A thought provoking and beautiful movie, the second movie from Lu Chuan (The Missing Gun) is a real winner – and finally getting the release it deserves…

It’s rather reaffirming that, despite pressures to the contrary, Chinese filmmakers have made and continue to make, thoughtful and often controversial films that are still entertaining. Film like Blind Shaft and the works of Zhang Yimou and Chen Kaige have helped make them unpopular in their own country. Sadly it’s not just those directors who have moved away from touchy subjects towards more mainstream wuxia/swordplay subjects, film companies have rarely released let alone promoted such films, meaning nearly all of Yimou’s and Kaige’s back catalogue remains unavailable in the United Kingdom on DVD, even the Oscar nominated Raise The Red Lantern and Farewell My Concubine.

Lu Chuan’s Kekexili: Mountain Patrol was another movie that fell through the cracks. Thankfully Axiom Films (who are rapidly becoming one of the great advocates of superior foreign movies) have picked it up for a full theatrical release.

Based on a true story, Ga Yu (Zhang Lei), a journalist from Beijing is assigned to follow a mountain patrol in the Quinghu province of China, in the unforgiving environment of the Tibetan plateau, after local poachers have killed a member of the patrol.

Set up to protect the Tibetan Antelope and run by volunteers, their leader Ri Tai (Duo bujie) is determined to bring the poachers to justice, even though they have no funding for fuel or supplies. Worse still, at these high altitudes the territory itself is just as treacherous as the poachers. The harsh conditions make it impossible for Ga Yu to remain an impartial observer as he begins to become friends with members of the patrol.

Plucked almost entirely from local people rather than trained actors, there’s a fresh, naturalistic approach to the drama. There are no happy endings here – in fact director Lu Chuan changed his original ending – but a truth about their situation. Chuan spent a reasonable amount of time with the natives of the area, even interviewing ex-mountain patrol members and ex-poachers. (The old fur skinner was once a poacher, his character didn’t exist in the movie until one of Lu’s staff discovered him in a casting session.) The result is a faithful portrayal of their lives, religion and culture. And, of course, the respect they have to pay to the harsh Tibetan landscape.

It dominates their existence simply because of its harshness. Lu pays reverence to it too, capturing some of its immenseness on film. Beautiful and dangerous, it touches and affects everything, becoming as much a character as the patrol members themselves. During the film, Chuan even shows the local tradition of ‘buring’ the dead at the top of mountains, their bodies left for vultures and birds of prey.

The environment inspires some of the films most memorable moments, such as when a patrol member chases one of the poachers. The extreme altitude quickly slows them down, as they end up collapsing on each other exhausted. And then there’s the quicksand!

Perhaps most interesting is the moral position the patrol finds themselves in. Out of money, fuel and supplies, they are left with no choice but to sell the very furs they are meant to be protecting just to go on. But Lu’s intelligent film does not pass any judgement on them.

Kekexili is a thought provoking, beautiful film, well deserving of this wider theatrical release. You’d be a fool to miss it…

Beautifully crafted, superbly told – surely this is one film that should always be in those ‘Top 100′ movie lists? If only people knew about it…

The King Of Masks is just one of those movies. Beautifully shot, heartrending without being sentimental, it manages to encapsulate real meaning without the necessity to club you around the head with the message – like many Chinese movies, and so unlike Hollywood films. This is simply one of the greatest films ever – so why have so few people heard of it? And why hasn’t it even been released on DVD in the UK?

Buy OnlineSet in the 1930s, the story centres around an aging mask maker and showman, Bianlian Wang (Zhu Xu). With no son to pass on his tradition of mask making and showmanship, he heads to the black market to purchase a male successor to his art. Bianlian is rather pleased with his acquisition ‘Doggie’, and their relationship blossoms – until he discovers that it’s actually a girl, Gou Wa (Zhou Renying).

Missing the love and respect that he showed her when he thought she was a boy, something she had never been shown in her life, she rescues a young baby from some unscrupulous kidnappers and presents him to Bianlian. Soon the real parents are reunited with their son, but the King Of Masks stands accused of being a kidnapper and black marketer. Can Gou prove his innocence before he faces the gallows?

Well, you probably can guess how it ends, but it’s impossible not to get swept up with what is in every way a beautifully crafted and well-acted movie. What really makes The King of Masks so special is how it subtlety works on so many levels, managing to look at how women were (and are) treated in Chinese society whilst always being an entertaining story.

It neatly draws out the hypocrisy where female religious icons are prayed to, and a star of Peking Opera is adored for his ability to mimic women, yet women themselves are not considered capable of taking on family traditions and crafts? Through a child’s eyes, and anyone with half a brain, of course, this doesn’t make sense.

This pertinent movie also has echoes in the present, and a post-Revolution China that, despite the supposed freedoms offered to women during that time, never gave them an equal status. The horrors of the black market in children are, needless to say, nothing compared with those created by China’s one child policy.

