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Cun xi (2017)
The storytelling matters more than the story
This film tells a pretty straightforward story, yet the narrative, the storytelling, is ingenious. That, along with the highly convincing acting of the madman by Zhibing Li (surprisingly, a nobody with zero track record) and the subtle yet ambitious cinematography (and innovative use of drones in a black and white film) by Dan Shao, amounts to a classic nearly reaching the height of Confessions (2010) which I consider to be the epitome of analepsis.
Of course, to reach such a height, the story itself needs to hold weight, but Bangzi Melody doesn't fall short, as all the elements, on a domestic, local and even national level, that push our protagonist to madness are gradually revealed...and then some. The social pressure, indifference, and betrayal are shocking, and utterly chilling to the bone.
The sparse and careful use of color elements tip a hat to Schindler's List, but execution is a little rough and in my opinion doesn't entirely serve its purpose in all of the scenes where they're used, but in a blanket "Should color have been used in this film, yes or no", my answer would still be a "yes", as it heightens the atmosphere in a few critical scenes.
The film is very deliberate in recreating a rural village in China in the middle of nowhere, back in the 70s. Everything is old, the interior and exterior environments, the people and their thinking, their language, etc. Watchful as I am, I can't find anything to fault. If I really have to say, then the acting of some of the supporting actors may have been a little comical, but considering how bizarre some of the scenes were and the dark comedy delivered through the madman, that may have been intentional.
The literally people-eating fervor and political oppression during the Cultural Revolution is masterfully conveyed, and the tightly-knit miniature society of rural China starkly contrasts with the cowardice, selfishness, and ingratitude of the poorly educated peasants. This is a masterpiece.
Bao lie wu sheng (2017)
Well-executed thriller that gets more interesting in afterthought
I wouldn't quite call it the best Chinese film I've seen this year--that would be BangZi Melody, but it does follow a recent trend of improvement and innovation in Chinese cinematography I haven't seen in many years. Still, domestic reception is lukewarm, while crappy Jingoistic popcorn films like Wolf Warrior and Operation Red Sea get showered in praise, but that just means China is in lack of good audiences--which can't be helped in the short term, not good filmmakers. The censorship obviously isn't helping, but in the case of this film, doesn't seem a huge hindrance either.
The start of the film felt a little puzzling, but I unfortunately missed the first 3-5 minutes of the film, and judging from the rest of the film, that could mean a lot. Good thing it didn't prevent me from following the rest of the plot, and the way background information is delivered little by little, subtly and naturally, I find to be a common characteristic of all good drama.
Our mute protagonist's acting is a notch above Chinese popcorn films, somewhere around Youth(a.k.a Fang Hua)'s level, and most of the other acting is held to a decent standard. The children's acting is above average by Chinese standards and was a pleasant surprise. The only notable exception seems to be the two attorneys near the beginning and the interrogators at the end of the film, all part of the judicial system. They were like marionettes...this seems to have deeper implications?
The story unfolds steadily; the dark comedy throughout most of the film aptly complements the grand concept. I was confused about the name at first(the Chinese name is no less confusing than the English version), but when you grasp the grand concept, you'll have an understanding of the name, but even then there may be multiple layers to the meaning or multiple interpretations. The film also used a few Chinese metaphors graphically, but that unfortunately means that the international audience will probably miss it. One universal symbol though is the money; if you follow the money, the nature of all the characters could be determined...I hope this doesn't count as a spoiler. Overall, there are few useless shots--they either build characters and fill in the background, which in turn contribute to the grand concept, or deliver the clues necessary in a thriller. Speaking of clues, they're quite well hidden, and sometimes cleverly misleading, that's why the film would seem well-executed the more you think about it afterhand.
TheBigSick is a reviewer that left me a deep impression by giving a 9 to Operation Red Sea; this same reviewer now comes over and rants about "too many plot holes" in Wrath of Silence. IMDB should consider adding an IQ test to help add credibility to user reviews.
Orphan Black (2013)
Inconsistent quality across seasons
I watched the first 3 seasons then tossed it aside when I lost patience waiting for the release of season 4. Now I just finished season 4 but I'm not particularly impressed.
The first 2 seasons had a more clever plot and the Sarah character was better acted out. On the third season we see the quality starting to slip. The show starts to drag a little and Sarah sometimes suddenly freaks out with insufficient context, and by that I mean she seems a weaker and more temperamental character than she seemed in the first 2 seasons, and there wasn't a gradual change to explain that, it just started pretty soon after the start of season 3, turns out they had a whole bunch of producers and had adjustments to staff every season, maybe that explains it.
I remember more of the season I just watched so I can give some more examples about the quality of the plot. When Cosima finished her research and got locked out of the computer, she went without any precautions to approach Susan when she was having a call, and consequently got locked up, why? She was sick, half dead, and she would approach Susan, somebody who plotted against her, unarmed and unprepared? What on earth was she hoping to achieve besides getting herself locked up or even worse?? When Sarah put down her gun when approaching the wounded Susan I immediately suspected something was wrong, it was stupid and careless of her, and her running away from a crippled Rachel instead of kicking her hard and repeatedly with her good leg was pretty unconvincing. Right after that, S and Kira got caught by Ferdinand, which happened because they chose to stay at a compromised location instead of the safehouse, which was in fact left empty at the time except maybe Krystal was still there?
Also, the science is far from sound...a gamete from one set of genome of a chimera with a gamete from the other...always makes half of the chimera, not the whole two sets. It's not gonna save anybody, or if you make 5 sets of those statistically you should have ~97% of the whole genome and you could just pray that the cure isn't in the other 3%?
