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	<title>BeyondHollywood.com &#124; Movie News, Reviews, and Opinions &#187; Mainland China Movie Reviews</title>
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		<title>Dong (2006) Movie Review</title>
		<link>http://www.beyondhollywood.com/dong-2006-movie-review/</link>
		<comments>http://www.beyondhollywood.com/dong-2006-movie-review/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Sun, 03 Jun 2007 05:49:13 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>James Mudge</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Asian Movie Reviews]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Chinese Movie Reviews]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Documentary Movie Reviews]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Mainland China Movie Reviews]]></category>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.beyondhollywood.com/dong-2006-movie-review/</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[&#8220;Dong&#8221; is a companion piece to Chinese director Jia Zhangke&#8217;s prize winning &#8220;Still Life&#8221;, and both played at the 2006 Venice Film Festival. Interestingly, it was this documentary which was actually planned first, with the joint project coming about after Jia was invited to the area by a painter to capture his work on film. Although the two films are probably best viewed together, sharing many of the same themes and locations, &#8220;Dong&#8221; works well as a stand-alone piece in the director&#8217;s trademark cryptic manner. 
The film follows a painter called Liu Xiaodong, and is split into two parts, the first being set in the spectacular Three Gorges Dam area (as was &#8220;Still Life&#8221;), where he attempts to paint a large picture of twelve men who are working on demolishing buildings for the project. As he paints, he grows closer to his subjects and their lives, and this in turn begins to express itself in his work. The second half [...]]]></description>
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		<title>Mongolian Ping Pong (2005) Movie Review</title>
		<link>http://www.beyondhollywood.com/mongolian-ping-pong-2005-movie-review/</link>
		<comments>http://www.beyondhollywood.com/mongolian-ping-pong-2005-movie-review/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 24 May 2007 23:37:40 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>James Mudge</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Asian Movie Reviews]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Chinese Movie Reviews]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Mainland China Movie Reviews]]></category>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.beyondhollywood.com/mongolian-ping-pong-2005-movie-review/</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[&#8220;Mongolian Ping Pong&#8221; was the second film from Chinese director Ning Hao, whose next effort &#8220;Crazy Stone&#8221; went on to be one of the country&#8217;s biggest and best hits of 2006. However, despite its title, which seems to suggest some kind of wacky sports action, &#8220;Ping Pong&#8221; is actually a documentary style look at that favourite subject of Chinese directors, the lives of people in remote rural Mongolia. Although the film did not receive much exposure in its native land, it enjoyed some success in the West, playing at the Berlin Film Festival in 2005 and winning praise from critics for its naturalistic approach. 
The basic plot of the film sees a motorbike riding young boy coming across a ping pong ball floating in a stream one day, which his grandmother tells him is a magical &#8216;glowing pearl&#8217;. He shows it to his two friends, and the three try to figure out exactly what it does, a mystery which is [...]]]></description>
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		<title>Tuya&#8217;s Marriage (2006) Movie Review</title>
		<link>http://www.beyondhollywood.com/tuyas-marriage-2006-movie-review/</link>
		<comments>http://www.beyondhollywood.com/tuyas-marriage-2006-movie-review/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 16 May 2007 07:02:23 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>James Mudge</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Asian Movie Reviews]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Chinese Movie Reviews]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Mainland China Movie Reviews]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Reviews]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.beyondhollywood.com/tuyas-marriage-2006-movie-review/</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Director Wang Quan&#8217;an&#8217;s &#8220;Tuya&#8217;s Marriage&#8221; has attained a high profile for a film which might otherwise have slipped under the international radar, thanks to a surprise win at the 57th Berlin Film Festival, where it took home the prestigious Golden Bear Award. As with Wang&#8217;s other films, &#8220;Tuya&#8217;s Marriage&#8221; again sees him tackling the difficult lives of women in rural regions, focusing this time on a female protagonist who is forced into a heart-rending decision by cruel economic necessity. 
