MC Consensus: Slow Boat to China

[Spinal]

Submit your FIVE TO TEN favorite films from China (including Hong Kong) or Taiwan and .... eventually .... I will give you a top TEN TO TWENTY. Films should have China, Hong Kong or Taiwan listed as a country of origin in IMDb.

The point system is as follows

1st Place- 10 points
2nd Place - 8 points
3rd Place - 7 points
4th Place - 6 points
5th Place - 5 points
6th Place - 4.5 points
7th Place - 4 points
8th Place - 3.5 points
9th Place - 3 points
10th Place - 2.5 points

(Point system is weighted to give your top film a boost and to minimize the discrepancy between the films in the bottom half of your list.)

There will be no restrictions on short films. A list must have five films to be eligible. If you list more than ten films, I will assume that the top ten films are the ones you want to receive points. If you do not list your films 1-10, I will assign the points from the top on down.

If you decide to edit your ballot, please make a new post indicating the changes. I will give at least 24 hours warning before tallying votes.

If, for some reason, you would like to like to submit your ballot via private message, I will accept those as well. However, your ballot will be revealed after the final results are posted.

You may begin now.

[Lazlo]

1. Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon
2. Lust, Caution
3. Hard Boiled
4. In the Mood For Love
5. 2046
6. Infernal Affairs
7. My Blueberry Nights
8. The Grandmaster
9. Hero
10. Summer Palace

[Spinal]

1. Raise the Red Lantern
2. Yi Yi
3. The Blue Kite
4. To Live
5. The Road Home
6. Hero
7. The Story of Qiu Ju
8. House of Flying Daggers
9. Curse of the Golden Flower
10. The Wayward Cloud

[dreamdead]

Allow me to suggest that people try to get to Fei Mu's 1948 Spring in a Small Town, which is a fantastic film, before this closes...

[Mysterious Dude]

1. The Peach Girl (1931)
2. Myriad of Lights (The Lights of Ten Thousand Homes) (1948)
3. Feelings of Mountains and Waters (1988)
4. Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000)
5. The Goddess (1934)
6. Raise the Red Lantern (1991)
7. Kung Fu Hustle (2004)
8. The Spring River Flows East (Tears of the Yang-Tse) (1947)
9. 11 Flowers (2011)
10. The King of Masks (1996)

Hong Kong didn't do as well as I expected.

[Melville]

I need to see a lot more Hou Hsiao-Hsien movies.

1. In the Mood for Love
2. Millenium Mambo
3. Raise the Red Lantern
4. The Wayward Cloud
5. Cyclo
6. Kung Fu Hustle
7. A Touch of Sin
8. Still Life
9. Boxer from Shantung
10. Three Times

HMs: Flight of the Red Balloon, 2046, House of Flying Daggers, To Live, The Hole, The River, and SPL. Spring in a Small Town is also quite good.

[baby doll]

1. City of Sadness (Hou Hsiao-hsien, 1989)
2. Platform (Jia Zhangke, 2000)
3. Spring in a Small Town (Fu Mei, 1948)
4. In the Mood for Love (Wong Kar-wai, 2000)
5. Goodbye, Dragon Inn (Tsai Ming-liang, 2003)
6. Yi Yi (Edward Yang, 2000)
7. Horse Thief (Tian Zhuangzhuang, 1986)
8. Ruan Lingyu (Stanley Kwan, 1992)
9. Devils on the Doorstep (Jiang Wen, 2000)
10. The Story of Qiu Jiu (Zhang Yimou, 1992)

10 more: Taipei Story (Edward Yang, 1985), Rouge (Stanley Kwan, 1988), The Puppet Master (Hou Hsiao-hsien, 1993), To Live (Zhang Yimou, 1994) [the book is even better], Chungking Express (Wong Kar-wai, 1994), What Time Is it There? (Tsai Ming-liang, 2001), Kung-Fu Hustle (Stephen Chow, 2004), The World (Jia Zhangke, 2004), The Sun Also Rises (Jiang Wen, 2007), Here, Then (Mao Mao, 2012).

[Grouchy]

1. In the Mood for Love
2. Hard Boiled
3. Kung Fu Hustle
4. Hero
5. Happy Together
6. Exiled
7. Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon
8. Lust, Caution
9. The Killer
10. Chungking Express

Sorry if it's too reiterative. I didn't realize before how action-centric my Chinese panorama really is.

