MC Consensus: Slow Boat to China

[dreamdead]

11. Come Drink with Me
12. Goodbye, Dragon Inn
13. A Touch of Sin
14. Fallen Angels
15. The Actress/Ruan Lingyu (Kwan)
16. What Time is it There?
17. Exiled
18. Platform
19 Boxer from Shantung
20. The Wayward Cloud

[Mysterious Dude]

11. Farewell My Concubine (1993)
12. The Horse Thief (1986)
13. In the Mood for Love (2000)
14. House of Flying Daggers (2004)
15. Center Stage (The Actress) (1991)
16. Chungking Express (1994)
17. A Simple Life (2011)
18. Little Cheung (2000)
19. Iron Monkey (1993)
20. The 36th Chamber of Shaolin (1978)

[Raiders]

11. Yi Yi (2000)
12. Raise the Red Lantern (1991)
13. Three Times (2005)
14. The Horse Thief (1986)
15. A Touch of Zen (1971)
16. Goodbye, Dragon Inn (2003)
17. Fallen Angels (1995)
18. Millennium Mambo (2000)
19. The Blade (1995)
20. Kung Fu Hustle (2004)

[Thirdmango]

1. Shaolin Soccer
2. Love on Delivery
3. Infernal Affairs
4. The God of Cookery
5. Election
6. Dragon Inn
7. Chungking Express
8. Kung Fu Hustle
9. Forbidden City Cop
10. Royal Tramp

11. House of Flying Daggers
12. In The Mood for Love
13. The Warlords
14. Raise the Red Lantern
15. Iron Monkey
16. Hero
17. Running on Karma
18. The Man from Hong Kong
19. From Beijing with Love
20. Ip Man

[Thirdmango]

10. Spring in a Small Town

It's probably not going to matter but for curiosity sake, 1948 or 2002?

[Spinal]

Whoops. I was about to post the results.

*recalculating*

[Spinal]

It's probably not going to matter but for curiosity sake, 1948 or 2002?

My understanding is that the 2002 one is called 'Springtime in a Small Town'. So unless someone says that, I am assuming it is the 1948 one.

[Spinal]

Well, the #10 got bumped. But I'm going to post it anyway since I was almost done with prepping it.

[Spinal]

#11


These last few years, I've made life miserable for you. A life of despair.


Spring in a Small Town

Director: Fei Mu

Year: 1948

A lonely housewife finds her monotonous life altered when her childhood sweetheart returns to town.

Named the greatest Chinese film ever made by the Hong Kong Film Awards Association in 2005.

Considered rightist or reactionary by the Communists, the film was largely ignored until a new print was made available by the China Film Archive in the early 1980s. After that, the film had a resurgence in popularity.

"The unadorned, pre-institutional storytelling makes for a far more compelling viewing than Tian Zhuangzhuang’s 2002 glossy remake. The latter has nuance, but authenticity trumps heritage. Fei Mu’s film, like its characters, is caught between an ancient society destroyed by the second World War and the incoming new world order, a hinterland conveyed by Wei Wei’s wonderfully expressive face." - Tara Brady, The Irish Times

[Stay Puft]

It's probably not going to matter but for curiosity sake, 1948 or 2002?

1948

I probably should have clarified tho as Spinal says, the different versions are usually given the English titles of Spring (48) and Springtime (02) even though they share the same Chinese title.

[Spinal]

#10


Making love was sad that day.


Millenium Mambo

Director: Hou Hsiao-Hsien

Year: 2001

In Taipei, Vicky has an on-again off-again relationship with a slacker named Hao-Hao. She's young, lovely, and aimless. Cigarettes and alcohol fuel her nights. We see bits of her life.

Won the Technical Grand Prize at Cannes.
Won 3 awards at the Golden Horse Film Festival (Taiwan film industry) including Best Cinematography. Nominated for 2 others, including Best Actress (Shu Qi).

In order to research for the film, largely set in the world of the Taipei rave scene, Hou Hsiao-Hsien threw himself into youth culture. He hung out at local discos and experimented with ecstasy.