The film follows Tuya (Yu Nan, who has worked with the director on several previous occasions), a woman in remote Mongolia whose husband Baoter has been crippled, leaving her to care for their children and support the family single-handed. Despite the help of Shenge, a kind-hearted though unfortunate neighbour whose own wife has a nasty habit of running off with other men, it soon becomes clear that she cannot keep this up, and she makes the difficult decision to look for [...]]]></description>
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		<title>The Knot (2006) Movie Review</title>
		<link>http://www.beyondhollywood.com/the-knot-2006-movie-review/</link>
		<comments>http://www.beyondhollywood.com/the-knot-2006-movie-review/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 06 Mar 2007 07:55:19 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>James Mudge</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Asian Movie Reviews]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Chinese Movie Reviews]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Mainland China Movie Reviews]]></category>
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		<category><![CDATA[Taiwanese Movie Review]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.beyondhollywood.com/?p=1550</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[&#8220;The Knot&#8221; is of some significance in being the first joint blockbuster production between Mainland China, Hong Kong and Taiwan, and the first to use a Chinese company for its expansive digital effects work. Boasting a big cast of stars and an ambitious story which takes place in a variety of countries and periods of history, the film certainly bore the marks of a ready made pan-Asian hit. Unfortunately, this did not prove to be the case, and although it performed well in Mainland China, the film floundered badly in other territories, and was not particularly well received by critics. 
The story begins in the present day with a young woman (played by Hong Kong starlet Isabella Leong) travelling around various Asian countries pestering her old painter aunt in New York on the phone for details regarding her apparently mysterious uncle. This awkward prompting leads into the main story, related in flashback and beginning in Taipei in the 1940s. It [...]]]></description>
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		<title>The 601st Phone Call (2006) Movie Review</title>
		<link>http://www.beyondhollywood.com/the-601st-phone-call-2006-movie-review/</link>
		<comments>http://www.beyondhollywood.com/the-601st-phone-call-2006-movie-review/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 28 Feb 2007 21:04:54 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>James Mudge</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Asian Movie Reviews]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Chinese Movie Reviews]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Mainland China Movie Reviews]]></category>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.beyondhollywood.com/?p=1549</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[&#8220;The 601st Phone Call&#8221; marks the directorial debut of popular television actor Zhang Guoli, who was featured in a couple of films by Feng Xiaogang, who here lends his support to Guoli&#8217;s film as producer. The film also provides Zhou Bichang, the first runner up of the famous Chinese &#8216;Super Girl&#8217; singing contest with her first proper film role, having previously added her voice to the animation &#8220;McDull, The Alumni&#8221;. The plot is based upon a recent real life incident in which some 600 celebrities were outraged after their cell phone numbers were leaked to the public, adding the twist that one of the numbers in question actually turned out to be wrong.
In this case, the wrong number results in a poor office girl called Yishu being bombarded with calls for the famous pop singer Tianyou (played by Hong Kong actress Cecilia Cheung, whose voice is dubbed into Mandarin), one of which just happens to be from Xiaowen, a seriously [...]]]></description>
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		<item>
		<title>Still Life (2006) Movie Review</title>
		<link>http://www.beyondhollywood.com/still-life-2006-movie-review/</link>
		<comments>http://www.beyondhollywood.com/still-life-2006-movie-review/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 02 Feb 2007 20:01:40 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>James Mudge</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Asian Movie Reviews]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Chinese Movie Reviews]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Mainland China Movie Reviews]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Reviews]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.beyondhollywood.com/?p=1506</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[&#8220;Still Life&#8221;, the latest film from Sixth Generation Chinese director Jia Zhangke, caused a stir in 2006 as a last minute entry to the Venice International Film Festival, and surprised many critics by winning the coveted Golden Lion award. In hindsight, it&#8217;s perhaps not too difficult to see why the film might have appealed so much to the jury, who in recent years have been bombarded with shoddy big budget Chinese period epics like &#8220;The Promise&#8221; and &#8220;The Banquet&#8221;. In comparison, Jia&#8217;s film is an unashamedly art-house affair, complete with beautiful cinematography, a cast made up largely of non-professionals, a topical contemporary subject, and a meandering, obscure plot which though determinedly grounded in everyday life has a few touches of jaw-dropping weirdness thrown in for good measure. Of course, such things are very much par for the course with the director, though &#8220;Still Life&#8221; is probably his most accessible outing to date, mainly due to the fact that it actually [...]]]></description>
