(1994)

In The Heat Of The Sun, a story about several adolescent men during the Chinese Cultural Revolution in 70s, is one of Two Chinese films that impress me so much. It portrays a positive, vigorous picture of being young and wild, reckless and free, as animals preying for, say, girls, attention, fun, fights and maybe a chance to be heroes. Adapted from Wang Shuo’s novel, Wild Beast, the actor-director Jiang Wen tells a mellow, dream-like story of how Monkey and his friends (as shown on the poster) get through those boring but yet crazy summers. I don’t really mind if it’s authentic or believable. The point is, as a youth while getting to watch it for the first time, I felt like I was part of them. We can never redo our past, no matter how sweet or bitter it is. It’s become part of us. We are who we were, aren’t we?

Regissören Jiang Wen, och skådespelarna Cow Yun-Fat och Ge You avslöjade en del om den kommande actionkomedin “Let the Bullets Fly” i en presskonferens nyligen i Peking.

“Jag spelar en skojare som blir bortrövad av en bandit som spelas av Jiang Wen” sade Ge You.

“Jag är stadens gangsterledare. Man kan till och med köpa en kanon av mig” replikerade Chow Yun-Fat.

Jiang Wen var förtegen om handlingen och avslöjade inte mycket trots många ivriga frågor av journalisterna. Vad det är för film verkar de vara osams om. You Ge berättade att Jiang Wen hade instruerat honom att spela en allvarlig roll, och därför kan han inte se någon humor i den. Chow Yun-Fat däremot sade att kampscenerna är humoristiska.

Hur det än blir så får du vänta till sena 2010 för att få veta svaret. Jiang Wen är en av Fastlandskinas mest begåvade skådespelare och har på senare år visat sig vara en riktigt duktig regissör. Så om allt går bra kan det här bli riktigt underhållande film.

Källa CRI

FilmMedia Filmblogg

New York, I Love You (2008)
★★ / ★★★★

I’ve been waiting for this movie to be released in theaters for more than a year so I was really excited to see it when it finally was. Unfortunately, out of the ten segments (presented in order of appearances on screen–directed by Jiang Wen, Mira Nair, Shunji Iwai, Yvan Attal, Brett Ratner, Allen Hughes, Shekhar Kapur, Natalie Portman, Fatih Akin and Joshua Marston) only about five worked for me–the second (starring Natalie Portman and Irrfan Khan), the third (Orlando Bloom and Christina Ricci), the fourth (Ethan Hawke and Maggie Q), the fifth (Anton Yelchin, Olivia Thirlby, James Caan and Blake Lively), and the tenth (Eli Wallach and Cloris Leachman).

I really wanted to love this movie as much as “Paris, je t’aime.” What made the first one so great is the fact that even though we encounter so many different genres and tones throughout the picture, it felt cohesive because we truly get a sense of who the characters were in under five to seven minutes. In “New York, I Love You,” it all feels a little bit too commercial. I felt as though it wanted to impress all kinds of people so much to the point where it held back emotionally and avoided taking risks. I’m also astounded by the fact that there were no homosexual storylines, barely any segments consisting of African-American or Latino characters, and most of clips consisted of a person falling in love or lust with another person. There are many dimensions of love (love for the city, love for a pet, love for oneself…) but it didn’t quite think outside the box. Those missing qualities are crucial to me because New York is supposed to be a melting pot of ethnicities, sexualities and mindsets yet we got to see the same kinds of people time and again. With “Paris, je t’aime,” we get diversity and in more than half of them, there was not a happy ending, which I thought was closer to real life than the stories presented in this film.

The five segments that I thought were standouts had a certain passion in every single one of them, whether it’s about a woman who doesn’t quite feel comfortable about getting married; an artist struggling to read one of Fyodor Dostoyevsky’s books and whose curiosity of a woman he’s only met through the phone bothered him to the core; a man who thinks one way about a woman turning out to be someone completely different than we all expected; a teenager who goes to prom with a blind date unknowing of the fact that his date is unlike anyone he expected; and a couple celebrating their marriage that lasted for more than sixty years. Those are the kinds of stories I want to tune into and dissect because hidden layers are embedded in them. What I don’t want to see is someone supposedly falling in love unless he or she has something truly significant or different to contribute. The other five segments that I didn’t quite like should have been taken out and replaced by stories from other genres such as horror or science fiction, or they could have had a different mood or perception such as in a black-and-white reality or featuring a person so wasted in drugs–a way in which we could see the world through their eyes. That would have made more sense to me because we are essentially a drug culture. Or it could have featured at least one fashion model or a fashionista because New York is one of the biggest fashion capitals in the world. Instead of really embracing to tackle issues mentioned previously, the movie was way too safe with those other segments.