It’s an approach echoed by Zhang Yimou in some of his finest (and more political) work, such as films like Not One Less, and many other Chinese filmmakers. A softly softly approach that becomes so much more powerful for not stressing the films message overtly.

The performances of both the adult and particularly the child actors are superb; their naturalistic rather than overplayed approach keeps the film from becoming maudlin, despite what could have been a sentimental story.

Wu Tian-Ming’s direction nicely frames the story, like Yimou (and more recently Ang Lee), skilfully composed without being showy. The production designs for the period seem authentic and lush, yet reflect the very real grime of poverty.

In fact, it’s really difficult to actually ‘criticise’ this movie. It’s far and away one of the finest films of the last decade – a real classic! So track down a DVD and discover it for yourself…

Nominated for an Oscar, Jet Li stars in director Zhang Yimou’s (Raise The Red Lantern, Not One Less) first foray into the swordplay genre, and it’s one of the most beautiful and offbeat yet…

Such a luscious production was always going to garner comparisons to Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon, but the director of Raise The Red Lantern, The Road Home and Not One Less first wuxia/swordplay movie is far from Ang Lee’s beautiful but old fashioned vision. Nor is it simply an attempt to update the genre using state of the art computer graphics like those in The Matrix. Zhang Yimou, together with cinematographer Christopher Doyle – most recently acclaimed for his work on Rabbit Proof Fence – has weaved a breath taking tapestry. A deeply personal vision more concerned with creating a surreal and gentle world than state of the art action.

Set against the real history of the King of Qin – who ruthlessly united the seven kingdoms of China and became its first Emperor, leaving the Great Wall and the Terracota Warriors behind as mementos – Hero tells of a warrior known only as Nameless, played by Jet Li, who claims to have rid the King of his most dangerous opponents, three assassins called Sky, Broken Sword and Flying Snow. Granted an audience with the King (Chen Daoming), Nameless recounts how he defeated them. Challenging Sky whilst a blind lute player performs, most of the battle is fought in their minds, such are their abilities. Till Nameless finds a weakness and beats him with sheer speed.

Finding the lovers Broken Sword (Tony Leung Chiu-wai) and Flying Snow (Maggie Cheung) at a calligraphy school Nameless pretends to be interested in seeing the word ’sword’ written in a way it never has been before. Meanwhile he and Flying Snow protect the school from an aerial attack from the Kings own archers, as thousands upon thousands of arrows rain down. With knowledge of Flying Snow’s past affair with Sky, nameless takes advantage of the rift news of his death brings between Snow and Sword to defeat them.

As his tale draws to a close the King reveals his doubts, telling his own quite different version of the events using his memory of Broken Sword and Flying Snow from their attempt on his life. But what is the truth…?

If the story sounds familiar it should, Yimou’s former assistant director and rival, Chen Kaige (Farewell, My Concubine) previously filmed the material as the epic The Emperor and the Assassin in 1999. Reminiscent of Akira Kurosawa’s Rashomon, Zhang Yimou tale eschews Kaige’s more grounded take of power corrupting the best of intentions, instead leaving reality far behind. There’s an inventive use of colour to signify each version, permeating not just the characters clothes, but also their surroundings. Red for the passionate version, blue for the romantic, green for memory and white for truth.

Cinematographer Christopher Doyle – whose previous work includes Chungking Express, Ashes Of Time and In The Mood For Love with Wong Kar-wai, Temptress Moon with Chen Kaige, and Rabbit Proof Fence and The Quiet American with Phillip Noyce – beautifully photographs some of China’s (and Mongolia’s) most outstanding scenery, seamless mixing computer generated images. The result is stunning. A dual in a swirling mass of golden leaves filmed in a forest in Inner Mongolia, red clad warriors leaping far above the trees. The leaves turn to red as it ends fatally. Another dual, filmed in the National Reserve in Jiuzhaigou, China, has its combatants high above a lake, barely skimming the water with their blades to propel them upwards. Each scene is considered and wonderfully composed.

Such feats are greatly aided by the presence of longtime action choreographer and director in his own right, Ching Siu-tung (A Chinese Ghost Story, Heroic Trio, Duel to the Death). His creative flair better suited to making the inconceivable happen. On their previous collaboration some 13 years earlier Siu-tung directed Yimou. Appropriately enough it was on another fantasy film that used the Qin Dynasty as a background called A Terracotta Warrior. There’s also support from another Hong Kong action stalwart Tung Wai, choreographing the martial arts. The soundtrack comes from Tan Dun, best remembered for his work on Crouching Tiger, this time featuring solos by European violinist Itzhak Perlman.