"In lieu of sharp characterization or psychological insight, Hou and his cinematographer capture a memorably tactile feeling through sound and image, making it possible to access Shu's life in all its numbing vacuity. Recent years have produced a surfeit of navel-gazers about alienated Asian youths, but Millennium Mambo resonates on its techno-driven mood alone, which is as overwhelming in its own way as anything blown up to IMAX." - Scott Tobias, The A.V. Club

[Stay Puft]

I just realized what my life has been missing: Millennium Mambo in IMAX.

[Spinal]

#9


The body loses water when you jog, so you have none left for tears.


Chungking Express

Director: Wong Kar-Wai

Year: 1994

Two melancholy Hong Kong policemen fall in love: one with a mysterious female underworld figure, the other with a beautiful and ethereal server at a late-night restaurant he frequents.

Nominated for Best Foreign Film at the Independent Spirit Awards.
Won Best Actor at the Golden Horse Film Festival (Tony Leung Chiu-wai). Nominated for 7 other awards including Best Film, Best Director and Best Actress (Faye Wong).
Won 4 Hong Kong Film Awards including Best Film, Best Director, Best Actor (Tony Leung Chiu-wai) and Best Film Editing. Nominated for 6 others including Best Actress (Faye Wong) and Best Supporting Actress (Valerie Chow).
Won Best Actress (Faye Wong) at the Stockholm Film Festival.

The title is an amalgamation of two 'landmarks' in Hong Kong: Chungking Mansions - a drug-filled, rundown hostel populated by Indians, Pakistanis and Nepalese - and Midnight Express - an Indian fast food store in Lan Kwai Fong, a major bar district populated by foreign yuppies.

"Wong's approach to filmmaking may be best likened to jazz, with its improvisations and significant repetitions, but he imbues his films with the spirit and drama of a great pop song. Young love, foolish love, and even fatal love all float through Chungking Express, and the possibilities and risks of each manifest in the strangest ways, all to Wong's private beat." - Keith Phipps, The A.V. Club

[Thirdmango]

Ha Ha! I didn't realize just how under the wire I was!

[Spinal]

#8


Maybe one day you'll escape your past. If you do, look for me.


2046

Director: Wong Kar-Wai

Year: 2004

A science fiction author loses the woman he considers his one true love. Over the course of a few years, other women enter his life.

Won 2 awards at the Golden Horse Film Festival including Best Art Direction and Best Original Score. Nominated for 6 others including Best Film, Best Actor (Tony Leung Chiu-wai) and Best Actress (Zhang Ziyi).
Won 6 Hong Kong Film Awards including Best Actor (Tony Leung Chiu-wai) and Best Actress (Zhang Ziyi). Nominated for 6 others including Best Film, Best Director and Best Screenplay.
Won Best Cinematography at the National Society of Film Critics Awards.
Won Best Cinematographer and Best Foreign Language Film at the New York Film Critics Circle Awards.
Won Best Cinematography in the Village Voice Film Poll.

The print for Cannes arrived three hours before the delayed premiere, escorted by police. It is the first film in Cannes' history to arrive so late that re-scheduling was necessary.

"... Wong has perfected the romance noir genre, and these days, he has it all to himself. Nominally a sequel to his masterpiece In the Mood for Love, 2046 stakes out its own territory as a complex, visually rich, pull-out-all-the-stops rumination on memory, regret, relationships and the creative process." - G. Allen Johnson, San Francisco Chronicle

[Spinal]

#7


All I want is to kill you, or be killed by you.


Kung Fu Hustle

Director: Stephen Chow

Year: 2004

In 1940s Shanghai, a wannabe gangster aspires to join the notorious Axe Gang while residents of a housing complex exhibit extraordinary powers in defending their turf.

