What was the last Chinese film you watched?

[ouyangjun]

After enjoying Jiang Wen's 一步之遥 “Gone with the Bullets", I decided to re-watch 让子弹飞  "Let the Bullets Fly" tonight and though I liked both movies, I'm more partial to 让子弹飞  "Let the Bullets Fly".  Jiang Wen plays a great character in this funny and entertaining film.  (I'm normally a big fan of most things Jiang Wen does)

[victorhart]

ouyangjun,

 

Are the movies you cite in straight Mandarin? I just looked up "Let the Bullets Fly," and it is set in Shanghai and apparently is made in "Mandarin and Sichuanese." Since my level of Mandarin is still really low (so that I can't necessarily tell the difference), can I, or how can I, safely watch these movies and be sure whether and when I am listening to standard Mandarin?

[imron]

Mimic 姜文 and you'll do just fine :-)

Let the bullets fly is also a great movie.

[victorhart]

I watched three new movies recently. One awesome, one heart wrenching, one pretty funny.

 

1. Awesome movie: Not One Less, directed by Yimou Zhang, whose movies are generally excellent. This will probably enter my top 10 of great Chinese films I've seen. And it's good for the whole family.

 

2. Heart wrenching: Aftershock. I watched this last night in the wee a.m. hours, when I tend to be much less critical of quality, and really enjoyed it. I would say it is a good movie that is definitely worth watching. And if you allow yourself to get into the narrative, it is a heart wrenching story. I told my wife that when she feels like crying (some people really enjoy a good cry from time to time), she should definitely watch it with me. It was also enlightening to learn about an important (tragic) event in 20th century China (1976 earthquake).

 

3. Pretty funny: Getting Home. This is a comparatively lower budget and lower quality film, and at first I was finding it rather dumb. But it grew on me and I found myself laughing a lot by halfway through the film. 

[victorhart]

I just updated my Chinese Film Table, which is attached. 

 

If you're only interested in the movies originally in Mandarin, you can apply a filter--there's a saved filter that you access in Excel in the View Menu > Custom View > Mandarin.

 

I also just wrote my first film review about my all-time favorite Wu xia (Dragon). 

 

I forgot to mention in my last post that I recently watched Mulan: Rise of a Warrior and 14 Blades, both good (not great) martial arts movies, not to be missed by those that like the genre or just want to train their listening comprehension in Mandarin. I also saw Getting Home, a comedy that grew on me as I watched--not great, but quite original and good for some laughs as you practice your Chinese.
 

Oh, and I also watched the 1963 animation Havoc in Heaven, also known as Uproar in Heaven or The Monkey King. I can't say I particularly enjoyed it, but I read somewhere it is as important to growing up Chinese as The Wizard of Oz is to an American.

chinese_film_table_m.xlsx

[ouyangjun]

心花路放...  I really enjoyed this recently released comedy.  Rated a 7.0 on 豆瓣  douban, I'd say this at least lived up to or maybe slightly exceeded my expectations.  About a guy who's marriage went bad and in order to recover from his grief goes on a road trip with a friend.  Can be watched on youku.

[Lu]

Watched three Chinese movies at the Rotterdam Film Festival.

诗人出差了 Poet on a business trip, Ju Anqi: Poet travels through Xinjiang, drinks, whores and is lonely. Very arthousy and rather grainy. Not my kind of movie, but I saw it three times (interpreting for the director) and liked it a bit better with each viewing.

父与子 Father and sons, Wang Bing: A father and his two sons (12 years old or so) live in a very small room in a Kunming suburb. Because of hukou issues the sons can't go to school, and they just sit on the bed, watching garbage television and playing games on their phone. This is what you see, for an hour and a half. Hardly anything is said and the camera barely moves. It's not a bad movie, far from, but it was VERY slow. Originally a piece of video art, and it works better that way I think. In the Q&A afterwards, the director also said that making an audience look at it for an hour and half seemed an act of force.

尔多斯骑士 Erdos rider, Wang Haolin: a couple is getting divorced; the archeologist wife dies (how? intentionally left unclear); the husband goes to Inner Mongolia to visit her last dig. Story told out of order. Arthouse movie, but it has a story and dialogue and everything and I really enjoyed this one. Beautiful and intelligent story. This is also the first time, as far as I can remember, that a Chinese movie shown in Rotterdam had half a chance of being released in China itself as well.

[ouyangjun]

Watched a new release 《黄飞鸿之英雄有梦》

Pros: some good action/fight scenes... Angelababy

Cons: overall movie just okay... Dragged on and trouble keeping me interested.

5/10

[Simon_CH]

I recently watched Devils on the Doorstep again and have to say it's just a great movie. 

 

Rating: 10/10

 

It's one of the rare movies where you really develop an affection for all the characters towards the end of the movie, it's a masterpiece and one of my all time favourite movies. Unsurprisingly it's banned in China... 

[ouyangjun]

@Simon_CH, i definitely need to watch that one.  I'm a big 姜文 fan, both of his acting and directing, and it's a shame I have not seen this one yet.  

[skylee]

I have just seen 狼圖騰 (Wolf Totem). A beautifully shot film. I enjoyed it.

[Kobo-Daishi]

The last film I saw was 聶隱娘 (or in English "The Assassin").

 

 

Okay, I didn't really watch it.

 

Last week, I read an article in The Los Angeles Times titled "Why Hou Hsiao-Hsien made 'The Assassin' so elliptical" about how Hou Hsiao-Hsien had won the director's prize at the Cannes Film Festival for the film.

 

I'd never heard about the film or the director before the article.

