COCOON,ZHANG YUERAN [WORLD EDITIONS,OCTOBER 4]Silkworms make their cocoons from one single thread.Unreeling a dead worm’s cocoon is a long and tiresome process,exposing a grisly truth at the center.In the same way,Zh...
GO FISHING[FILM,JULY 29]Rave reviews at this year’s FIRST Film Festival will tell you Bo Fishing is worth reeling in.Li Wei,a big-bellied middle age delivery driver(played by the film’s director Nan Xin)bumps into h...
Chinese zoos have been gradually phasing out animal performances since 2013,but illegal circuses persist in malls,housing developments,and other venues.Activist Hu Chunmei travels around China to end these controversi...
THE FALLEN BRIDGE When the bones of Wen Xiaoyu’s long Lost father are discovered in the concrete of a collapsed bridge,she is catapulted into a quest for vengeance,aided by a mysterious local mechanic named Meng Chao...
LIGHTING UP THE STARS"You see that chimney?That’s your grandmother roasting,turning to smoke.Floating up to heaven,no more,vanished,"barks a grown man at an 8-yearold girl, who understandably bursts into tears."You ...
MANCHURIAN TIGER This won Best Film at the Shanghai International Film Festival last year. Xu Dong needs to find a new home for his pet dog, now that his wife Mei Ling is pregnant, and places it in the care of a cash-...
YUN JIE The fiction feature debut of director Jiang Nengjie,previously known for documentaries,is a paean to China’s 60 million"left-behind"children.The 12-year-old Jiang Yunjie lives with her grandmother and two you...
THE PIONEER This biographical drama recounts the life of Li Dazhao,one of the founders of the Chinese Communist Party,chronicling the 38 hours before his execution in 1927 as different groups tried to rescue him from ...
Zhang Yimou's latest is a spy movie set in 1930s Japanese-occupied Manchukuo.Four spies race through the winter forests of northeastern China to smuggle a man out of a Japanese prison camp;however,a local collaborator...
HI, MOM Now the second-highest grossing film in Chinese box office history, Hi, Mom was this Spring Festival's unexpected hit. Written and directed Jia Ling, this emotional time-traveling comedy stars Jia as a fiction...