Nominated for Best Foreign Language Film at the Golden Globes.
Nominated for Best Film not in the English Language at the BAFTA Awards.
Won 5 Awards at the Golden Horse Film Festival including Best Film, Best Director and Best Supporting Actress (Yuen Qiu). Nominated for 5 others including Best Supporting Actor (Yuen Wah) and Best Action Choreography.
Won 6 Hong Kong Film Awards including Best Picture, Best Supporting Actor (Yuen Wah) and Best Action Choreography. Nominated for 10 others, including Best Director and Best Actor (Stephen Chow).
Nominated for Best Fight at the MTV Movie Awards.

It is the highest-grossing Hong Kong movie ever in Hong Kong, narrowly edging out Chow's previous success, Shaolin Soccer. Also, the widest release of any foreign language film in the United States, appearing on 2503 screens.

"Unfortunately, the last time I watched [Quick Change] was right after Kung Fu Hustle, which is the supreme achievement of the modern age in terms of comedy….Quick Change after it looked like a home movie. It looked like a fucking high school film. I was like, 'Oh man, I just saw this thing,' and 'God, that’s just staggering, just staggering. That movie is just AHHHHHH!'" - Bill Murray

[Spinal]

#6


A warrior's ultimate act is to lay down his sword.


Hero

Director: Zhang Yimou

Year: 2002

In feudal China, the King of Qin has been made a target of three dangerous assassins. One day word comes that a man known only as Nameless has killed all three assassins. Nameless is called to the palace to tell his story.

Nominated for Best Foreign Language Film at the Academy Awards.
Nominated for Best Foreign Language Film at the Golden Globes.
Won the Alfred Bauer Award at the Berlin International Film Festival.
Won 4 Golden Rooster Awards (mainland China film industry) including Best Director.
Won 7 Hong Kong Film Awards including Best Cinematography and Best Action Choreography. Nominated for 7 others including Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actress (Maggie Cheung), Best Supporting Actress (Zhang Ziyi) and Best Screenplay.
Won Best Cinematographer at the New York Film Critics Circle Awards.
Won Best Cinematography in the Village Voice Film Poll.

It was the first foreign-language film to open at #1 at the box office in the United States.

"A film like Hero demonstrates how the martial arts genre transcends action and violence and moves into poetry, ballet and philosophy. It is violent only incidentally. What matters is not the manner of death, but the manner of dying: In a society that takes a Zen approach to swordplay and death, one might win by losing. " - Roger Ebert

[Spinal]

#5


Give a guy a gun, he thinks he's Superman. Give him two and he thinks he's God.


Hard Boiled

Director: John Woo

Year: 1992

A tough cop teams up with an undercover agent to shut down a sinister mobster and his crew.

Won the Hong Kong Film Award for Best Editing. Also nominated for Best Supporting Actor (Tony Leung Chiu-wai).
Placed #70 on Empire's 2010 list of The 100 Best Films Of World Cinema.

Guns used in the film: more than 200, all real
Rounds of blank ammunition fired during filming: over 100,000
Movie run-time: 128 minutes
On-screen body count: 307 (or 2.4 per minute)

During the hallway shootout, when Yuen and Alan get in the elevator, the crew was given 20 seconds to clean and change the set outside the elevator doors so that it looked like a different floor.

"Every image in the film has a visual double entendre, an encoded moral, romantic and social message ... The undercover Alan communicates with the film’s police contingency via pop songs, flowers and love letters - masculine procedure is encoded in (and permitted by) femaleness. And just as Alan is undercover, so are the film’s flower boxes and steely, Feng Shui-less morgue containers. Everything is a ruse and no one is immune in Woo’s signature land of aesthetic confusion." - Ed Gonzalez, Slant Magazine

[Spinal]

#4


Why are we afraid of the first time? Every day in life is a first time. Every morning is new.


Yi Yi

Director: Edward Yang

Year: 2000

Each member of a middle class Taipei family seeks to reconcile past and present relationships within their daily lives.

Won Best Director at Cannes.
Nominated for Best Foreign Film at the César Awards.
Nominated for Best Asian Film at the Hong Kong Film Awards.
Won Best Film at the National Society of Film Critics Awards.
Won Best Foreign Language Film at the New York Film Critics Circle Awards.
Won Best Director in the 2000 Village Voice Film Poll.
Named the #4 Film of the Decade in the 2009 Village Voice Film Poll.
In 2002, selected by Sight and Sound as one of the 10 greatest films of the past 25 years.