Proclaimed to be a HK$240 million epic, it is in the true sense of the word with scenes of thousands of extras (whether computer generated or not) filling the screen. Keep in mind, though, that equates to 24 million pounds – hardly enough to tie the shoelaces of Hollywood’s biggest stars. Sometimes the film feels a little hollow. Strong performances from the cast make up for its simplicity, despite having relatively little to work with. This was not a comment that could have been directed at Kaige’s version of the tale. Of the cast only Zhang Ziyi falls foul (once again) of a decent role. One can only imagine she was repaying Yimou for her breakthrough lead in The Road Home.

Strangely for such a political director, Hero ultimately takes on an almost nationalistic tone. The hero of the title deciding that the King should live so his dream of ‘all under heaven’ – a united and powerful China, be fulfilled. In modern China, still so aware of it’s ethnic diversity, and with Communism crumbling, or at least what stood for it, the message seems a little lost. Or maybe that’s the point?

Rumours abound of a longer version by some 15 minutes that was to be Yimou’s original cut – though, since the film doesn’t feel edited (unlike, say, Gangs of New York), it’s difficult to see just what could be extended.

Hero deserved the Oscar nomination for best foreign film, though most of Zhang Yimou’s previous films are even more worthy. Like every one of his movies, uncontent to replay what has gone before it takes the genre further. A brilliant, very beautiful, if not quite perfect film that warrants as wide an audience as Crouching Tiger got…. whenever it finally gets released in the west.

A beautiful tale of romance and bitter betrayal, Zhang Yimou’s follow-up to Hero is even better…

It came as quite a surprise when Zhang Yimou announced he was to work on a Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon styled wuxia movie. Always considered such a radical director much of his work, like Raise the Red lantern, Story of Qui and Not One Less, are such intelligent and (more dangerously) watchable commentaries on failing Chinese communism, for him to make such a crowd pleaser seemed unthinkable. Yet nearly all of his movies are so different in both style and approach that the only common link they share is the casting of Gong Li (a role more recently often filled by Zhang Ziyi).

The result, Hero, was an accomplished film that took the themes of swordplay to another level, with it’s beautiful cinematography and amazing special effects sequences superior to Matrix sequels, yet without looking overly CGI driven. A box office smash in China and Oscar nominated, which repeated its success in the United States and the UK when (finally) released. When he revealed that his next film, House of Flying Daggers, would be another swordplay adventure many critics declared he had lost his edge. But even if that were true one things for certain – it’s even better than Hero…

Set against the decline of the Tang Dynasty, two royal soldiers – Leo (Andy Lau) and Jin (Takeshi Kaneshiro) – have been detailed to find and capture the leader of the notorious rebel group, the House of Flying Daggers. Convinced that Mei (Zhang Ziyi), a blind girl in a local house of pleasure, is the leaders’ daughter, they concoct a sting together they hope will lead them to the Flying Daggers hideout. Jin pretends to rescue Mei in order that he might gain her confidence and they escape together. Yet despite his cohort’s warnings he begins to fall for her in reality, but in this masquerade can anyone be taken at face value…?

A self-confessed homage to old swordplay movies with references to movies like those of King Hu and Zhang Che, Yimou again collaborated on the script with Hero co-writers Feng Li and Bin Wang. The spectacular showdown between the escaping Mei, Jin and royal soldiers in the bamboo forest, for instance, is all too evocative of the most famous scene in Hu’s Touch of Zen. The story combines long-established themes with post-Internal Affairs savvy. True, there might have been plenty of tales about deceptions of identity, loyalty and even truthfulness in love before in Chinese literature, but no romance has ever been this tangled.

Yimou’s powers of storytelling are as strong as ever. Unlike Hero the narrative is less rushed and more encompassing, though the story is still simpler than those of King Hu. This time there are plenty of show-stopping scenes, but none that damage the flow of the film. Though plenty of CGI is used in the film – certainly much more than you’d think – the reality is never broken. And with action choreographer Ching Siu-tung once again helping out, the fight scenes are glorious. (That doesn’t stop the final combat from being as visceral and vicious as it needs to be.)

The film is a beautiful as Hero, if less gimmicky, with immaculate costumes and sets well framed by cinematographer Zhao Xaoding. Strangely one of the most arresting sequences, like last years Zatoichi, is the dance performed by Zhang Ziyi. Her performance is flawless in a role that will no doubt cement her position as the worlds top female Asian actress. Andy Lau is, once again, superb, and Takeshi Kaneshiro every bit as dashing as role implies.

Simply put, this film is perfect on every level, with something for everyone, romantics and martial arts fans alike. A mesmerising experience you must see…

The House of Flying Daggers was cut for UK release by the BBFC for what it describes as “three instances of real animal cruelty (horses made to fall using techniques likely to result in serious injury)”. But was that true? Similar scenes have appeared in many American films over the years (including Lord of the Rings) without the censors feeling edits were neccessary. Or perhaps it’s more of an old colonial, rather patronising attitude, that they wouldn’t worry about animal safety in Asia?