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		<item>
		<title>Peacock (2005) Movie Review</title>
		<link>http://www.beyondhollywood.com/peacock-2005-movie-review/</link>
		<comments>http://www.beyondhollywood.com/peacock-2005-movie-review/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Sat, 20 Jan 2007 00:03:57 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>James Mudge</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Asian Movie Reviews]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Chinese Movie Reviews]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Mainland China Movie Reviews]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Reviews]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.beyondhollywood.com/?p=1488</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Although the likes of &#8220;Curse of the Golden Flower&#8221; and other glamorous, big budget costume epics have grabbed headlines with their preening and posturing, arguably one of the most significant films to come from China in recent years has in fact been &#8220;Peacock&#8221;, a quiet, low budget character driven drama which managed a massive 30 million receipts at the domestic box office. Unlike many other Chinese cinematic exports, &#8220;Peacock&#8221; also enjoyed considerable success with critics around the world, winning the Silver Bear prize at the 55th Berlin International Film Festival. The film marks the directorial debut of Gu Changwei, who previously served as cinematographer on a number of notable features, including Zhang Yimou&#8217;s &#8220;Red Sorghum&#8221; and Chen Kaige&#8217;s &#8220;Farewell my Concubine&#8221;.  
Set in 1970s China, the film focuses on a set of three siblings, made up of a mentally retarded and obese elder brother, his idealistic sister, and younger brother, a shy, bullied boy who longs to leave his [...]]]></description>
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		<title>Letter from an Unknown Woman (2004) Movie Review</title>
		<link>http://www.beyondhollywood.com/letter-from-an-unknown-woman-2004-movie-review/</link>
		<comments>http://www.beyondhollywood.com/letter-from-an-unknown-woman-2004-movie-review/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 16 Jan 2007 04:54:16 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>James Mudge</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Asian Movie Reviews]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Chinese Movie Reviews]]></category>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.beyondhollywood.com/?p=1466</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[&#8220;Letter from an Unknown Woman&#8221; is mainland Chinese director/actress Xu Jinglei&#8217;s 2004 take on Austrian writer Stefan Zweig&#8217;s novella, which had already been adapted for the screen to great acclaim in 1948 by Max Ophuls. The film won Xu the Silver Seashell award for Best Director at the San Sebastian International Film Festival, adding to her growing reputation as one of China&#8217;s most interesting young filmmakers. Her profile was recently given another boost when she starred in Andrew Lau and Alan Mak&#8217;s big budget Hong Kong thriller &#8220;Confession of Pain&#8221;, a role which nicely reflects her career of balancing commercial and more artistic fare. 
&#8220;Letter from an Unknown Woman&#8221; is Xu&#8217;s latest directorial effort following her 2002 debut &#8220;My Father and I&#8221;, and sees her relocating Zweig&#8217;s story from Vienna to Beijing in the 1930s. The film begins with a man opening a letter from a dying woman confessing her long unrequited love for him. The woman&#8217;s sad life then [...]]]></description>
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		<slash:comments>3</slash:comments>
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		<item>
		<title>Curse of the Golden Flower (2006) Movie Review</title>
		<link>http://www.beyondhollywood.com/curse-of-the-golden-flower-2006-movie-review/</link>
		<comments>http://www.beyondhollywood.com/curse-of-the-golden-flower-2006-movie-review/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 01 Jan 2007 21:56:12 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>James Mudge</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Asian Movie News]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Asian Movie Reviews]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Chinese Movie Reviews]]></category>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.beyondhollywood.com/?p=1375</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[The first word which springs to mind when considering Zhang Yimou&#8217;s latest effort, &#8220;Curse of the Golden Flower&#8221;, is &#8216;breasts&#8217;. Crude though this may seem for an Oscar-primed film from one of China&#8217;s foremost directors, it&#8217;s simply impossible to ignore the fact that the film&#8217;s entire female cast spend most of the running time seemingly about to burst out of the impossibly tight bodices into which they have been barely squeezed, especially lead actress Gong Li. This obvious move on Zhang&#8217;s part to sex-up the traditional Chinese period costume drama has not gone unnoticed in his homeland, with his brazen favouring of heaving bosoms over historical accuracy causing no end of controversy and drumming up a nice line of free publicity via countless talk shows. 