The piano pieces in the soundtrack are mostly performed by Kaili Peng, Yang's wife. Peng has a small cameo in the film as a concert cellist with her husband posing as a pianist.

"Patient, mature, and emotionally accessible, Yi Yi is a pointillist classic, a family epic built from minute details." - Scott Tobias - The A.V. Club

[Spinal]

#3


I would rather be a ghost, drifting by your side as a condemned soul, than enter heaven without you.


Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon

Director: Ang Lee

Year: 2000

Two warriors in pursuit of a stolen sword and a notorious fugitive are led to an impetuous, physically skilled, adolescent nobleman's daughter, who is at a crossroads in her life.

Won 4 Academy Awards, including Best Foreign Language Film and Best Cinematography. Nominated for 6 others including Best Picture, Best Director and Best Adapted Screenplay.
Won 2 Golden Globe Awards including Best Director and Best Foreign Language Film. Also nominated for Best Original Score.
Won 4 BAFTA Awards including Best Director and Best Film not in the English Language. Nominated for 10 others including Best Film, Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Actress (Michelle Yeoh) and Best Supporting Actress (Zhang Ziyi).
Won Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Motion Pictures from the Directors Guild of America.
Won 6 awards at the Golden Horse Film Festival including Best Feature Film and Best Action Direction. Nominated for 7 others including Best Director.
Won a Grammy Award for Best Score Soundtrack Album For A Motion Picture, Television Or Other Visual Media. Also nominated for Best Song Written for a Motion Picture, Television or Other Visual Media.
Won 8 Hong Kong Film Awards including Best Picture, Best Director, Best Supporting Actress (Cheng Pei-pei), Best Cinematography and Best Action Choreography. Nominated for 8 others including Best Actor (Chow Yun-fat), Best Actress (Michelle Yeoh and Zhang Ziyi), Best Supporting Actor (Chang Chen) and Best Screenplay.
Won 3 Independent Spirit Awards including Best Feature, Best Director and Best Supporting Female (Zhang Ziyi).
Won Best Fight at the MTV Movie Awards. Nominated for 2 others including Best Movie.
Won Best Cinematographer at the New York Film Critics Circle Awards.
Won the People's Choice Award at the Toronto International Film Festival.
Nominated for Best Adapted Screenplay by the Writers Guild of America.

Also named Best Foreign Film by:
Australian Film Institute
Awards Circuit Community Awards
Bodil Awards
Boston Society of Film Critics
Broadcast Film Critics Association
Chicago Film Critics Association
Dallas-Fort Worth Film Critics Association
Film Critics Circle of Australia
Florida Film Critics Circle
Kansas City Film Critics Circle
London Critics Circle
National Board of Review
Online Film & Television Association
Online Film Critics Society
Phoenix Film Critics Society
Satellite Awards
Southeastern Film Critics Association

The top all-time foreign-language film at the United States box office by a very large margin. It earned over double the amount of its nearest competitor (Life is Beautiful). It is also the only martial arts film to be nominated for the Best Picture Academy Award and the all-time leader in nominations for a foreign film (10).

"There are those, I know, who will never go to a martial arts movie, just as some people hate Westerns ... But like all ambitious movies, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon transcends its origins and becomes one of a kind. It's glorious, unashamed escapism and surprisingly touching at the same time. And they're really up there in those trees." - Roger Ebert

[Spinal]

#2


She has the face of Buddha and the heart of a scorpion.


Raise the Red Lantern

Director: Zhang Yimou

Year: 1991

A young woman becomes the fourth wife of a wealthy lord, and must learn to live with the strict rules and tensions within the household.

