Feng Xiaogang's 天下无贼 - A World Without Thieves

[roddy]

This is the film currently dominating billboards around Beijing, just like the same directors 手机 did around this time last year.

I saw it yesterday and enjoyed it, but I won't be recommending everyone runs out and watches it immediately - if you get a chance to see it fine, but I wouldn't worry too much if you don't.

It's much more comedy than anything else - it struck me as kind of a spoof of over-serious kung-fu dramas - but appears to take itself more seriously in parts, which I found a bit annoying.

Probably the best part for Andy Lau haters (yes, we know you are out there) is that you get to see Andy being almost visibly irritated at having to wear a bad-hair wig for the first half of the film, and then (select to spoil the plot {die at the end}

Films very nicely shot, especially considering the greater part of it takes place on a hard-seat train carriage. Watch out for the kid from Blind Shaft reprising his role as trusting country bumpkin (you'd think he'd have learned his lesson after being almost murdered down a mine shaft, but no, he's getting onto a train carrying 60,000Y and telling everyone about it).

The language is kind of tricky - lots of chengyu as they ham up the dialogue and a fair amount of 方言 as well. I saw it in the cinema, but they luckily had English and Chinese subtitles onscreen, and I would have been very lost without them.

Anyone else seen it?

Roddy

[Jack MacKelly]

haven't seen it, I'll try and check it out

[skylee]

It is being shown in HK. But I am not interested.

[Ian_Lee]

I watched Director Feng's previous movie 大腕 and frankly speaking, I fell asleep in the middle of the movie.

Most audience in Cantonese-speaking region cannot understand Feng's northern humor (Feng's movies are always box office hitters nationally except Guangdong/HK region).

That is why Feng had to lead his crew to get on a 25-hour direct train journey from Beijing to HK for promotion of 天下无贼.

But in HK, the film critic does not seem to give 天下无贼 good comments.

[badatpool]

我觉得冯小刚的东西是另一种适合在影院看的电影，因为那“一哄而笑”在家里是很难“哄”出来的。

[wushijiao]

Yeah, for me at least, the comedic parts of the movie worked very well. But the sentimental parts seemed a bit tedious. Still worth the 8 kuai.

[Ian_Lee]

I just watched the Mainland version DVD (effect not too good).

Very good cinematography. I read somewhere that the prayer scene was taken in Kumbum Lamaist Monastery at Xining, Qinghai.

( Lau's BMW coupe probably could never make it there especially after rinsed by the water from Yellow River.)

But I feel kind of strange that how come this movie is advertsied as a comedy in Mainland? In HK, most people regard it as a sensational drama. Except a few gags, the story is actually quite tragic.

And like the Mainland version of "Infernal Affair", why must Andy Lau die at the end of this movie?

[Ian_Lee]

Interestingly the movie title is written as 天下無賊 instead of 天下无贼 in the movie.

Three years ago Wong Kar Wai's movie 天下無雙 was written as 天下无双 in HK.

It seems it is hip for simplified script user to use traditional script and vice versa!

[Gary Soup]

But I feel kind of strange that how come this movie is advertsied as a comedy in Mainland? In HK, most people regard it as a sensational drama. Except a few gags, the story is actually quite tragic.

And like the Mainland version of "Infernal Affair", why must Andy Lau die at the end of this movie?

Maybe killing off Andy Lau is what HK'ers find tragic.

I didn't see it as either a comedy or a tragedy, so much as an entertaining but not too profound whodunit. The only comedy was in the gratuitous kung fu tangoes by the two HK popsters, which I sort of saw as a spoof on HK cinematic values.

I think it was a great vehicle for Ge You, and a good rural travelogue but not much more.

[Ian_Lee]

The only comedy was in the gratuitous kung fu tangoes by the two HK popsters, which I sort of saw as a spoof on HK cinematic values.

Andy Lau should be the only HK actor in the movie.

(But apparently Lau was not in his best condition in the movie. He looks extremely fatigued.)

And in his recent movies, Lau always died at the end.

The actress, Renee Liu, is from Taiwan.