{"id":3402,"date":"2016-05-01T14:26:49","date_gmt":"2016-05-01T18:26:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/students.com.miami.edu\/reviewing\/?page_id=3402"},"modified":"2016-05-01T14:33:34","modified_gmt":"2016-05-01T18:33:34","slug":"chinese-films-gaining-popularity-in-u-s","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/students.com.miami.edu\/reviewing\/?page_id=3402","title":{"rendered":"Chinese films show drama strengths"},"content":{"rendered":"

Posted May 1, 2016<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

By ZHIWEI XIA<\/p>\n

From a certain point of view, Chinese movies have the potential to win over the Western audience. China has 5,000 years of history, a mysterious oriental culture, beautiful natural scenery and compelling stories about its people. All these factors provide a strong stage upon which Chinese films can show themselves to the world.<\/p>\n

Recently, three new Chinese movies have premiered in North American film market that have displayed today\u2019s Chinese film strengths. \u201cMountain May Depart,\u201d \u201cCrouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon 2: Sword of Destiny\u201d and \u201cThe Mermaid\u201d all belong to drama genre, but each has its own strong points.<\/p>\n

A director is always the spirit of a movie. It’s\u00a0worth\u00a0mentioning that the directors of these three movies are legendary figures of contemporary Chinese cinema.<\/p>\n

Zhangke Jia is director of \u201cMountain May Depart.\u201d He is a Chinese film director and screenwriter and being regarded as a leading figure of the “Sixth Generation” movement of the Chinese film industry. His movies have received critical praise and have been recognized internationally, notably winning the Venice Film Festival’s top award, the\u00a0Golden Lion,\u00a0for\u00a0\u201cStill Life.\u201d National Public Radio critic John Powers once described him as perhaps “the most important filmmaker working in the world today.”<\/p>\n

“Mountains May Depart” Credits to New Wave Films<\/p><\/div>\n

\u201cThe Mermaid\u201d was directed and written by Stephen Chow. Chow was well-known in China as a comedy actor. Now he is a\u00a0Hong Kong\u00a0film director,\u00a0actor, writer and film producer.<\/p>\n

And he is also a political adviser of\u00a0Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference. It can be said that most of the Chinese people got more familiar with Western comedy because of Chow.<\/p>\n

\u201cCrouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon 2: Sword of Destiny\u201d has been publicized as the sequel of the highly regarded \u201cCrouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon.\u201d However, the directors and the plots of these two movies are different.<\/p>\n

Wooping Yuen, director of \u201cCrouching Tiger 2,\u201d is a\u00a0Chinese\u00a0martial arts choreographer\u00a0and\u00a0film director, renowned as one of the most successful and influential figures in the world of\u00a0Hong Kong action cinema. He is one of the inductees on the\u00a0Avenue of Stars\u00a0in Hong Kong.<\/p>\n

What is China? That\u2019s the main question of \u201cMountain May Depart\u201d and director uses many subjects to show his answers to the audience.<\/p>\n

“The Mermaid” Credits to Movie4U<\/p><\/div>\n

The protagonist of \u201cMountain May Depart\u201d is a beautiful small town girl, Zhao Tao.<\/p>\n

The life of Tao, a town beauty, and those close to her, is explored in three different time periods: 1999, 2014, and 2025. Along with the story moved from China to Australia, the lives, loves, hopes and disillusions of a family over two generations in society changes at breakneck speed.<\/p>\n

The original Chinese name of \u201cMountain May Depart\u201d is \u201cThe Old Friend of the Rivers and Mountains.\u201d The river means the Yellow River, which symbolizes China. Since JinSheng\u2019s car hit the stone tablet of the ninth bend of the Yellow River in 1999, the river becomes a witness to this love triangle of this movie. And the “ninth bend” is also the turning point of Tao\u2019s fate. In 2025, the Yellow River became a painting on the wall, “The Song of the Yellow River,” in Jinsheng\u2019s mansion.<\/p>\n

“The Song of the Yellow River” was created by Yifei Chen in 1972. This painting portrays an armed Red Army soldier standing on the shore of the Yellow River protecting his country, however, at that moment of the movie, it became a symbol of wealth.\u00a0Jia uses this to criticize that money is not the only important thing in the world.<\/p>\n

“Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon: Sword of Destiny” Credits to Teaser-Trailer<\/p><\/div>\n

