chinese cinema Tagged Articles at Cinematical
When Remakes Look Awesome: Zhang Yimou's "Blood Simple" Redo Has a Trailer, Rap Song
Filed under: Comedy », Foreign Language », Sony Classics », Remakes and Sequels », Trailers and Clips »
The term remake has predominantly negative connotations, but once in awhile we see proof that a redo can be a good thing. Just look at Werner Herzog's new film, Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans, which isn't quite a remake of Abel Ferrara's Bad Lieutenant so much as it's a stand-alone sequel or simply another filmmaker's take on the same sort of character explored in the original. It's enough to make me wish we could have seen what Spielberg and Will Smith's version of Oldboy would have looked like.
And here's another perfect example of a good remake: Zhang Yimou's version of the Coen Brothers' neo-noir cult classic Blood Simple, which Peter excitedly wrote about back in July. The film now has a title, The First Gun (aka Amazing Tales: Three Guns), and an international trailer, which shows us just how different Zhang's version is. The Chinese filmmaker, acclaimed for numerous Oscar-nominated films, whether recognized in the foreign, cinematography or costume categories, recently confirmed that he added a lot of things and changed the whole tone from the Coens' version.
"We brought in a lot of comedic elements and changed the relationship and personalities of the characters," Zhang told Chinese website Sina.com.
Chinese Filmmaker Gets Five-Year Ban
Filed under: Drama », Foreign Language », Cannes », Politics », Cinematical Indie »
Chinese filmmaker Lou Ye did a bad, bad thing. He showed his movie Summer Palace at Cannes earlier this year, and he did so without permission from the Chinese government. Now the director is not permitted to make another film in his home country for five years. Sure, for some filmmakers (like Terrence Malick and the late Stanley Kubrick, were he alive), this wouldn't be that horrible a punishment, except that the whole consequence part includes the government's confiscation of the film and seizing of any income it has generated. Lou Ye has already been the victim of a filmmaking ban; he made Suzhou River without the authorization to do so in 2000 and then couldn't make another film for two years. The producer of Summer Palace, An Nai, has also been put on a five-year suspension.Summer Palace is a sexually explicit film set in 1989 amidst that year's pro-democracy demonstrations, which ended with the infamous Tiananmen Square massacre. And, according to Lou, it is somewhat autobiographical. Now, while you may be happy to not be living in a communist country, like Lou Ye, surely there are some directors out there that you wish could be given such a ban. My pick: Shawn Levy.
[via Fark.com]
SIFF Review: Shanghai Dreams
Filed under: Foreign Language », Independent », Cannes », Theatrical Reviews », Seattle », Cinematical Indie »
Shanghai Dreams, directed by "Emerging Master" Wang Xiaoshuai, centers on 19-year-old Qinghong (Gao Yuan-yuan), who lives in the rural province of Ghizhou with her parents and younger brother. Qinghong's parents came to this poor region at the behest of the Communist Chinese government, which encouraged workers to leave the cities in order to settle in, and build up, the poorer regions. They were promised a better life, and instead have had a decade or more of poverty, factory work, and dismal rural living conditions. Qinghong's father, who was initially optimistic and happy to serve China by making the move, has in the ensuing decade grown angry and bitter, blaming his wife for talking him into leaving Shanghai. Qinghong's parents, and the other adults who came to this remote village with them, still think of themselves as being "from Shanghai", to differentiate themselves socially from the locals. The parents dream longingly of the day they will return to Shaghai, while their children have grown up in this place and consider themselves locals, thus adding an interesting layer of conflict to the t ypical teenager-parentual unit head-butting present in almost any film that has an adolescent character.
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