Mandarin

A revolutionary novel, film, and opera created in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) about the mass killings during the long period of the Japanese occupation of Korea.Read More »

Quote:
Meng Kang (David Chiang) and Tieh (Ti Lung) are shallow thrill seekers and friends whose goal it is in life to merely have a good time. These reckless youths are recruited to the side of the Chinese revolution by Wan (Ku Feng shedding his gray wig and mustache in a rare heroic role). Meanwhile, Marshall Chin (Cheng Miu), a high-ranking army official, secures a cache of 3000 rifles delivered from the nation of Japan. Marshall Chin intends to use these weapons to crush the rebel forces. Wan convinces Meng and Tieh to assist him in stealing the rifles away from the army. The task seems hopeless however, since Marshall Chin is aware of the spies in his midst and places the rifles under heavy guard. Three men alone cannot defy an entire army. Help arrives in the form of the beautiful and spunky Pepper (Ching Li), whose father is a captain of the guard. Read More »

At a slickly run massage centre in Nanjing, sight-impaired massuers and masseuses are employed in a wonderful environment that’s an oasis outside of mainstream society.Read More »

After firing a colleague, the head of a PR company begins to question her lifestyle and values.Read More »

Quote:
Bicycles are as synonymous with Beijing as cabs are with Manhattan, and when the hero of Wang Xiaoshuai’s superb and harrowing “Beijing Bicycle” joins the swarm of cyclists who crowd the city’s streets, he stands for countless young people who have made the journey from the country to China’s capital in search of a better life.

Cui Lin’s shy yet stubborn Guei considers himself lucky. He has a place to live–with a friend in an old compound with small quarters for working people. Even better, he has landed a job as a messenger that provides him with a uniform and an impressive silver mountain bike that will become his once he has earned 700 yuan, which is about $85.Read More »

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 »

Quote:
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 »

Quote:
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 »

Throughout 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 »