Review by Roger Carpenter
Lao Shi is a doting family man and a hard worker. Working as a taxi driver in a large, Chinese urban center, he spends long hours transporting riders in horrific traffic conditions while his wife runs an in-home nursery. Their dream is to save enough money to expand the nursery into another space as their small apartment is already cramped for them and their two small children. Shi and his wife both work hard to save for their dreams. There is constant financial pressure but Shi is an optimist and he doesn’t let it get him down.
One day he is forced to drive a drunken passenger who becomes unruly, grabs Shi’s arm, and causes Shi to hit a motorcyclist. Shi is very concerned for the victim’s welfare and is so busy calling an ambulance and dealing with the crowd of onlookers he...
Lao Shi is a doting family man and a hard worker. Working as a taxi driver in a large, Chinese urban center, he spends long hours transporting riders in horrific traffic conditions while his wife runs an in-home nursery. Their dream is to save enough money to expand the nursery into another space as their small apartment is already cramped for them and their two small children. Shi and his wife both work hard to save for their dreams. There is constant financial pressure but Shi is an optimist and he doesn’t let it get him down.
One day he is forced to drive a drunken passenger who becomes unruly, grabs Shi’s arm, and causes Shi to hit a motorcyclist. Shi is very concerned for the victim’s welfare and is so busy calling an ambulance and dealing with the crowd of onlookers he...
- 2/26/2018
- by Movie Geeks
- WeAreMovieGeeks.com
A bureaucratic nightmare lies at the center of Johnny Ma’s debut feature “Old Stone,” which examines the old adage of how no good deed goes unpunished from the lens of China’s corrupt healthcare and criminal justice system. The film follow cab driver Lao Shi (Chen Gang) who accidentally swerves and hits a motorist when a drunken passenger distracts him. Though he drives the victim to the hospital, he soon finds himself liable for the man’s medical bills. On the verge of losing everything, Lao Shi resorts to desperate measures in order to stay afloat. Watch an exclusive clip from the film below.
Read More: ‘Old Stone’ Review: Johnny Ma’s Debut Is a Gritty Moral Thriller About the Perils of Doing The Right Thing
After a career in mergers and acquisitions in business and fashion, Ma turned to documentary filmmaking in 2008. Graduating from Columbia University’s M.
Read More: ‘Old Stone’ Review: Johnny Ma’s Debut Is a Gritty Moral Thriller About the Perils of Doing The Right Thing
After a career in mergers and acquisitions in business and fashion, Ma turned to documentary filmmaking in 2008. Graduating from Columbia University’s M.
- 12/6/2016
- by Vikram Murthi
- Indiewire
Welcome back to the Weekend Warrior, your weekly look at the new movies hitting theaters this weekend, as well as other cool events and things to check out.
This Past Weekend:
It wasn’t a bad Thanksgiving weekend, especially for the Weekend Warrior who pretty much nailed two of his predictions for the weekend! Disney Animation’s Moana indeed at opened at #1 with $55.5 million for the three-day weekend (exactly my prediction), although it ended up with more--$81.1 million--in its first five days. The Brad Pitt-Marion Cotillard spy thriller, Allied (Paramount), directed by Robert Zemeckis, also opened with $18 million, right on track with my prediction. I guess I could take some comfort on being spot on with two of the Thanksgiving releases—like I said last week, that holiday weekend is a bear to predict—but I way overestimated the other two movies as sequelitis indeed hit Billy Bob Thornton...
This Past Weekend:
It wasn’t a bad Thanksgiving weekend, especially for the Weekend Warrior who pretty much nailed two of his predictions for the weekend! Disney Animation’s Moana indeed at opened at #1 with $55.5 million for the three-day weekend (exactly my prediction), although it ended up with more--$81.1 million--in its first five days. The Brad Pitt-Marion Cotillard spy thriller, Allied (Paramount), directed by Robert Zemeckis, also opened with $18 million, right on track with my prediction. I guess I could take some comfort on being spot on with two of the Thanksgiving releases—like I said last week, that holiday weekend is a bear to predict—but I way overestimated the other two movies as sequelitis indeed hit Billy Bob Thornton...
- 11/30/2016
- by Edward Douglas
- LRMonline.com
Often presented as a glossy corporate fantasia in the country’s government-approved commercial cinema, China tends to look like a very different place in the independent films that manage to escape its borders (and receive prominent exposure at festivals around the world).