Thankfully, this eye-popping spectacle aside, &#8220;Curse of the Golden Flower&#8221; is an excellent film, and one which goes a long way to banish the memory of the many awful recent big budget Chinese epics blatantly [...]]]></description>
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		<item>
		<title>The Banquet (2006) Movie Review</title>
		<link>http://www.beyondhollywood.com/the-banquet-2006-movie-review-2/</link>
		<comments>http://www.beyondhollywood.com/the-banquet-2006-movie-review-2/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 15 Nov 2006 00:16:44 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>James Mudge</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Asian Movie Reviews]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Chinese Movie Reviews]]></category>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.beyondhollywood.com/?p=1164</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[It&#8217;s hard not to look upon Mainland Chinese director Feng Xiaogang&#8217;s latest film &#8220;The Banquet&#8221; without a certain cynicism, since it in every way seems to be yet another would-be big budget martial arts epic made with the international market in mind. It&#8217;s the kind of film Chinese film makers still seem to believe Western audiences are desperate for, despite Chen Kaige&#8217;s God-awful &#8220;The Promise&#8221; having ruined the appetites whetted back in 2000 with Ang Lee&#8217;s &#8220;Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon&#8221;. Matters are not helped by the fact that Feng has said as much in interviews, clearly indicating that &#8220;The Banquet&#8221; is his attempt to try his hand at the rather vacuous genre, and confirming suspicions that lead actress Zhang Ziyi was cast solely on the basis of her marketability in Western markets. 
Aside from any considerations of &#8220;The Banquet&#8221; itself, this is a real shame, with Feng having been one of the strongest voices in modern Chinese cinema, whose witty [...]]]></description>
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		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
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		<item>
		<title>Cell Phone (2003) Movie Review</title>
		<link>http://www.beyondhollywood.com/cell-phone-2003-movie-review/</link>
		<comments>http://www.beyondhollywood.com/cell-phone-2003-movie-review/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 03 Nov 2006 20:57:46 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>James Mudge</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Asian Movie Reviews]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Chinese Movie Reviews]]></category>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.beyondhollywood.com/?p=947</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[With his big budget opus &#8220;The Banquet&#8221; having emerged as one of the most talked about films of 2006, it&#8217;s good to see Mainland Chinese director Feng Xiaogang&#8217;s earlier &#8220;Cell Phone&#8221; finally getting a DVD release with English subtitles. Although perhaps not so well known outside of China, the film was certainly a big hit domestically, triumphing at the box office and winning the Best Motion Picture prize at the prestigious Chinese Hundred Flowers Awards, along with several acting accolades for its cast, which includes the director&#8217;s regular collaborator Ge You (also in &#8220;The Banquet&#8221;).
