Artisan PIckpocket Xiao Wu

[roddy]

Currently watching this, and the fact that I'm writing this before it's finished probably indicates that it hasn't really held my attention.

I think it might be one of those films that stands up very well to analysis (the only English review I found on the internet was on the World Socialist Website and it's certainly an interesting film for its insight into contemporary middle-China - small city, workmen with suit jackets over jumpers, Great Shanghai Karaoke Hall China - the kind of place you only ever get to if you jump off the train at the wrong stop, or take the first job you get offered after submitting your CV to some English teacher recruitment website.

However, an hour into the film, I'm not really sure what's happening. I suppose the subtitles don't help - definitely influenced by the Hong Kong school of subtitling.

Hey, Patron!

Ah, you come again?

I come with Public Security Bureau to dispose your shop

The language seems to be as far away from Mandarin as you could get without actually being a different language, which also makes things difficult.

Anyone else seen it? Maybe I've misjudged it, but I'm not too impressed with this one . . .

Roddy

[Guest vfj1]

Roddy,

Had to weight in. I'm an American in Beijing researching the independent film scene here, and Xiao Wu is among my favorite Chinese films ever. My personal opinion is that the director Jia Zhangke is the smartest director the mainland's ever produced, though I think a lot of people would say that's taking it a bit far. In any case, the subtitles on my copy are pretty shabby too, it sure as hell ain't in Mandarin most of the time, and the low budget (shot on 16mm) shows. Plus there are no hot girls. All told, it makes sense that the film was an enormous hit in France and fell a bit under the American radar. It did well enough at festivals that Jia Zhangke got a healthy budget to make his second film, Platform, which is around the video stores here. Platform is, at least, visually beautiful, which Xiao Wu most definitely is not, but its pace is much slower. I think it too is brilliant, but you gotta be patient--the style is very strongly influenced by Hou Hsiao-hsien. Jia's third film, Unknown Pleasures, moves a bit faster and managed to get him an American distributor--so all three films may be in better video stores in the States before long.

You might want to give the movie another try, if for no other reason than that Jia Zhangke is an absolutely unique Chinese phenomenon--a director who has worked independetly all along, without having at any point been involved with the state-run studio system, and yet has still managed to do well enough abroad to get an American distributor (with, again, a notable absense of Oriental babe shots to put on the packaging). Finally, the fact that it took this long for a Chinese film to come right out and say, "Karaoke matters," should be a point of shame for this country!

[roddy]

Weigh away - I'm no film buff, and I freely admit that my top ten movies of all time would probably include far too many exploding helicopters for me to ever be considered as one.

I might give the film another try - but I've currently got Warriors of Heaven and Earth, Hui Jia, Green Tea, and any number of other DVDs to get through first.

Roddy

PS Welcome to the forum . . .

[laolee]

Xiao Wu and Unknown Pleasures are scheduled for an R2UK DVD release as a set in January. Platform is already available on R2UK DVD. I saw Platform at a festival two years ago and really enjoyed it but I think the cut I saw was not the longer one, and, unfortunately, neither is the DVD, I don't think.

[niubi]

very tempted to get the UK dvd set.