[Yxklyx]

1. Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon (Ang Lee)
2. Raise the Red Lantern (Yimou Zhang)
3. Hard Boiled (John Woo)
4. The Wedding Banquet (Ang Lee)
5. Infernal Affairs (Wai-Keung Lau & Alan Mak)
6. Days of Being Wild (Kar-Wai Wong)
7. Chungking Express (Kar-Wai Wong)
8. Good Bye, Dragon Inn (Ming-liang Tsai)
9. What Time Is It There? (Ming-liang Tsai)
10. Kung Fu Hustle (Stephen Chow)

[Peng]

1. In the Mood for Love
2. Chungking Express
3. Raise the Red Lantern
4. Comrades, Almost a Love Story
5. Drug War
6. Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon
7. Happy Together
8. Eat Drink Man Woman
9. Days of Being Wild
10. The Killer


11. Hard Boiled
12. Don't Go Breaking My Heart
13. The Grandmaster
14. Ip Man
15. Infernal Affairs
16. The Message (2009)
17. Kung Fu Hustle
18. Journey to the West (Tsai Ming-liang)
19. Hero
20. To Live

[Stay Puft]

Y'all gonna sleep on King Hu?

Scust.

[dreamdead]

Watched Sun Yu's 1932 silent feature Wild Rose, which morphs from a standard comedic film about the rural/cosmopolitan divide into something truly memorable. This is one of the most humane portraits of life I've seen in a silent-era film, situating the struggle to survive on one's own terms against the community mindset. And while the film suggests a strident individuality in parts, it also privileges the community in ways that make sense given the reality that Japan invaded China during this time period and the film was trying to mobilize not just the proletariat but the wealthy to be aware of how they fight for the "motherland." It's a film that is remarkably fluid in many of its camera placements, it captures the joy of the quotidian, but it also records the idea of being together with one's country. Really good stuff that deserves a watch.

I can assure Stay Puft that King Hu will have a place on my list.

This also encouraged me to finally view Goodbye, Dragon Inn, which I'll get to in the next two days...

[Spinal]

Yay! Thanks for the new thread title. I was stumped for a while and threw up the old Monty Python song because I couldn't think of anything else. I like this one better.

[Gizmo]

1. Hero
2. In the Mood for Love
3. House of Flying Daggers
4. Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon
5. Farewell, My Concubine
6. The Eye

Yeah, that's what I got.

[Raiders]

How the hell am I supposed to narrow this to ten???

1. 2046 (2004)
2. In the Mood for Love (2000)
3. A Brighter Summer Day (1991)
4. City of Sadness (1989)
5. Exiled (2006)
6. Dragon Inn (1967)
7. Platform (2000)
8. Days of Being Wild (1991)
9. The Puppetmaster (1993)
10. What Time is it There? (2001)

Not a single Zhang, Ang Lee, or Stephen Chow film (all deserving) and probably at least ten (including three Hou Hsiao-hsien and three WKW films each) that strongly deserve mention. I guess the Brit-Irish are more widely seen amongst the West and deserving a top 20, but over the last 30 years or so, this is maybe the richest land in all of cinema. So many amazing works of delicate style.

[dreamdead]

1. Spring in a Small Town
2. The Goddess
3. In the Mood for Love
4. 2046
5. Yi Yi
6. A Touch of Zen
7. The World
8. Wild Rose
9. Raise the Red Lantern
10. The Blue Kite

HM: Goodbye, Dragon Inn, A Touch of Sin, Fallen Angels, The Actress (Kwan), Exiled, What Time is it There?, Platform, The Wayward Cloud, Boxer from Shantung,

Goodbye, Dragon Inn had so many Tati moments throughout. Mad fun despite the endurance test, and both melancholic about the general disinterest in the film retrospective from anyone beyond the central cast and gorgeously jarring whenever Tsai offset his static shots with rapid cuts, as he does several times with the ticket-seller watching the wuxia film behind the screen.

This list suffers because I purchased the Criterion of Yang's A Brighter Summer Day but won't get to it until mid-May...

