Youth (2017)
★★★★☆
Feng Xiaogang’s Youth is a massive, immersive sweep of Chinese history that makes the political heart-rendingly personal.
China
Mountains May Depart (2015)
★★★★☆
Jia Zhang Ke’s Mountains May Depart is an epic vision of decades of change in China, its people and diaspora, with a compelling central character.
BFI LFF: Angels Wear White (Jia Nian Hua) (2017)
★★★☆☆
Director Vivian Qu exposes control, coercion and casual violence towards women in modern China in the surprising drama Angels Wear White.
BFI LFF: Wrath of Silence (Bao Lie Wu Sheng) (2017)
★★★★☆
Doling out as many bare-knuckle blows to its characters as it does to China’s corrupt political system, Wrath of Silence is A Touch of Sin that’s not afraid to be dramatic.
Have A Nice Day (2017)
★★★☆☆
Sleek in its industrial animation, Jian Liu’s Have A Nice Day makes up for a lack of substance with style.
Festival Review: Inside The Chinese Closet (2015)
★★★☆☆
With fake marriage markets and illegal babies, Sophia Luvara’s intimate documentary Inside The Chinese Closet reveals gay men and women shouldering their parents’ burden.
Festival Review: Crosscurrent (2015)
★★☆☆☆
An ambitious portrait of modern China, Yang Chao’s Crosscurrent is a poetic knot of yearning, mourning and the shifting sands of time.
Festival Review: A Guy From Fenyang (2014)
★★★☆☆
Uncovering the life and works of Jia Zhangke in his home city, Walter Salles’ A Guy From Fenyang reveals the metropolis behind the man.
Festival Review: Mountains May Depart (2015)
★★☆☆☆
A triptych of melancholy Chinese stories, Jia Zhangke’sMountains May Depart builds an awkward narrative of nostalgia – past, present and future.
Festival Review: Gone With The Bullets (2014)
★☆☆☆☆
A carnival of singing, dancing, car chases and bullets, Wen Jiang’s Gone With The Bullets gets lost in an amorphous hall of mirrors.
24 City (2008)
★★★☆☆
Combining documentary and fiction, Jia Zhang Ke’s 24 City looks at the rise and fall of a Chengdu aeronautics factory. It’s China’s capitalist revolution in miniature.