Intimate Confessions of a Chinese Courtesan, 1972

From the opening (recurring) sequence of a highly stylized nighttime image of snowflakes trickling through the saturated illumination of a roof opening in a feudal era estate and onto the lifeless body of an assassinated aristocrat, Chu Yuan illustrates his elegant command of composition and atmosphere in Intimate Confessions of a Chinese Courtesan. The film […]

The House of 72 Tenants, 1973

Adapted from a stage play, Chu Yuan’s enormously popular peasant comedy The House of 72 Tenants is a delirious, unabashedly old-fashioned lowbrow ensemble confection that features immediately recognizable film stars from the decade, over-the-top caricatured performances, preposterously convoluted schemes, and a requisite – and justly deserved – comeuppance of the powerful, self-indulgent, and corrupt evil […]

Welcome to Destination China, 2003

Creating another slice-of-life pseudo-documentary chronicle of marginalized people living in impoverished slums along the banks of the Suzhou River (and in the process, deconstructs the romantic vision of Ye Lou’s ephemeral Suzhou River), Welcome to Destination China loosely centers on a madam called Jennifer and the desperate people whose meager livelihood rests on her disreputable […]

Shanghai Panic, 2001

Based on a banned novel by underground writer Mian Mian entitled Welcome to Panic, Andrew Cheng’s socially relevant, but technically uneven digital video pseudo-documentary follows a close-knit group of rootless, young adults (apparently played by Mian Mian and her circle of friends) in the urban jungle of Shanghai as a male friend – perhaps struggling […]

Accident, 2009

Part caper film and part psychological thriller, Soi Cheang’s Accident is an early highlight in this year’s Film Comment Selects program. Opening to the gruesome image of a fatal car accident scene, the film immediately recalibrates the viewer’s expectation over the notion of accident in another seemingly random traffic-related episode as an impatient driver, blocked […]