang, Sumomo Yozakura | Presented at Berlin Film Festival, Brisbane Film Festival, Toronto Film Festival, Rio de Janeiro Film Festival, Chicago Film Festival, Sitges Film Festival, Stockholm Film Festival, Torino Film Festival, Nantes Film Festival, Alba Regia Film Festival, Helsinki Film Festival

桃色 | Colour Blossoms

A visually stunning reflection on lustful desire, Yonfan’s Colour Blossoms tells the story of Meili, a realtor, who visits a mansion after being asked to sell it. There, she meets the mysterious Madame Umeki, and finds herself caught up in irresistible physical desires that transcend time and space. Geiko Matsuzaka from Japan, Teresa Chung from Hong Kong, and Ha Risoo from Korea explore a dreamy world of sex and passion.

Directed by Yonfan | Starring : Teresa Cheung, Keiko Matsuzaka, Ri-su Ha, Carl Ng, Sho Yokouchi | Presented at Berlin Film Festival, Hong Kong Film Festival, Rio de Janeiro Film Festival, Cinemanila Film Festival, Pusan Film Festival

可可西里 | Mountain Patrol

Kekexili is based on actual events. From Mainland China, the film tells the story of Ga Yu, a reporter from Beijing who in 1996 travels to the eponymous region on the border of Tibet, where some local men have organized a civilian patrol to fight the poachers who are decimating the region’s endangered population of Tibetan antelopes, prized for their pelts, which are then exported, to be sold as (once trendy) shahtoosh shawls. As Ga Yu arrives in a remote town, a member of the patrol has recently been coldly executed by the poachers, and the taciturn leader, Ritai, is heading out on another patrol, determined to find those responsible. Ga Yu convinces Ritai to let him tag along by suggesting that a story in a Beijing newspaper might spur the Chinese government to take more forceful action to protect the antelopes. The group leaves on their perilous, high altitude journey. From the film’s opening, with the aforementioned murder, it’s a harrowing trip. Kekexili captures the deprivation and danger of this harsh land, and the necessary ruggedness of the people who live there, with impeccable clarity. Filmmaker Lu tells his story visually, for the most part, with exemplary economy. He doesn’t spend any more time than needed on characterization. He leaves it to his audience to figure out what motivates Ritai and his team to risk their lives in order to protect the animals. Whatever it is, it’s clear that it goes beyond a mere concern for the environment. Ritai ends up completely possessed with finding the gunmen who slaughtered the most recent herd of antelope. He puts his own and many other lives at risk in this pursuit. At the film’s midpoint, Ritai and his men capture a group of poachers, including a kindly old man who tells the patrolmen that he used to be a shepherd, and was pushed into a life of criminality by hard times. The filmmaker doesn’t judge these characters, any more than he does the film’s would-be heroes. It’s clear that on a thematic level, Lu’s primary interest is human, rather than environmental.

Directed by Chuan Lu | Starring : Duobuji, Lei Chang, Liang Qi, Xueying Zhao, Zhanlin Ma | Presented at Tokyo Film Festival, Sundance Film Festival, Berlin Film Festival, Hong Kong Film Festival, Seattle Film Festival, Cinemanila Film Festival, Montréal Film Festival, Vancouver Film Festival, Warsaw Film Festival, Marrakech Film Festival, Kerala Film Festival

春花开 | Plastic Flowers

Middle aged businesswoman Xie Chunhua is well-off but still leads a celibate life. In her plastic flower factory, she notices two young men: they have similar appearance, one plays flutes, and the other writes poems, entirely different from the rest of workers in the factory. Successively they fall in love with their wealthy boss. Maybe out of their love to the enchanting boss, or their desire to her property, or maybe jealousy, a complex feeling arises between these two men… At the night before the wedding ceremony, he, or maybe the other man, stabs at the other, and then jumps off the tower. The next day, two dead men, are still alive. One of the men sees the wedding between the other man and Xie Chunhua taking place amid the sea of plastic flowers Is it purely imagination or just another pathetic reality?

Directed by Bingjian Liu | Starring : Xiaoqing Liu, Zhi Yin, Xiding Min, Qin Liao | Presented at Toronto Film Festival, Berlin Film Festival

20 30 40

Three women in different stages of their lives – 20, 30, 40 – face the hardships of the female existence. Xiao Jie has just turned twenty. She is in Taipei for the first time in her life. Now that she has finally escaped her strict parents she can’t wait to make her dream of becoming a pop star come true. When she meets the rather insensitive manager, Brother Shi, she believes she has at last found someone who will help to ‘foster’ her ambitions. But her new-found independence has unexpectedly dangerous consequences for her emotions… Xiang Xiang, a thirtysomething flight attendant, is caught between two men. In the throes of a passionate affair with a married man, she also has a younger lover… Lily Zhao is a forty-year-old divorcee. She thoroughly enjoys her life as a single woman and happily agrees to one rendezvous after another. One day, Lily – who looks much younger than her age – meets an attractive single man named Jerry. The only snag is that he is currently dating a girl that is the same age as Lily’s own daughter.