 

http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/movies/moviesnow/la-et-mn-hou-hsiao-hsien-the-assassin-cannes-movie-20150526-story.html

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Assassin_%282015_film%29

 

I recognized the actress from the Wikipedia article as being the actress in the Journey to the West: Conquering the Demons film that I'd seen based on a recommendation of a fellow forumite.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shu_Qi

 

It seems they've since updated her Wikipedia profile to include a picture of her at Cannes. Also Ethan Juan has a cameo in the film. Now Ethan Juan I knew from the great Taiwanese romance-drama Fated To Love You. One of my all time faves. And a video series I've linked to at my YouTube channel, Kobo's Cantonese Corner. Dubbed in Cantonese, of course,

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethan_Juan

 

 

Set at the end of China's Tang Dynasty and inspired by a well-known legend, the movie centers on a skilled assassin (Shu Qi) dispatched to kill an important political figure who is also her cousin and former lover.

 

 

It seems that 聶隱娘 is contained within 劍俠傳 a work originally thought to have been by 段成式, but, is now generally believed to have been written by his contemporary 裴鉶.

 

I wanted to download a copy to watch, but, the ones I were able to find were more than 1 GB in length and I didn't feel up to tying up my computer for several hours for the download.

 

Besides a text copy, I was however able to find a 連畫 edition and an animation.

 

 

 

Note in the lianhua they use 尼姑 for the Taoist priestess while in the cartoon they use 道姑. In the course of my research, I've discovered that in Cantonese, in addition to being Taoist nun, it's also slang for "a female drug addict".

 

And finally an English translation.

 

http://www.theworldofchinese.com/2013/09/tales-of-the-marvelous-part-3-nie-yinniang/

 

I'll probably try to find a smaller copy of the movie when I've time. The cinematography is supposed to be spectacular.

 

The Times article says it's based on a well known legend. I wonder how well known. Does every school kid in China know the legend? As we in the West the stories of Robin Hood and Paul Bunyon?

 

It's a strange little tale. A 10 year old girl is kidnapped by a taoist priestess from the 靈山仙派 and taken to their school in the mountains for training in the martial and mystical arts to become an assassin.

 

Kobo.

[eliaso]

Just finished watching "亲爱的", Dearest, which was actually a good drama movie even by international standards. I'm not a fan of mainland Chinese television / cinema so this was a pleasent surprise.

 

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt3752930/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dearest_%282014_film%29

[Sandlin]

I watched 十万个冷笑话 (100,000 Bad Jokes) last night.  It is a comedy action cartoon (not really aimed at kids for a target audience, but nothing unbearably offensive in it either) with above-average English subtitles.  It's about an unlikely superhero who faults himself for accidentally and repeatedly unleashing forces of cataclysmic extinction within all of time-space.  His long-suffering sidekick is a hilarious cosmic chicken whose name, 时光鸡 is a play on words for the expression for time machine 时光穿梭机).  Sounds too weird to be funny, but the whole thing works.

[character]

The Taking of Tiger Mountain / 智取威虎山 -- Pulpy period wartime action adventure movie; immense fun to watch. Of possible interest to folks here is that the movie is styled to look like Chinese revolutionary movies/Operas from the 1960's.

Review: http://lovehkfilm.com/reviews_2/taking_of_tiger_mountain.html

[Lu]

The Taking of Tiger Mountain / 智取威虎山

Oh hey I saw that opera a few weeks ago. Propaganda through and through, but very good.

 

Saw 手机 (Cellphone) this weekend. Tv show host is a pathological liar who especially lies through cellphones, and we see his life unravel as a result, again and again. Nice story, decent characters, and a few good jokes. Worth a watch.

[character]

手机 (Cellphone)

I enjoyed this as well.  Has kind of arthouse cinematography which adds to its charm, which is different than the generic shiny and polished look so many big budget Chinese films have today.

 

Only film I've seen recently I can recommend is 賭城風雲 (From Vegas to Macau) -- if you like 80's-90's HK screwball comedies, this film recaptures some of that magic.

澳門風雲II (From Vegas to Macau II) isn't very good.

單身男女2 (Don't go breaking my heart 2) also isn't very good. The first one is a good (if wildly unrealistic) romcom.

[skylee]

I saw 三城記 today. I think it is very old fashioned. I don't find it touching or beautiful (although there are beautiful scenes in the film). I am not impressed by the acting either. It is just another OK film.

I miss the excitement of watching a film with an excellent story/cast/acting (like 無間道/ 投名狀）. Or just give me an extremely sweet/ lovely movie.

[victorhart]

I've updated my Films Table, which is attached below.
 
I have now watched 60 movies in Mandarin since last year! Over 50 of these are original Chinese-language movies. Although no one here has given me any feedback, I think my table is a very useful resource for anyone who wants to use movies to enhance their Mandarin studies. I would have loved to have such a list when I began my experiment.

 

The best feature is that it ranks the movies using a formula I developed that takes into account the Rotten Tomatoes tomatometer percentage, IMDB user ratings, my own ratings, and other factors, such as if it is originally a Mandarin-language film. 
 
The table also provides the films' duration, genre, year, and other useful information. In some cases, I've included actors, directors, and where I got the movie, but I still need to complete that information for most films on the list. 
 
The most recent movie I saw was one recommended on this page, The Taking of Tiger Mountain. Decent, good special effects, fun to watch. 
 
I watch my top favorites over and over again to try to learn new words and improve my listening comprehension more generally.
 
The top 3 best ever (for my taste) are: Hero, Dragon, and Not One Less. But there are another ten or so Chinese movies I consider fantastic on the list. And I also enjoy watching Disney classics such as Mulan and Lion King dubbed in Mandarin.

chinese_film_table_m.xlsx

[victorhart]

I just watched Touch of the Light for the second time. A touching, feel-good, well made, contemporary (2012) Taiwanese movie. Definitely recommend. Got it on Amazon.