Morally speaking, the whole idea of this series is also just another naïve smear on eugenics. Some people go on blabbering about "you don't know what perfection is" or something about diversity being absolutely and indisputably good, then why are there mitochondria treatments? The simple truth here is that without the treatment there will be no viable offspring, but the treatment is already a part of eugenics, because one set of mitochondria DNA is designated "good" and another "bad", and the "good" is used to replace the "bad", so here these people stop arguing about "diversity".
From here there's no fundamental difference from treating any other hereditary diseases. I argue for free will, people should be allowed to alter their DNA to their free will, if their choices result in "conformity" and not diversity, then it's just where we're lead to.
Hong hai xing dong (2018)
4-Star B-Grade Exploitation Film, 3 Stars Deduced for Propaganda. (minimal spoilers)
First off, I watched this in China, the domestic version may differ slightly from the international version.
Another thing is that I typed over 3300 words on Word (I was expecting 4000+ if I'd finished fleshing it out) before remembering to check if there's a character limit, turns out there's only 10000 characters allowed on IMDB, so I decided to leave out all the details (therefore the spoilers) and I'll see if I eventually get to post the full version elsewhere
The film, if we could call it one, is terrible.
The plot, was very shallow. The fact that the editing often comes across half a beat off and that some corny acting went uncorrected further distracts you from the plot.
About half of the shooting scenes, which would be about an hour of the film length, don't serve any purpose. Whatever messages the director was trying to send, however powerful the Chinese military is, however much it cares about Chinese nationals, how it protects even local civilians, how China respects human rights...he could've sent them within half the action sequences, the rest are highly redundant, and all the while we still see an astonishing lack of character depth.
In fact, the film is long enough, or its priorities messed up enough, that it sent conflicting messages. I could see the director torn between satisfying the audience's taste for gore (or his own...?) under censorship that by principle doesn't allow anywhere near as much gore, (only exception being "official gore", with connections to the Party), the Chinese Navy's (major sponsor) demand for a flaunt of force, with emphasis on yet how *lawful* (stab at the US) the Chinese military is, the Party's need for promoting its same old nationalism, displaying China's culturally traditional collectivism, and still coming around to develop China's own personal heroism, and last of all the most basic requirement of piecing all that together into a workable plot.
All the characters, from both sides, were also very shallow. The precious few attempts at character building amount to a really short prelude, above that awfully wanting from a constructive standpoint; a line or two of dialogue not (directly) regarding cutting down the enemy or a fleeting shot or two of not (directly) combat-related details every 15-20min, and those mostly fail to serve their purpose due to lack of a proper build-up beforehand, lack of convincing acting, or because of improper timing, in turn due to the subpar editing here and there and the plainly bad script. And there were...about 2 attempts in all of the films 2 hours or so to try to build a significant and rememberable antagonist. Don't watch this if you're looking for the human element in an action film, you may be better off watching a bunch of Terminators. At least they're just rigid, not embarrassing and even mildly amusing when they're actually trying to move you.
The film is supposedly based on an evacuation of Chinese nationals from Yemen by the military. In reality, they didn't fire a single shot, yet this film is all about depicting in detail the Jiaolong squad of eight cutting down hundreds and hundreds of rebels/terrorists, and they still had the audacity to state during PR sessions and at the end of the film that this is "based on real events". That's about as real as shooting Resident Evil based on a regular flu season.
Hell, it's hardly even realistic. It got so much praise back in China about the supposed "realism", but it's actually the *surrealism* to this film that most strongly bothers me. People don't die when they're supposed to (protagonists survive 155mm howitizer shells, and more), and die when they're not (the Stinger's limited homing capabilities means it doesn't turn around for a second pass when it misses). It resembles a spatter film more than a realistic war film like Dunkirk. Dunkirk's main problem is the size of the bullet holes, but this has magnitudes more problems in ballistics, in human biology, in basic battle tactics and rules of engagement, etc.
About the three deduced stars for propaganda, this freak show of assorted deaths got 8.5 on Douban and 9.5 on Maoyan, and while Maoyan's crawling with paid trolls(the way that system's built, you may not even need actual trolls to alter the rating), far beyond salvation, and most Chinese know that, this is new for Douban. Douban's been mostly neutral, mostly filled with decently educated people up until recently, so it's one of the very few forums under surveillance of the Chinese government whose collective opinion actually hold weight. Now, what does an 8.5 on Douban mean?
Leon the Professional: 8.4
Django Unchained: 8.5
The Dark Knight Rises: 8.6
I think by now most of us around the world have an idea what height that 8.5 stands for, a height this plotless logic-less surreal gore fest is surely unworthy of. So where does the propaganda come in? When the jingoististic Wolf Warriors 2, with the push of the Nanjing Area Command, netted a meager 7.0 on Douban last year (now slightly higher) despite a complete lack of challenge at the box office, China's Communist Youth League voiced specific discontent on its official Microblog. It's not difficult to make the connection that EVERYBODY, literally EVERY media outlet in China pulling out all the stops kissing Lam's ass and showering praise all over the film, sponsored by the Chinese Navy, is their doing.
What's supposed to be a B-grade, R-rated film (China doesn't rate films, so many children watched this), filled to brim with gore but sorely lacking in logic, plot, and character building, isn't for everyone, nor even for a majority. Yet bribe a few opinion leaders and a bunch of trolls (there's an abnormal surge of new users with zero activity giving 5 stars, which means 10.0 there) to the point where there's enough zombies brainwashed and hostile that they'll come register and vote and spam on their own at the first sight of criticism, and not enough independently thinking people fighting back, then there you go, 8.5 on Douban.
Because brainwash is contagious, the three stars deduced is part of my feeble personal attempt of vaccinating unwitting IMDB users from that brainwash. And yes, I already gave one star on Douban, there's no zero star option.