The plot of &#8220;Cell Phone&#8221; follows Yan Shouyi (Ge You), a popular television chat show host who is carrying on a series of extramarital affairs. Unfortunately for the cad, he accidentally leaves his cell phone at home one day, and when his mistress calls, his wife answers. This sets in motion a series of increasingly tricky situations that threaten his carefully woven web of lies, sending [...]]]></description>
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		<title>Crazy Stone (2006) Movie Review</title>
		<link>http://www.beyondhollywood.com/crazy-stone-2006-movie-review/</link>
		<comments>http://www.beyondhollywood.com/crazy-stone-2006-movie-review/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 25 Oct 2006 00:30:32 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>James Mudge</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Asian Movie Reviews]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Chinese Movie Reviews]]></category>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.beyondhollywood.com/?p=738</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[&#8220;Crazy Stone&#8221; is the latest offering from Hong Kong megastar Andy Lau&#8217;s &#8220;FOCUS: First Cuts&#8221;, a scheme designed to help young Asian film makers. The film has been a genuine sensation at the Chinese box office, raking in more than 17 million RMB (over US$2 million), an incredible figure for such a low budget production. The film marks the arrival proper of 28-year old Chinese director Ning Hao, whose two previous works &#8220;Incense&#8221; and &#8220;Mongolian Pingpong&#8221; both played at several international film festivals, with the former winning the Grand Prize at Tokyo Filmex in 2003. Here, Ning turns his hand to criminal farce to great effect, weaving a tangled web of blundering theft and misunderstandings. 
The film begins with the discovery of a priceless jade stone at a dilapidated factory which is on the verge of being demolished by a greedy property developer. Seeing the stone as a means of making enough money to keep the wolves at bay, the [...]]]></description>
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		<item>
		<title>The Banquet (2006) Movie Review</title>
		<link>http://www.beyondhollywood.com/the-banquet-2006-movie-review/</link>
		<comments>http://www.beyondhollywood.com/the-banquet-2006-movie-review/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 05 Oct 2006 02:06:12 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Nix</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Asian Movie Reviews]]></category>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.beyondhollywood.com/?p=198</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Over two hours of running time, the most extravagant costumes, eye-catching opulent sets, elaborate fight choreography, and currently the most famous Chinese actress in the world as your star. And yet, director Xiaogang Feng&#8217;s &#8220;The Banquet&#8221; still managed to dull the senses, rot the emotion, and make one pray for an ending &#8212; any ending, as long as there is an ending. Which isn&#8217;t to say &#8220;The Banquet&#8221; is a bad movie; it&#8217;s just a terribly long, uninteresting, and highly predictable affair, and most definitely undeserving of the attention and money spent to make it, and now, to market it.
It has been widely publicized that &#8220;The Banquet&#8221; is a Chinese re-imagining (at least in framework) of William Shakespeare&#8217;s &#8220;Hamlet&#8221; (with more than a little dash of &#8220;Macbeth&#8221; thrown in for good measure), and as we all know, the Bard wasn&#8217;t exactly known for writing plays that were barrels of laughs. Buoyed by tremendous production values and a lengthy (and at [...]]]></description>
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		<slash:comments>4</slash:comments>
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		<item>
		<title>How is Your Fish Today? (2006) Movie Review</title>
		<link>http://www.beyondhollywood.com/how-is-your-fish-today-2006-movie-review/</link>
		<comments>http://www.beyondhollywood.com/how-is-your-fish-today-2006-movie-review/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 31 Aug 2006 16:57:05 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Andrew Mackenzie</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Asian Movie Reviews]]></category>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.beyondhollywood.com/?p=22</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[&#8220;How Is Your Fish Today?&#8221; began life as a British-commissioned Chinese documentary about Mohe, a small village in the northernmost part of   China   , lying on the Russian border. However, when the crew reached Mohe, a supposedly mystical town where it&#8217;s light twenty hours out of the day and the aurora borealis sweeps across the sky, they discovered that it is nothing but a poor fishing village where people live just above the poverty line. Rather than abandon the film due to lack of footage, director Xiaolou Gou synergised what she had filmed with a script written by a friend about a screenwriter searching for inspiration by travelling to Mohe. The result: a film that confidently occupies the shadow land between fiction and reality.