Having said all of that, I have to admit that I’m particularly hard on this picture. Since I don’t do half-star ratings, it must be said that I consider this a solid two-and-a-half star movie. When I came out of the theater, I was certain that I was going to give it three stars out of four but after thinking about it a little bit, it made me realize how much potential it didn’t use to create a truly magnificent project. For such a fascinating place like New York City, you just can’t play everything safe and get away with it. At least not with me because I’m big on seeing diversity and reality in certain kinds of films, especially in slice-of-life cinema. I’m not saying at all to not see this in theaters. By all means, please do to support a film released only on limited release. But what I want you to take away from this review is the awareness that what’s being presented on this film is not the gritty and dirty New York but the clean, nice New York we see on a prime time television shows.

Hopefully, the next project from this film series would not be as afraid to branch out.

Chow yun-Fat

By Liz Shackleton – ScreenDaily.com

Chow yun-Fat has joined mainland Chinese actor Ge You in the cast of Jiang Wen’s action comedy Let The Bullets Fly.

The $18m film is currently in production and slated for release in autumn 2010. Hong Kong-based Emperor Motion Pictures (EMP) is co-producing with Jiang’s company, Beijing Buyilehu Film, and other partners.

Chow will play a visionary triad leader in the film, set in China during the 1920s, when the country was torn apart by feuding warlords. Jiang also stars in the film as a bandit who proclaims himself mayor of a remote provincial town.

“To us there is no one else more suitable for the role than Chow Yun-fat,” said the film’s producer Ma Ke. “He expressed his interest very early on and had reserved the second half of 2009 for the filming. It was a matter of working out the script to everyone’s satisfaction. We’re very happy that he’s finally on board.”

The script had undergone nine rewrites with 10 different endings before it was finalized on Monday.

EMP, which will start selling the film at the upcoming American Film Market (AFM), previously worked with Jiang on his 2007 Venice competition entry The Sun Also Rises

Amazon Specials!

IN THEATRES OCTOBER 16, 2009
In the city that never sleeps, love is always on the mind. Those passions come to life in NEW YORK, I LOVE YOU a collaboration of storytelling from some of todays most imaginative filmmakers and featuring an all-star cast. Together they create a kaleidoscope of the spontaneous, surprising, electrifying human connections that pump the citys heartbeat. Sexy, funny, haunting and revealing encounters unfold beneath the Manhattan skyline. From Tribeca to Central Park to Brooklyn the story weaves a tale of love as diverse as the very fabric of New York itself.

Starring in order of appearance: Bradley Cooper, Hayden Christensen, Andy Garcia,Rachel Bilson, Natalie Portman, Irrfan Khan, Emilie Ohana, Orlando Bloom, Christina Ricci,Maggie Q, Ethan Hawke, Anton Yelchin, James Caan, Olivia Thirlby, Drea De Matteo,Julie Christie, John Hurt, Shia LaBeouf, Ugur Yucel, Taylor Geare, Carlos Acosta, Shu Qi,Chris Cooper, Robin Wright Penn, Eli Wallach, Cloris Leachman

An anthology film from the producers of Paris, Je T’aime, New York, I Love You composes of 12 different love stories from some of the best directors and actors in the world. Among the many actors involved in the movie, here are a few of them — Bradley Cooper, Shia LaBeouf, Natalie Portman, Hayden Christensen,Blake Lively, Orlando Bloom, Chris Cooper, Andy Garcia, Christina Ricci, Robin Wright Penn, Julie Christie and Ethan Hawke and directed by Jiang Wen, Mira Nair, Shunji Iwai, Yvan Attal, Brett Ratner, Allen Hughes, Shekhar Kapur, Natalie Portman, Fatih Akin, Joshua Marston, and Randy Balsmeyer. This movie will open in theatres on October 16, 2009.

Filme novo na área e este promete ser uma relíquia!!! Jian Guo Da Ye e em inglês com o título de Founding Of The Nation será um drama épico que contará a história da criação da República Popular da China. E no elenco, somente gente talentosa e mundialmente conhecida como: Andy Lau, Jackie Chan, Donnie Yen, Tony Leung Ka-fai, Tony Leung Chiu-wai, Stephen Chow, John Woo, Jet Li, Jiang Wen, Zhang Ziyi, Feng Xiaogang.