Hardly a new phenomenon, this dichotomy seems to have grown even more severe with the last two generations of Chinese directors — while googly-eyed studio claptrap like “Monster Hunt” slays at the box office, scrappy, auteur-driven fare like Li Yang’s “Blind Mountain” and Diao Yinan’s “Black Coal, Thin Ice” paint the People’s Republic as a bleak wasteland where many laws don’t apply, and the ones that do seem sadistically designed to test the morality of the people they’re imposed upon. And, of course, to serve as prompts for some very dark thrillers.
Read More: Exclusive: Zeitgeist Films Picks Up Johnny Ma’s Debut Feature...
Hardly a new phenomenon, this dichotomy seems to have grown even more severe with the last two generations of Chinese directors — while googly-eyed studio claptrap like “Monster Hunt” slays at the box office, scrappy, auteur-driven fare like Li Yang’s “Blind Mountain” and Diao Yinan’s “Black Coal, Thin Ice” paint the People’s Republic as a bleak wasteland where many laws don’t apply, and the ones that do seem sadistically designed to test the morality of the people they’re imposed upon. And, of course, to serve as prompts for some very dark thrillers.
Read More: Exclusive: Zeitgeist Films Picks Up Johnny Ma’s Debut Feature...
- 11/29/2016
- by David Ehrlich
- Indiewire
An official Us trailer has debuted for a film titled Old Stone, the feature directorial debut of Johnny Ma. If you follow international news, you may remember hearing news stories about how drivers in China will go back and kill people if they accidentally hit them. It's because the laws over there make it easier for the accused to get away if the person is dead, rather than just injured. Old Stone seems to be the first film made that examines one of these incidents. It's described as an intense "psychological thriller" about a taxi driver battling bureaucracy and legal manipulation in China. This premiered at Tiff and Berlin to mostly positive reviews, and it looks like it'll leave your head spinning. Starring Chen Gang, Nai An & Wang Hongwei. Here's the official Us trailer (+ poster) for Johnny Ma's Old Stone, direct from YouTube (via Tfs): For Lao Shi...
- 11/22/2016
- by Alex Billington
- firstshowing.net
After earning acclaim for his short films in the past few years, Chinese-Canadian director Johnny Ma brought his directorial debut Old Stone to Toronto International Film Festival this year where it was awarded Best Canadian First Feature Film. Picked up by Zeitgeist Films, it’ll now get a release next week and the U.S. trailer has arrived for the thriller which follows a taxi driver doing a good deed that has major repercussions.
We said in our review, “Old Stone (Lao Shi) is a film wrapped around the gut-wrenching dilemma of a man who knows a moral choice but struggles to find the fortitude to carry through with it against a broken social system punishing him for it. The divide between epistemological knowledge of right from wrong is often played in films, couched in a vacuity that assumes vagueness for insight into the moral condition of humanity, but Old...
We said in our review, “Old Stone (Lao Shi) is a film wrapped around the gut-wrenching dilemma of a man who knows a moral choice but struggles to find the fortitude to carry through with it against a broken social system punishing him for it. The divide between epistemological knowledge of right from wrong is often played in films, couched in a vacuity that assumes vagueness for insight into the moral condition of humanity, but Old...
- 11/21/2016
- by Leonard Pearce
- The Film Stage
Old Stone (Lao Shi) is a film wrapped around the gut-wrenching dilemma of a man who knows a moral choice but struggles to find the fortitude to carry through with it against a broken social system punishing him for it. The divide between epistemological knowledge of right from wrong is often played in films, couched in a vacuity that assumes vagueness for insight into the moral condition of humanity, but Old Stone is content to build its foundation on a scenario with very little grey area. Instead, the film tackles a much more interesting conceit: the struggle to be righteous even when — especially when — we know with certainty what the cost will be.
Johnny Ma‘s debut film is both a potent exhibit of social realism, tackling a specific moral apathy in contemporary China and a tense, atmospheric crime thriller. A Chinese-Canadian film, it’s impressive as a first feature...
Johnny Ma‘s debut film is both a potent exhibit of social realism, tackling a specific moral apathy in contemporary China and a tense, atmospheric crime thriller. A Chinese-Canadian film, it’s impressive as a first feature...
- 10/5/2016
- by The Film Stage
- The Film Stage
Damien Chazelle’s musical romance starring Emma Stone and Ryan Gosling was the people’s favourite as the Toronto International Film Festival wrapped on Sunday.
