favourite Chinese film?

[Jack MacKelly]

I think some wonderful films have been coming out of HongKong, stuff like Chinese Ghost Story with Leslie Cheung and Flaming Brothers with Chow Yun Fat

There have been great films made with stars from Taiwan, HongKong and mainland China Chungking Express, the drama Shower, the action flick Once Upon a Time in China II, and TheRoadHome with Zhang Ziyi are also fantastic movies.

I'll have to start collecting some of these films

[outsider]

From Taiwan, Director Hou Hsiao Hsien's epic "A City of Sadness".

(Anyone who wants to explore the Taiwan Independence issue should watch it -- But curiously Hou is actually from Guangdong. Hmm...But his "Puppetmaster" is much less boring.)

From Mainland, lately Zhang Yimou's "Happy Time" is much better made than his famed "Hero".

From Hong Kong, Director Fruit Chan's movies are really surreal.

But I still like the old time movies of Tsui Hark -- "Once Upon a Time in China" series and "Chinese Ghost Story" series

nice

some other cool films

Police Story 警察故事 Jackie Chan

http://www.cinemasie.com/dossiershk/series/policestory/policestory.jpg

Raise the Red Lantern - Zhang Yimou

http://www.brightlightsfilm.com/35/images/chinfem_lantern.jpg

[madizi]

Hmmmmmh....... I cannot decide which one is the best. I like Missing gun (Xun Qiang), Not One Less (Yi ge DOU bu neng shao) and many others......... The Road Home (Wode fuqin muqin) is OK, but way too sentimental.

[Gary Soup]

Any of the films mentioned are going to come with a selectable Mandarin-language track on their respective DVD's, but assuming you're a purist and wish to watch a film in its original language, the following will help/drive you crazy with your Mandarin studies:

....

Flowers of Shanghai

.....

It would be a pity not to watch it with the original Shanghainese sound track, IMHO

[Bright]

香港的最爱《大话西游》

大陆的嘛...葛优的贺岁片都不错

[Ultimate_Phil]

In the past few years, many great productions came from China mainland, but also from Hongkong or Taiwan. I like older Hongkong-Productions like "A Chinese Ghost Story", "Once Upon A Time In China". From mainland Chinese, I like films like "The Road Home" from director Zhang Yimou. Also great is Japanese director Takeshi Kitano. His movie "Kikujiro" is awesome.

[Jack MacKelly]

HK film has always been a big hit

The Japanese film did very well in the past with stuff like Rashomon, Seven Samurai and the other films from the ages of classic Japan cinema.

Today however Japan movies have died off, some say the film industry has fallen down with the Japan economy and are now being replaced by very sucessful stuff from Thailand, India, S.Korea and Mainland China.

here are some links on China & Asian film

http://www.asiafilm.com/discussion.htm

http://us.yesasia.com/en/Browse/BrowseFrontPage.aspx/section-videos/code-c/version-all/did-107/

http://www.answers.com/topic/cinema-of-china

http://www.yellowbridge.com/people/directingW.html

http://www.wholecircleround.co.uk/easternkicks_old/

http://www.asiafilm.com/shopd-h.htm

stuff from mainland China will continue doing well, but we may also see growing film industries from places like India and SKorea, Tiawan film has dropped down a little but outside investment should help it come back. Hou Hsiao-hsien, Anng Lee, and Edward Yang have done well, the big winner is Chinese film like Hero and films such as The House of Flying Daggers by Zhang Yimou and Together by Chen Kaige, and HK stars like Jackie Chan that promote China culture through their films in the west .

the BBC also do very good coverage of China film and Chinese HongKong cinema

专访：张艺谋谈功夫电影

中国著名导演张艺谋表示，好莱坞电影正受到中国功夫电影的影响。

张艺谋导演的电影《英雄》和《十面埋伏》让他国际知名，这两部电影都表现了中国功夫的美态。

http://www.bbc.co.uk/films/2001/09/25/police_story_1985_dvd_review.shtml

http://www.bbc.co.uk/films/2001/03/16/shower__review.shtml

http://www.bbc.co.uk/films/2005/02/16/hero_2005_dvd_review.shtml

they review many Chinese films which have been out on VHS or DVD in the BBC world cinema section

[Jack MacKelly]

more on Chinese films here

http://www.answers.com/topic/cinema-of-china

http://www.chinese-forums.com/viewtopic.php?t=4598

http://www.easternkicks.com/films/2046_2.htm

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=F50F10FB3A5A0C768CDDAB0994DC404482

http://www.cinemarati.org/features/necessities0201.shtml

http://mclc.osu.edu/rc/filmbib3.htm

http://www.math.utexas.edu/~benzvi/movies.html

[pikachew]

Overall is my favorite Chinese film.