Nominated for Best Foreign Language Film at the Academy Awards.
Won the BAFTA Award for Best Film not in the English Language.
Nominated for Best Foreign Film at the Independent Spirit Awards.
Won Best Foreign Language Film at the London Critics Circle Film Awards.
Won Best Foreign Language Film and Best Cinematography at the National Society of Film Critics Awards.
Won Best Foreign Language Film at the New York Film Critics Circle Awards.
Won 3 Awards at the Venice Film Festival including the Silver Lion.

The Master's face is never seen. It is either obscured behind thin curtains or out of shot.

"Color isn't just important to Zhang Yimou. It's his leading lady. In Raise the Red Lantern, the Chinese director selects from a stirring palette of glowing reds, subtle yellows and twilight grays. There isn't an arbitrary hue in the movie. In purely aesthetic terms, Raise the Red Lantern is breathtaking." - Desson Howe, The Washington Post

[Spinal]

#1


As though looking through a dusty window pane, the past is something he could see, but not touch.


In the Mood for Love

Director: Wong Kar-wai

Year: 2000

Two neighbors, a woman and a man, form a strong bond after both suspect extramarital activities of their spouses. However, they agree to keep their bond platonic.

Won Best Actor (Tony Leung Chiu-wai) and the Technical Grand Prize at Cannes.
Nominated for Best Film not in the English Language at the BAFTA Awards.
Won Best Foreign Independent Film - Foreign Language at the British Independent Film Awards.
Won Best Foreign Film at the César Awards.
Won 3 awards at the Golden Horse Film Festival including Best Actress (Maggie Cheung) and Best Cinematography. Nominated for 6 others including Best Feature Film, Best Director, Best Original Screenplay and Best Actor (Tony Leung Chiu-wai).
Won 5 Hong Kong Film Awards including Best Actor (Tony Leung Chiu-wai) and Best Actress (Maggie Cheung). Nominated for 7 others including Best Picture, Best Director and Best Screenplay.
Nominated for Best Foreign Film at the Independent Spirit Awards.
Won Best Foreign Language Film and Best Cinematography at the National Society of Film Critics Awards.
Won Best Foreign Language Film and Best Cinematographer at the New York Film Critics Circle Awards.
Won Best Cinematography in the Village Voice Film Poll.

Maggie Cheung wears a different cheongsam dress in each scene. There were 46 in all, though not all made it to the final cut.

"Wong Kar-wai may be the most fetishized - as well as the most fetishizing - of contemporary filmmakers, and with In the Mood for Love he takes this form of worship as his subject. Boldly mannered yet surprisingly delicate, In the Mood for Love is a wondrously perverse movie that not only evokes a lost moment in time but circles around an unrepresentable subject. Mood is the operative word." - J. Hoberman, The Village Voice

[Spinal]

1. In the Mood for Love (163)
2. Raise the Red Lantern (109.5)
3. Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (87)
4. Yi Yi (60)
5. Hard Boiled (55)
6. Hero (54.5)
7. Kung Fu Hustle (53)
8. 2046 (50.5)
9. Chungking Express (50)
10. Millennium Mambo (44)
11. Spring in a Small Town (42)

Infernal Affairs (41)
City of Sadness (40)
A Touch of Zen (37)
Platform (36)

[dreamdead]

Shame that King Hu's films didn't make the list. I eagerly await rewatching A Touch of Zen this year once the remaster gets released.

I have a hard time wanting to get up the interest to rewatch Hard-Boiled. I don't discount its excellence as an action film or the myriad ways in which it influenced a whole range of tropes, but Woo's aesthetic feels far more grounded to its time than something like (paradoxically enough) Hu, Lau Kar-Leung, or Cheh Chang.

I can't critique Hero at all. Doyle's cinematography is beyond reproach in that one, and it's so contemplative that it makes me desirous to return to its vision.

Love the top two, and that Yi Yi placed so high. After accidentally watching around Raise the Red Lantern, my first viewing of that one last year affirmed its long-standing reputation. Biggest surprise for me is the lack of Farewell, My Concubine, which I remember topping a list made by Chinese (I think) critics and filmmakers.

[Spinal]

OK, what's left? Spain? South Korea? Canada? Anything else you'd like to see?