Veja

Guizi lai le / Devils on the Doorstep

Devil? That looks like a very sissy stance to me

Director: Jiang Wen
Writers: Jiang Wen
Date: 2000

Genre: War / Drama
Description: War is tragedy, Japanese occupation in China, prisoners of war, ravages of war, satire, black comedy, inhumanity, doing what other people tell you

Cast: Jiang Wen, Teruyuki Kagawa, Ding Yuan, Jiang Hongbo, etc.

Crew of note: Gu Changwei, who also worked on Farewell My Concubine and Red Sorghum, is the cinematographer

Runtime: 162 mins.
Color: BW
Trivia: Jiang Wen was banned from filmmaking for 7 years by the Chinese Government because this movie wasn’t patriotic enough

summary
Dasan is asked by a mysterious man to keep two prisoners of war, a translator and a Japanese solder, played by Jiang Yihong and Kagawa Teruyuki respectively, in their town until he returns for them. The poor town, under the supervision of a Japanese base close by, is thrown into confusion regarding what to do with the prisoners: should they keep them in secret, or should they tell the Japanese?

review
It is not difficult to find a review for this film, especially since it kicked ass at Cannes. In fact, it’ll probably serve you better to look for a professional review instead of reading my uninspired attempts at convincing you to watch this. Actually, I’d known about this film for a while before I finally decided to watch it. The phrases “anti-war”, “harrowing depiction”, and “black and white” just didn’t seem to pique my interest. I was expecting bullets, dying comrades, and tons of depression.

To my surprise, the movie turned out to be very light, warm, and amusing most of the time, despite its premise. It is difficult to think of Dasan as anything but a comedic character as you watch, and the phrases mentioned above will rarely appear appropriate. But this truly is a movie that condemns war, that shows how people behave during war. The nationalities aren’t important. The setting (which could be anywhere as the town is isolated and disconnected from the rest of the world) is not important. You simply have to see what happens.

The filmmaking and acting is topnotch. The pictures are pretty. Personally, I don’t remember the music, but that doesn’t take anything away. And I should stop here, with an intentionally vague couple of paragraphs. You should watch this film without reading any spoilers, and know as little about it as possible. It will make for a better experience.

conclusion
Okay, I concede that the movie is definitely anti-Japanese, maybe excessively so despite how it tries to accurately depict the war. However, can it really be said that this film is pro-Chinese? In fact, pro anything? Unlike many war films (I won’t point in any direction), there is no hero here, and it is simply about the tragedy that is war. This is an anti-war film.

things to take note of
Color?
How hilarious Dasan is
The message, I guess
The villagers’ interactions

best moment
Whenever they’re trying to keep everything a secret, specifically the part with a chicken

why you should watch this
It will make you laugh, even when you shouldn’t
Jiang Wen
This is a great anti-war film

rating: 9.35

scorecard
Plot: B+
Cast: A
Cinematography: B+
Music: C
Entertainment: B

similar movies, maybe:
Other anti-war movies?
Biruma no tategoto / The Burmese Harp by Ichikawa Kon
Nobi / Fires on the Plain by Ichikawa Kon
Okay, those aren’t really similar to Guizi lai le except that they’re also two of the best anti-war films ever

Regia: Jiang Wen
Cast: Jiang Wen, Joan Chen, Zhuo Yun, Jaycee Chan, Anthony Wong, Kong Wei
Anno: 2007
Nazione: Cina/Hong Kong

Un film del 2007, regia di Jiang Wen, con Jiang Wen / Joan Chen / Anthony Wong Chau-Sang / Jaycee Chan. Prodotto da ()

Drammatico

Tre storie ambientate in epoche e luoghi differenti, ma in qualche modo collegate tra loro: una ambientata in un villaggio Yunnan, una in un campus universitario e un’altra nel deserto del Gobi…

Jiang Wen (姜文) is a well-known name in China but appears to be fairly unknown to the rest of the world. As an actor he has worked with some of the biggest names in Chinese cinema, including Zhang Yimou, Gong Li and Zhang Ziyi. Out of the films I have seen, I especially enjoyed Keep Cool and The Missing Gun. An accomplished actor as he is, I like him even better as a director. In thirteen years, he has only directed three films, the latest of which has not yet premiered. Despite this, it would not be flattery to call him a master director. His style is his own, he fits in neither with the famous fifth generation directors, nor with the young, hip directors of the so called sixth generation.