Directed by Sylvia Chang | Starring : Sylvia Chang, Rene Liu, Angelica Lee, Tony Leung Ka Fai, Anthony Wong Chau-Sang | Presented at Berlin Film Festival, Portland Film Festival

惊蛰 | The Story of Ermei

A portrait of contemporary China seen through the dreams and choices of a young peasant who has accepted her fate. Twenty-year-old Ermei lives in a village in northern China. Hers is a poor family; they are placed under even greater financial strain when Ermei’s grandfather is on his deathbed. Even if they kill all their pigs, they still won’t have enough money to buy a solid coffin made of the wood of cypress trees. Ermei’s father decides to go into the woods to cut down a cypress tree himself – and is fined by the government. To find a way out of their predicament, the family decides to marry Ermei to another villager named Zhang Suo. The groom’s dowry will solve all the family’s money problems. Ermei, however, has different plans.

Directed by Quan’an Wang | Starring : Nan Yu, Yanbing Liu, Su Yan, Xiaoxia Shi, Zhen Ma | Presented at Berlin Film Festival, Paris Film Festival, La Rochelle Film Festival, Karlovy Vary Film Festival, Jakarta Film Festival

盲井 | Blind Shaft

Two Chinese coal miners have hit upon the perfect scam: murder one of their fellow mine workers, make the death look like an accident, and extort money from the boss to keep the incident hushed up. For their latest “mark,” they choose a naive teenager from a small village, and as they prepare to carry out their newest plan, things start to get complicated…

Directed by Yang Li | Starring : Qiang Li, Baoqiang Wang, Shuangbao Wang, Jing An, Zhenjiang Bao | Presented at Berlin Film Festival, Hong Kong Film Festival, Buenos Aires Film Festival, Tribeca Film Festival, Moscow Film Festival, Karlovy Vary Film Festival, Edinburgh Film Festival, Bergen Film Festival, Hawaii Film Festival, Bratislava Film Festival, Bangkok Film Festival, Febio Film Festival, Nashville Film Festival, Cairo Film Festival, Jakarta Film Festival

英雄 | Hero

Director Zhang Yimou brings the sumptuous visual style of his previous films (Raise the Red Lantern, Shanghai Triad) to the high-kicking kung fu genre. A nameless warrior arrives at an emperor’s palace with three weapons, each belonging to a famous assassin who had sworn to kill the emperor. As the nameless man spins out his story—and the emperor presents his own interpretation of what might really have happened—each episode is drenched in red, blue, white or another dominant color. Hero combines sweeping cinematography and superb performances from the cream of the Hong Kong cinema (Maggie Cheung, Irma Vep; Tony Leung Chiu-Wai, In the Mood for Love). The result is stunning, a dazzling action movie with an emotional richness that deepens with every step.

Directed by Yimou Zhang | Starring : Jet Li, Tony Leung Chiu Wai, Maggie Cheung, Ziyi Zhang, Donnie Yen | Presented at Palm Springs Film Festival, Berlin Film Festival, Jerusalem Film Festival, Edda Film Festival, Marrakech Film Festival, Ghent Film Festival, Brothers Manaki Film Festival, Sao Paulo Film Festival, Istanbul Film Festival

婼玛的十七岁 | When Ruoma Was Seventeen

This simple, yet engaging film tells the story of 17-year-old Ruoma, a member of the Xjani tribe, who are a racial minority in the Yunnan province of southern China. Ruoma has always lived a quiet, rural life, but dreams of a glamorous, cosmopolitan lifestyle way beyond her financial reach. When a photographer named Ming offers Ruoma the chance to make money as a model, she jumps at the opportunity, even if it is just posing in tribal wear for the amusement of tourists. Ruoma quickly falls in love with Ming and the notion that he may be her ticket out. Without any acting experience, Li Min is nonetheless stunning and natural in her portrayal of Ruoma. Made independently from China’s studio system, this film takes a subtle, yet compelling look at Xjani culture. An official Selection of 2004’s Philadelphia Film Festival, When Ruoma Was Seventeen is a fresh coming-of-age story from director Zhang Jiarue that features an interesting subject, and nuanced performances.

Directed by Jiarui Zhang | Starring : Li Min, Zhigang Yang, Shu Linyuan | Presented at Pusan Film Festival, Berlin Film Festival, Montréal Film Festival, San Jose Film Festival, Philadelphia Film Festival, Flanders Film Festival