We follow screenwriter Hui Rao (who is actually played by the film&#8217;s writer) as he starts work on a script where the protagonist is Lin Hao, a man who has just killed his [...]]]></description>
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		<title>Riding Alone for Thousands of Miles (2005) Movie Review</title>
		<link>http://www.beyondhollywood.com/riding-alone-for-thousands-of-miles-2005-movie-review/</link>
		<comments>http://www.beyondhollywood.com/riding-alone-for-thousands-of-miles-2005-movie-review/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 02 Feb 2006 05:05:56 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>James Mudge</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Asian Movie Reviews]]></category>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.beyondhollywood.com/?p=380</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[&#8220;Riding Alone for Thousands of Miles&#8221; sees Zhang Yimou returning to the kind of intimate drama with which he made his name as a director. Eschewing the flashy visuals of &#8220;Hero&#8221; and the cheap melodrama of &#8220;House of Flying Daggers&#8221;, &#8220;Miles&#8221; tells a simple, yet emotional story about the complex relationships between fathers and their sons. The result is a film with far more depth than Zhang Yimou&#8217;s recent efforts, and one which is both moving and genuine.
The plot follows Gou-ichi (Ken Takakura, who Western viewers may recognise from &#8220;Black Rain&#8221;), a fisherman who travels to Tokyo to visit his son, hospitalised with liver cancer, and with whom he has not spoken in many years. Although his son refuses to see him, Gou-ichi is shown a videotape of one of the son&#8217;s recent trips to the Yunnan province of China researching folk opera, in which he attempted, but failed to record a performance of the titular opera by Li Jiamin [...]]]></description>
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		<title>The Promise (2005) Movie Review</title>
		<link>http://www.beyondhollywood.com/the-promise-2005-movie-review/</link>
		<comments>http://www.beyondhollywood.com/the-promise-2005-movie-review/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 04 Jan 2006 23:48:47 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Nix</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Asian Movie News]]></category>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.beyondhollywood.com/?p=434</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Chen Kaige&#8217;s &#8220;The Promise&#8221; arrives in a year crowded with Asian big-budget martial arts epics, counting among the competition Jackie Chan&#8217;s &#8220;The Myth&#8221;, Tsui Hark&#8217;s &#8220;Seven Swords&#8221;, and Myung-se Lee&#8217;s &#8220;The Duelist&#8221;, with 2006 promising even more titles from the genre. All four films have opened with mixed results, their pedigree as an Asian film trying mightily to replicate the  Hollywood  formula earning them equal amounts curiosity and scorn. To be sure, the qualities of the films have varied greatly, with critics and audiences alike failing to come to a meeting of the minds whether they&#8217;re good, bad, or somewhere in-between. Of the four, Chan&#8217;s &#8220;The Myth&#8221; might be the only film to have garnered anything approaching agreement on the part of fans and critics, if only because it&#8217;s the most innocuous of the bunch.
The setting of &#8220;The Promise&#8221; is a little different than its fellow Asian epics, in that Kaige has decided to create his own world [...]]]></description>
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		<title>A Time to Love (2004) Movie Review</title>
		<link>http://www.beyondhollywood.com/a-time-to-love-2004-movie-review/</link>
		<comments>http://www.beyondhollywood.com/a-time-to-love-2004-movie-review/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 10 Oct 2005 08:53:41 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Guest Movie Reviewer</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Asian Movie News]]></category>
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		<description><![CDATA[(Guest Movie Review by Alex Lui) It was inevitable that the classic love story Romeo and Juliet would get updated yet again, as if having to endure Baz Luhrmann&#8217;s dizzying interpretation in his 1996 film starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Claire Danes wasn&#8217;t bad enough. Though the story has been tweaked a bit this time around, mostly with Chinese cultural traditions added in, &#8220;A Time to Love&#8221; still incorporates many of the stock elements from Shakespeare&#8217;s play. It&#8217;s very clear that writers Wu Si and Renjie Zhang are not going for originality here, but are in fact aiming to give the audience two likeable characters worth rooting for. And fortunately for them, this is an aspect of the film that works. 
