Springtime in a Small Town / 小城之春

[roddy]

Just finished watching this.

Basic plot summary: Man A (young doctor)comes to visit old friend Man B (sickly arty type who doesn't do much apart from cough and be moody) and discovers Man B's wife of 8 years is his childhood sweetheart from the village he left 10 years ago - you can pretty much guess where things are going to go from there . . .

Support is provided by Man A's younger 16 year old sister and an elderly man servant - that's the entire cast.

It's beautifully shot, almost all inside a courtyard-style house - lots of lattice window-frames to point cameras through and so on.

I found the Chinese pretty easy to understand and followed pretty much the whole film without subtitles - there's lots more slow, drawn-out sentences than there are rapid arguments.

Roddy

[niubi]

are you referring to the original film directed by fei mu, or the recent remake directed by tian zhuangzhuang?

[roddy]

Sorry, I should have said - it was the remake.

Roddy

[niubi]

i need to find those both on dvd next time i'm in china. i recently got them on vcd....still haven't watched them yet! hehe.

[roddy]

I haven't seen the original available on DVD, though I guess it might be out there somewhere. The remake is pretty easily available, and as the film is visually very impressive, it's worth getting a DVD over a VCD

Roddy

[laolee]

The vcd of the original is very good. I bought the box set with both the old and remake, and the remake picture quality was terrible but the original version was excellent. An R2 UK DVD of the remake was just released last month. Having seen both, the original is better, imo.

Minor quibble, but the remake added the dance class scene, so there actually are a few more actors in the newer version. What I didn't like about the remake was the excessive camera tracking. It made me too conscious of the camera and, also, dizzy.

[niubi]

i am thinking about getting the UK dvd....a bit pricey.

[skylee]

I saw the trailer today. Very impressive. Very slow. And my friend said immediately that the music was good. Obviously it will be released in HK soon.

I can now buy it's DVD for US$7 from yesasia. Do you think the price is good?

Or should I get the old+new VCD set for US$7 (!)? Or could roddy send me his set?

[Saturday]

Just watched it. Superb one. Go rent/download/borrow/steal this one. It's worth it!

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0332831/

[atitarev]

Thanks, guys.

Here you can download the original movie:

http://www.archive.org/details/spring_in_a_small_town

The smaller versions are also available, the one you can fit on a pocket PC and watch using TCPMP player. I don't recommend 100MB files, bad quality but 250MB are OK.

The soft subtitles for this one are available on www.shooter.cn

The English subtitles are here (as per the previous link):

http://www.opensubtitles.com/en/subtitles/217472/xiao-cheng-zhi-chun-en

See some more free old movies on the same site, searchable by language, fully legitimate.

[roddy]

I can now buy it's DVD for US$7 from yesasia. Do you think the price is good?

Or should I get the old+new VCD set for US$7 (!)? Or could roddy send me his set?

Four years later . . .

So what did you do Skylee? I can't remember if I saw this first time round, but I'm afraid my VCD (remember those?) is now lost in the mists of time anyway.

Not sure if I ever watched the original. Pretty sure I had it downloaded at some point.

[skylee]

So what did you do Skylee?

I did nothing. I think I simply lost interest.