The Grolsch People’s Choice Award is a timely boost heading into awards season: Last year, Room took the prize and went on to garner the best lead actress Oscar for Brie Larson.
La La Land is shaping up to be a strong awards prospect. Stone won the Coppa Volpi for best actress in Venice, where the film received its world premiere, and observers have noted its strong all-round profile.
The festival has set a free screening of La La Land on Sunday evening at 6pm at Roy Thomson Hall. Lionsgate will release the film in the Us on December 16.
Lion was named runner-up and Queen Of Katwe second runner-up.
Grolsch People’s Choice Midnight Madness Award went to Ben Wheatley’s Free Fire, while Raoul Peck’s I Am Not Your Negro won the...
The Grolsch People’s Choice Award is a timely boost heading into awards season: Last year, Room took the prize and went on to garner the best lead actress Oscar for Brie Larson.
La La Land is shaping up to be a strong awards prospect. Stone won the Coppa Volpi for best actress in Venice, where the film received its world premiere, and observers have noted its strong all-round profile.
The festival has set a free screening of La La Land on Sunday evening at 6pm at Roy Thomson Hall. Lionsgate will release the film in the Us on December 16.
Lion was named runner-up and Queen Of Katwe second runner-up.
Grolsch People’s Choice Midnight Madness Award went to Ben Wheatley’s Free Fire, while Raoul Peck’s I Am Not Your Negro won the...
- 9/18/2016
- by jeremykay67@gmail.com (Jeremy Kay)
- ScreenDaily
With the Toronto International Film Festival wrapping up today, they’ve handed out their award winners. While our top picks will be arriving shortly, the big winner of the festival was Damien Chazelle‘s La La Land, which won the People’s Choice Awards, while Raoul Peck‘s I Am Not Your Negro won on the documentary side. Other winners include Free Fire in the Midnight Madness category and Jackie in the Platform section, which is in its second year.
Check out the full press release below.
The short film awards below were selected by a jury comprised of American filmmaker Abteen Bagheri (That B.E.A.T.), French filmmaker Eva Husson (Bang Gang), and Canadian filmmaker Jeff Barnaby (Rhymes for Young Ghouls).
Short Cuts Award For Best Canadian Short Film
The Short Cuts Award for Best Canadian Short Film goes to Alexandre Dostie’s Mutants. The jury remarked, “Mutants...
Check out the full press release below.
The short film awards below were selected by a jury comprised of American filmmaker Abteen Bagheri (That B.E.A.T.), French filmmaker Eva Husson (Bang Gang), and Canadian filmmaker Jeff Barnaby (Rhymes for Young Ghouls).
Short Cuts Award For Best Canadian Short Film
The Short Cuts Award for Best Canadian Short Film goes to Alexandre Dostie’s Mutants. The jury remarked, “Mutants...
- 9/18/2016
- by Jordan Raup
- The Film Stage
I've read the horror stories of Chinese drivers intentionally running over accident victims multiple times to ensure they're dead because it's cheaper to pay for a funeral than to cover the medical bills of a traffic accident victim. Apparently the man at the centre of Old Stone didn't get the memo.
Writer/director Johnny Ma's debut feature is a psychological thriller starring Gang Chen as Lao Shi, a taxi driver who injures a motorcyclist. Shi doesn't just stop to check on the man, he takes him to the hospital and is soon slapped with the news that he's responsible for the victim's hospital bills, a burden that weig [Continued ...]...
Writer/director Johnny Ma's debut feature is a psychological thriller starring Gang Chen as Lao Shi, a taxi driver who injures a motorcyclist. Shi doesn't just stop to check on the man, he takes him to the hospital and is soon slapped with the news that he's responsible for the victim's hospital bills, a burden that weig [Continued ...]...
- 8/4/2016
- QuietEarth.us
After a promising initial line-up, the Toronto International Film Festival has delivered more titles with their full Canadian slate. Among the line-up is Xavier Dolan‘s It’s Only the End of the World, Bruce MacDonald‘s new feature Weirdos, Deepa Mehta‘s Anatomy of Violence, as well as Two Lovers and a Bear, starring Tatiana Maslany and Dane DeHaan, which we have the first trailer for today.
We said in our review from Cannes, “Kim Nguyen’s Two Lovers and a Bear is a film that suffers from a bit of an identity crisis. Like an indie playlist stuck on constant shuffle, unapologetically reveling in a sort of manic unclassifiable genre. This isn’t always necessarily a bad thing, but, for some reason, Nguyen’s scattershot tonal shifts — which hop between a romance on the rocks; a self-serious study of grieving; and a surreal buddy comedy — can prove quite jarring.