[Derek]

1. Yi Yi (Yang, 2000)
2. Millennium Mambo (Hou, 2001)
3. Raise the Red Lantern (Zhang, 1991)
4. In the Mood for Love (Wong, 2000)
5. A Brighter Summer Day (Yang, 1991)
6. The World (Jia, 2005)
7. Platform (Jia, 2000)
8. Come Drink With Me (Hu, 1966)
9. A Touch of Zen (Hu, 1971)
10. A City of Sadness (Hou, 1989)

11. Chungking Express
12. 2046
13. Still Life
14. The Assassin
15. Three Times
16. Good Men, Good Women
17. Goodbye, South Goodbye
18. Farewell My Concubine
19. Mad Detective
20. Kung Fu Hustle

HMs: What Time is it There?, Stray Dogs, The Horse Thief

[Stay Puft]

1. A Touch of Zen
2. Farewell My Concubine
3. The 36th Chamber of Shaolin
4. Dragon Inn
5. Vive L'Amour
6. What Time is it There?
7. Dangerous Encounters of the First Kind
8. Millennium Mambo
9. Police Story
10. Spring in a Small Town

This was crazy hard to narrow down to ten. I didn't even get much mainland stuff on there.

And I just noticed I'm the first to put Tsui Hark on their list, too. Dag yo. Where's Davis when you need him.

[Raiders]

And I just noticed I'm the first to put Tsui Hark on their list, too.

The Blade would be in my second 10. I'm telling you, there we at least 25-30 total films I wanted to squeeze into this list. Especially as I have been spending most of my free movie-watching time over the past couple years deep-diving into the likes of Hou, Lou Ye, and Tian Zhuangzhuang.

[dreamdead]

The Blade would be in my second 10. I'm telling you, there we at least 25-30 total films I wanted to squeeze into this list. Especially as I have been spending most of my free movie-watching time over the past couple years deep-diving into the likes of Hou, Lou Ye, and Tian Zhuangzhuang.

Care to quickly rank the Lou Ye and Tian Zhuangzhaung films to prioritize? I'm hoping to use your list and baby doll's to further explore mainland China's offering...

[Stay Puft]

Tian Zhuangzhaung films

Definitely see: The Horse Thief, The Blue Kite, Springtime in a Small Town (in that order)
Definitely DO NOT see: The Warrior and the Wolf (ever, just don't)

[Raiders]

Care to quickly rank the Lou Ye and Tian Zhuangzhaung films to prioritize? I'm hoping to use your list and baby doll's to further explore mainland China's offering...

I have generally found Lou to be vastly interesting and always worth watching, but he's also a very uneven and seems to waver in his confidence in the material. He wants to use the taboo to shine a light where many may not be willing to, but as works of narrative cinema, he's never polished enough.

1. Blind Massage (2014)
2. Summer Palace (2006)
3. Weekend Lover (1994)
4. Mystery (2012)
5. Purple Butterly (2003)
6. Spring Fever (2009)

Tian:

1. The Horse Thief (1986)
2. Springtime in a Small Town (2002)
3. The Go Master (2006)
4. The Blue Kite (1993)
5. Delamu (2004)
6. The Warrior and the Wolf (2009) <-- I would disagree that you shouldn't see it. Something so bizarre and so mismatched between content and style should be witnessed. It's terrible though.

[Spinal]

Since there were people who really wanted to list more, I'll let you edit your lists up to 20 films if you so desire. I'll just use the scoring system I used for the last thread. I'll give you a couple more days to do that if you want.

[baby doll]

11. The World (Jia Zhangke, 2004)
12. Taipei Story (Edward Yang, 1985)
13. The Puppet Master (Hou Hsiao-hsien, 1993)
14. What Time Is it There? (Tsai Ming-liang, 2001)
15. Chungking Express (Wong Kar-wai, 1994)
16. Rouge (Stanley Kwan, 1988)
17. To Live (Zhang Yimou, 1994)
18. The Sun Also Rises (Jiang Wen, 2007)
19. Here, Then (Mao Mao, 2012)
20. Kung-Fu Hustle (Stephen Chow, 2004)

[Stay Puft]

11. Come Drink With Me
12. In the Mood for Love
13. The Horse Thief
14. The Terrorizers
15. Raise the Red Lantern
16. Peking Opera Blues
17. Temptress Moon
18. Flowers of Shanghai
19. Kung Fu Hustle
20. Red Amnesia