Chinese films set during the cultural revolution are generally what might be called “trauma dramas”, heart-breaking films made by directors with dark memories from that era, sometimes to atone for their own complicity. Jiang Wen’s 1994 directorial debut film In the Heat of the Sun (阳光灿烂的日子) stands in stark contrast – it looks back at that time with nostalgia. A semi-autobiographical coming of age story, the film follows Ma Xiaojun (a young Jiang Wen) during his teenage years in Beijing. His father is in the army, which gives Xiaojun great personal freedom. Together with his friends he skips class, watches movies, hits on girls, smokes cigarettes and gets into occasional fights. The main focus of the film is Xiaojun’s infatuation with Mi Lan, who is a few years older than himself. His insecure, trembling voice and slight desperation as is spot on and landed Xia Yu a prize for best actor at the Venice International Film Festival.

In Jiang Wen’s own words, he worships Mao Zedong. The references to the politics of the time are plentiful and this film is quite unique in depicting the cultural revolution as an adventurous and cheerful time. This does not imply that In the Heat of the Sun is a propaganda film made to please the Chinese censors, if you have seen one of those films you will notice the difference. More than anything this is a nostalgic film, longing for the careless summer days of the past.

Compare with the three big “trauma dramas”:

• Farewell My Concubine (Chen Kaige)
• The Blue Kite (Tian Zhuangzhuang)
• To Live (Zhang Yimou)

In 2000 Jiang Wen directed and acted in his second film, Devils on the Doorstep (鬼子来了). It is shot in black & white and set during the Japanese occupation of Northern China in the 1940’s. One night, a man who only calls himself “me” knocks on of Ma Dasan (played by Jiang Wen) and leaves a Japanese captive and his Chinese translator tied up and gagged. At gunpoint, he tells Dasan that they must be kept hidden from the Japanese and he will be back to collect them after the new year. Fearing both the Japanese “devils” and the unknown “me”, Dasan seeks the help of the other villagers. There is no lack of comic relief in the film, especially in a scene where they interrogate the prisoners. The solider curses the Chinese and demands to be killed, while his translator instead shouts “He begs you not to kill him!” and so on. “Me” never comes back, and as time passes the Japanese prisoner begins to feel grateful to the townspeople, who treat him well.

Devils on the Doorstep is quite different from most Chinese war-time films. The Japanese aren’t one-dimensional devils and the Chinese aren’t brave heroes. Sadly, because of a debacle with the film censors, it has never been show publicly in China. Jiang Wen competed with it at the 2000 Canne’s Film Festival and won the Grand Prix (2nd prize), but without the film first being approved by the Chinese Film Bureau. This is unacceptable to them regardless of the films content. Furthermore, they allegedly weren’t too happy about the frequent use of “turtle fucker” (王八操的), apparently unable to appreciate such fine humor. I, on the other hand, have approved the film for viewing in all regions!

In a few months Jiang Wen’s new film, The Sun Also Rises (太阳再次升起), will premiere. It spans over about fifty years of history and tells a story in four parts: mad, love, gun and dream. The main storyline appears to be that of Old Tang and his wife who get relocated to the countryside for re-education during the cultural revolution. Tang finds out that his wife is having an affair with a younger man when he overhears her telling him that “my husband says my belly is like velvet”… (Source: 醉生梦死)

Some gossip. Jiang Wen has something of a playboy reputation and actually had a son with Zhou Yun, one of the actresses, late last year. The kid has come to a good start in the film industry, as Jiang Wen added a scene with him after principal photography was finished. What “role” the baby has is unknown to me.

The film was submitted and approved by the Film Bureau well ahead of time, so as to not repeat the previous failure. It was supposed to premiere at Cannes, but surprisingly it was not selected for the competition lineup. Jiang Wen is currently doing all he can to complete the film and hopes to have it included at the last minute. Failure to enter the Cannes Film Festival will likely also delay the public premier, as it would first premiere at some later film festival, such as Venice. (Source: sina)

Un film del 2003, regia di Zhang Yuan, con Jiang Wen / Vicky Zhao / Fang Lijun / Zhang Yuan. Prodotto da (89min)

Commedia / Drammatico / Romantico

In un appuntamento al buio a Pechino, Chen Mingliang incontra Fang, studentessa apparentemente repressa, che inizialmente sembra respingerlo. L’uomo, incuriosito dalla giovane, continua però a corteggiarla, quando una notte incontra improvvisamente una pianista di piano bar che sembra identica a Fang…