We said in our review from Cannes, “Kim Nguyen’s Two Lovers and a Bear is a film that suffers from a bit of an identity crisis. Like an indie playlist stuck on constant shuffle, unapologetically reveling in a sort of manic unclassifiable genre. This isn’t always necessarily a bad thing, but, for some reason, Nguyen’s scattershot tonal shifts — which hop between a romance on the rocks; a self-serious study of grieving; and a surreal buddy comedy — can prove quite jarring.
- 8/4/2016
- by Jordan Raup
- The Film Stage
The non-competitive strand will also feature Pablo Larrain’s Neruda and Kirsten Johnson’s Cameraperson.Scroll down for full line-up
This year’s Sarajevo Film Festival (Aug 12-20) will feature 17 titles in its Kinoscope programme, including festival hits such as Toni Erdmann and Cameraperson
First launched in 2012, the non-competitive strand selects titles from around the world, excluding territories featured in the festival’s main competition.
This year’s line-up includes titles that have received plaudits at major festivals, including three Palme d’Or nominated films from this year’s Cannes Film Festival: Kleber Mendonca Filho’s Aquarius, Alain Guiraudie’s Staying Vetical, and Maren Ade’s crowd favourite Toni Erdmann, which clocked the highest ever score on Screen’s Cannes Jury Grid.
Also from Cannes is Pablo Larrain’s Neruda, which premiered in Directors’ Fortnight, while the programme includes Kirsten Johnson’s documentary Cameraperson, which recently won the top prize at Sheffield Doc/Fest.
Titles that premiered...
This year’s Sarajevo Film Festival (Aug 12-20) will feature 17 titles in its Kinoscope programme, including festival hits such as Toni Erdmann and Cameraperson
First launched in 2012, the non-competitive strand selects titles from around the world, excluding territories featured in the festival’s main competition.
This year’s line-up includes titles that have received plaudits at major festivals, including three Palme d’Or nominated films from this year’s Cannes Film Festival: Kleber Mendonca Filho’s Aquarius, Alain Guiraudie’s Staying Vetical, and Maren Ade’s crowd favourite Toni Erdmann, which clocked the highest ever score on Screen’s Cannes Jury Grid.
Also from Cannes is Pablo Larrain’s Neruda, which premiered in Directors’ Fortnight, while the programme includes Kirsten Johnson’s documentary Cameraperson, which recently won the top prize at Sheffield Doc/Fest.
Titles that premiered...
- 7/18/2016
- ScreenDaily
Exclusive: Chinese drama centres on the culture of hit-and-run incidents in the country.
Hong Kong-based Asian Shadows has picked up worldwide rights excluding China and North America to Johnny Ma’s Old Stone (Lao Shi), which premiered in the Forum strand of last month’s Berlin Film Festival.
The film, which marks Ma’s feature debut, follows a taxi driver in a small Chinese town who faces losing his job, friends and family after refusing to follow custom and do a hit-and-run.
Produced by C2M Media and Shanghai Junrui Cultural Communication Co, the film will receive its Asian premiere in the Young Cinema Competition at the upcoming Hong Kong International Film Festival (Hkiff). It also has two press and industry screenings at Filmart. Producers on the film include Wu Xianjian, Chi-an Lin, Jing Wang and Sarah Stallard.
Asian Shadows has also sold French rights to Wang Bing’s documentary Ta’ang, which also premiered...
Hong Kong-based Asian Shadows has picked up worldwide rights excluding China and North America to Johnny Ma’s Old Stone (Lao Shi), which premiered in the Forum strand of last month’s Berlin Film Festival.
The film, which marks Ma’s feature debut, follows a taxi driver in a small Chinese town who faces losing his job, friends and family after refusing to follow custom and do a hit-and-run.
Produced by C2M Media and Shanghai Junrui Cultural Communication Co, the film will receive its Asian premiere in the Young Cinema Competition at the upcoming Hong Kong International Film Festival (Hkiff). It also has two press and industry screenings at Filmart. Producers on the film include Wu Xianjian, Chi-an Lin, Jing Wang and Sarah Stallard.
Asian Shadows has also sold French rights to Wang Bing’s documentary Ta’ang, which also premiered...
- 3/15/2016
- by lizshackleton@gmail.com (Liz Shackleton)
- ScreenDaily
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