Meanwhile, Yellow River can be understood as a suffering and changing mother who has witnessed too many vicissitudes in life, but gets more tenacious and tolerant.<\/p>\n

In this sense, the mother, Tao and Yellow River are the same. Therefore, the solo dance of Tao at the end of the movie is the director\u2019s sincere believe that his country will have a better future.<\/p>\n

If money isn\u2019t the most important thing in the world, what else should we cherish?<\/p>\n

The \u201cCrouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon 2: Sword of Destiny\u201d has the answer.<\/p>\n

The \u201cCrouching Tiger 2\u201d tells the story of the time after the protagonist of \u201cCrouching Tiger 1,\u201d Li Mubai\u2019s death. Yu Shulien returns to safeguard his sword, the Green Destiny, with a disparate band of warriors who still believe in the iron way of honor.<\/p>\n

As Shulien says at the end of the movie, \u201cCode, duty, honor. I believe there are things worth fighting for.\u201d This is an old-fashioned martial arts story in which a group of faithful persons fight to the death for their sacred goal. However, the action scenes of this movie are full of impact and are enjoyable to watch.<\/p>\n

Yuen, the director, was an action director on other films. He was also the action director of \u201cThe Matrix\u201d series. Thus, the \u201cCrouching Tiger 2\u201d has a series of exquisite and beautiful designs for its action scenes. This movie will give the audience a powerful visual feast.<\/p>\n

Different from the other two movies, the \u201cCrouching Tiger 2\u201d is not as realistic as \u201cMountain May Depart,\u201d nor as fantastical as \u201cThe Mermaid,\u201d which has spectacular special effects. Each sword will see the blood and each fist will go into the body, that\u2019s what the audience will see in \u201cCrouching Tiger 2.\u201d The fight between two masters that above the pagoda will get the audience\u2019s attention. The audience can feel the rapport and trust between the two masters through their actions.<\/p>\n

The long night frames in the movie build the atmospheres for the sins of the \u201cJiang Hu\u201d (the world that belongs to the martial artists) and show the lonely heroes inner world. The sinister \u201cJiang Hu\u201d has its infinite charm and these night frames give the audience unlimited imagination. While the Silent Wolf and Shulian are watching the stars on the roof, the loneliness of those heroes is unleashed incisively and vividly. These lonely people are not afraid of war, but afraid to face the love.<\/p>\n

From the aspect of Cinematography, \u201cThe Mermaid\u201d will definitively surprise the audience.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Mermaid\u201d is a simple love story between a human and a mermaid. Xuan’s (male leading character) estate project involving reclamation of the sea threatens the livelihood of the mermaids who rely on the sea to survive. Shan (a mermaid, female leading character) is dispatched to stop Xuan, and this leads them falling in love.<\/p>\n

But this movie does not just talk about the love between two characters. The love between a human and the earth is the movie\u2019s main focus. At the beginning of the movie, the mermaids are listening to their leader tell the history of the mermaid. The mermaid leader waves her fabulous tail to create a \u201c3D water movie\u201d to present their history and to show the audience the movie\u2019s tone of plots.<\/p>\n

Indeed, this is a dramatic film and it delivers a message that people should protect the environment. Despite the computer graphics and the environmental education, Chow still keeps his sense of humor in the movie. But I guess the funniest moments could only be caught by the Chinese people or the people familiar with Chinese culture, especially because of the language. Language will be the biggest problem for Chinese movies and also ture for other foreign language movies in their acceptance by the Western world.<\/p>\n

Jia use a special way to shoot \u201cMountain May Depart.\u201d The movie was divided into three parts for the stories that happened separately in 1999, 2014 and 2025. Those three time points are not chosen randomly. They represent the past, present and future.<\/p>\n

Jia using three different aspect ratios, from 1.33:1 to 1.85:1 to 2.35:1 to tell the story. He is using the digital technology medium to represent the evolution of the development and the changes of time. This filming technique was not original from Jia. Among other people who use this technique, American director Wes Anderson used it in an impressive manner in his 2014 film “The Grand Budapest Hotel,”<\/p>\n

It is true that Chinese movies have improved a lot in a very short amount of time, no matter the filming techniques or the integrity of scripts. But Chinese movies are more like a growing adolescent, they need more help and care from other advanced film industries.<\/p>\n