[in_lab]

Re: Cantonese/Mandarin language tracks

For the most of the HK classics, the purist doesn't have the option of hearing an "original soundtrack." There's a dubbed cantonese, and a dubbed mandarin. The Cantonese track is usually better quality.

[天峰]

Ok here I go. I have been looking for a place to express my Chinese film interests and here it goes. First I think anything by zhang yi mo is crap mellow-drama with underdeveloped characters and overly pretty scenes that do nothing for me. I waited so long to see Hero with my girlfriend when it opened in 2002 in Beijing, and she nearly drug me out of the theater it was so bad. I think all of his movies are over rated. All of these movies lead back to a lot of Chinese peoples movie tastes. I can't tell you how many friends I have that can sit with a straight face and tell me that waterloo bridge for the 1930's was their favorite western movie. Gag me.

Back to Chinese movies. God of gamblers gave chow young fat a great part to play in all three and along with a better tomorrow gave him a boost to Hollywood where he now does crap like the replacement killers and movies with marky mark. If you like just pure action with no plot at all chose anything from Tsu hark or john wu, It will really help you in a pinch for action but not much else. I recommend first contact chow young fat is great in it and kills pretty much everyone with his guns blazing

Steven chow is a god. I have seen every one of his movies and each one has parts that will get me laughing so hard I am almost crying. kung fu was so-so as was Shaolin Soccer but he still can't put out a movie I can hate. And here was Ng Mong Tat in kung fu. He must have been working on that crappy Taiwanese movie that stunk up the screen. All that said his are movies, best in my opinion, are (English names because I don't remember the Chinese names or have my dvds to copy off now). King of beggars, royal tramp, hail to the judge, All for the winner/god of gamblers (a great parody of fat’s God of Gamblers) and my favorite, a Chinese Odyssey part 1 and 2. I learned more about Chinese myths and folklore in this movie than any other. The romance scene at the end did get me goin' and it is so quotable to people of any age. I taught a friggin summer camp where all the kids wanted to do was translate lines from that movie and speak them in English.

My favorite action/kung fu movie would have to go to a movie that I again can’t get the name because I haven't go my DVD’S on hand. It is wu ..... something or other and I think it is a joint project between Korea and china. This movie had great characters great acting and had amazing fight scenes that hovered somewhere in the realm of human capability.

An action drama Infernal Affairs was good; nothing that I haven't seen from Andy Lau before but it was well polished and had great cinematography. Although 2 and 3 left something to be desired it still came off good as a trilogy. My all time favorite series has to be the young and dangerous. I know it is cheesy but I really liked those guys's and I hopped for them to pull through every time. It reminded me of friends I had made in HK and how honor able people can be. People will probably disagree but I thought the kicked ass. Chicken (陈小春） was sweet when he came back in the first one with the Taiwanese gangster family. On a side note 算你很 was a decent mainstream, pretty hard to imagine that some one in China could act and get a record deal. Hahahahah.

Ok to finish up I though out this. I was watching TV on day bored out of my wits and I got stuck on a local JiangXi station. There was a movie about two little girls during the Japanese massacre in NanJing. It was called May and August I think but don't quote me on that. I might have liked it a lot because it was all in simple Chinese when i was just starting to learn so I was able to understand it but it was sad. I am sure it was arranged by the government to promote the anti-Japanese sentiment but it was still well done and sad. Kind of like Miyazaki's Grave of the fireflies only Chinese, with the Japanese as the bad guy's. I know this has been a rant but it is my first post. Feel free to trash it because I love discussion.

[Lu]

(...)

- In the Heat of the Sun (阳光灿烂的日子) directed by Jiang Wen http://imdb.com/title/tt0111786/ (...)

I liked that one too. Story is by Wang Shuo (the writer).