A story set in nineteenth-century China and focusing on the life-long friendship between two girls who develop their own secret code as a way to contend with the rigid social norms imposed on women.Read More »
Mandarin
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Wayne Wang – Snow Flower and the Secret Fan (2011)
Wayne Wang2011-2020ChinaDrama -
Wenguang Wu – Bumming in Beijing: The Last Dreamers (1990)
Wenguang Wu1981-1990ChinaDocumentaryQuote:
A documentary following five young artists from around China, who travelled to Beijing in the 1980s to work as freelancers, exploring their lives, careers, and what aspirations they may have for the future.This is an EXTENDED CUT of this important “6h generation” doc.Read More »
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Wenguang Wu – Fuck Cinema (2005)
Wenguang Wu2001-2010ChinaDocumentaryQuote:
This documentary shows how different young people try to realize their dreams or become famous through the film industry. One of the main characters of this documentary is named Wang, a young man from the countryside, aged 28. He comes to Beijing out of a love for the cinema; however, all he can do every day is line up outside the gate of a film studio in the hope of landing a job as an extra, getting 30 yuan for one day! During his stay in Beijing he writes a film script based on his own experience in the city as an extra. He thinks his play presents the darkness and desperation of survival in China. Then he wants to find an investor or a director who can produce his play as an “underground film”, because in his opinion many Chinese directors are successful on the international stage this way.Read More » -
Violet Du Feng – Hidden Letters (2022)
Violet Du Feng2021-2030ArthouseChinaDocumentaryThroughout history, women have survived the stifling strictures of patriarchy by using their own codes of communication — be it intergenerational secrets, whisper networks or gestures legible only to other women. Several centuries ago, in Jiangyong County in southern China, women went a step further, inventing an entire language that they used to write songs, poetry and furtive missives to one another.
This fascinating language, Nushu, is the subject of the documentary “Hidden Letters,” though if you’re expecting an illuminating deep dive into its history, you’ll be disappointed. The director, Violet Du Feng, uses Nushu mostly as a cursory framing device for a broad portrait of gender relations in modern China, structured around the stories of two Nushu practitioners: a divorced museum guide, Xin Hu, and a soon-to-be-married musician, Simu Wu.Read More »
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Various – Huang se gu shi AKA The Game They Called Sex (1988)
Various1981-1990RomanceTaiwanThe turbulent life of Chu Hsiao-Min and her growth from girl to woman.Read More »
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Shaohong Li – Hong xi fu AKA The Red Suit (2000)
Shaohong Li1991-2000ChinaDramaImdb:
Modern-day urban problems like unemployment and teenage depression come under the microscope. Husband and wife lose their jobs, and their daughter is under considerable stress studying for her college exams. Meanwhile, grandmother is having an unexpected romantic liaison. Will the family be able to pull together to solve their problems?Read More » -
Xiaopeng Tian – Shen hai AKA Deep Sea (2023)
2021-2030AnimationChinaFantasyXiaopeng TianA girl strays into the dreamy deep sea world. In the deepest part of the sea, all secrets are hidden.Read More »
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Kaige Chen – Ba wang bie ji AKA Farewell My Concubine (1993)
1991-2000ChinaDramaKaige ChenRomanceTwo boys meet at an opera training school in Peking in 1924. Their resulting friendship will span nearly 70 years and endure some of the most troublesome times in China’s history.Read More »
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Ji Huang & Ryûji Otsuka – Stonewalling (2022)
2021-2030ChinaDramaJi HuangRyûji OtsukaWhen Lynn discovers that she is pregnant, finishing her studies as a flight attendant are in doubt, not wanting to have an abortion and hide her pregnancy from her absent boyfriend, Lynn hopes to give the child away at birth.Read More »