&#8220;A Time to Love&#8221; revolves around two childhood friends who grow up in the same apartment complex, and who as adults fall in love. Qu Ran (Vicki Zhao, the sexy assassin in &#8220;So Close&#8221;) is the prettiest girl in the [...]]]></description>
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		<title>A West Lake Moment (2004) Movie Review</title>
		<link>http://www.beyondhollywood.com/a-west-lake-moment-2004-movie-review/</link>
		<comments>http://www.beyondhollywood.com/a-west-lake-moment-2004-movie-review/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 31 Aug 2005 08:49:33 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>James Mudge</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Asian Movie Reviews]]></category>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.beyondhollywood.com/a-west-lake-moment-2004-movie-review/</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[&#8220;AWest Lake Moment&#8221; is the latest film from Hong Kong director Yim Ho, best known for complex emotional dramas such as &#8220;The Kitchen&#8221; and &#8220;Homecoming&#8221;. Here, the director turns his hand to contemporary romance, with an attempt to explore modern relationships in a manner that is whimsical, yet shot through with a bitter sense of realism.
Unfortunately, the only bitterness is likely to be on the part of the viewer, as &#8220;A West Lake Moment&#8221; is a monumental failure, a grating and annoying false dose of saccharine without any genuine feeling or worthwhile comments on the nature of intimacy. Sunk by a terrible script, sickening self-indulgence, and unbelievable characters that exist solely for the purpose of spouting mock-poetic bile, &#8220;A West Lake Moment&#8221; truly is a film without any redeeming qualities, and one which counts as a romantic comedy only in that it represents a previously talented director blindly in love with his own work. Sadly, the results are laughable.
The film [...]]]></description>
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		<title>A World Without Thieves (2004) Movie Review</title>
		<link>http://www.beyondhollywood.com/a-world-without-thieves-2004-movie-review/</link>
		<comments>http://www.beyondhollywood.com/a-world-without-thieves-2004-movie-review/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 04 Jan 2005 08:47:25 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>James Mudge</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Asian Movie Reviews]]></category>
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		<description><![CDATA[&#8220;A World Without Thieves&#8221;, the latest from acclaimed Mainland Chinese director Feng Xiaogang, follows the criminal life of Bo (Andy Lau) and Li (Rene Liu), wandering husband and wife grifters, con artists, and whatever else takes their fancy. They&#8217;ve been in the game for years, when suddenly Li announces that she&#8217;s had enough. Not only does she want out of &#8220;the life&#8221;, but if Bo won&#8217;t come along, she&#8217;s ready to call it quits with him as well. With both planning to head off in the same direction after splitting up, they run into the naÃ¯ve Fu Gen at a train station, where their lives take an interesting turn. 
Fu Gen, the catharsis for change in Bo and Li&#8217;s life, is a simple peasant on his way home to present his family with the money he&#8217;s saved up from working on a construction job in the city. He doesn&#8217;t want to send the cash via money transfer, because the idea [...]]]></description>
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		<title>Purple Butterfly (2003) Movie Review</title>
		<link>http://www.beyondhollywood.com/purple-butterfly-2003-movie-review/</link>
		<comments>http://www.beyondhollywood.com/purple-butterfly-2003-movie-review/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 23 Dec 2004 23:15:07 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Nix</dc:creator>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.beyondhollywood.com/?p=423</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[&#8220;Purple Butterfly&#8221; is a movie with the makings of a great film, but is unfortunately marred by a couple of silly decisions that should have been avoided. There is little doubt that Ye Lou (&#8220;Suzhou River&#8221;) is a talented filmmaker, but there is such a thing as making a film more complicated than it needs to be, a concept Lou seems unable, or unwilling, to accept. As such, the narrative structure of &#8220;Purple Butterfly&#8221; progresses in a linear fashion until, out of the blue, Lou pulls some questionable editing gimmicks, thereby polluting the timeline unnecessarily. Why did he do it? I suppose only the director can answer that, and he&#8217;s keeping mum. 
&#8220;Purple Butterfly&#8221; stars Zhang Ziyi (most recently seen in Zhang Yimou&#8217;s &#8220;The House of Flying Daggers&#8221;) as Cynthia (Xin Xia), a member of Purple Butterfly, an underground resistance group fighting the growing Japanese influence over China in 1930s Shanghai. Purple Butterfly is led by the strong but quiet [...]]]></description>
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