Chinese Films
I've been struggling to find interesting Chinese films to watch. It's hard, having to rely on the DVD shopkeeper girls to recommend films to me. I found this list online, of the “100 strongest films of Asia”. The way they’ve compiled it seems pretty basic though – essentially picking out the big name films produced each year since 1935 or something. Still, it's a good base for me to start from, to watch some of the old classics.
The list on the web isn't quite up to date. In any case, here's a list of the films from this area I've enjoyed to date:-
- Eat Drink Man Woman - Taiwanese, Food culture & old people
- A One and a Two - Taiwanese I think, family culture
- Shower - Chinese, chinese village equivalent of the corner store vs. supermarket development
- Hero - Chinese, epic, traditional chinese values and kung fu culture
- Together - Chinese, countryside violin prodigy comes to the city(http://www.monkeypeaches.com/henizaiyiqi.html)
- Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon, epic
- House of flying daggers, kung fu romance - loyalty/love/betrayal/war story
- The Last Emperor - not even sure if this is in Chinese, but it's good history
- Farewell my concubine (classic)
- Raise the red lantern (fascinating - ancient family traditions and polygamy)
I'm also hoping to find films or TV series shot in Shanghai. There seem to be a few in Shanghai, Taipei, Hong Kong... but I'd love to see something shot here - a snapshot of Shanghai at some other point in time.
Here's another list - "best chinese films of the 90s" http://www.chinesecinemas.org/90slist.html
posted by Kai @ 11:21 AM
2 comments
2 Comments:
If you're up for a challenge, I recommend taking on a soap opera. I find them much more engrossing than movies. The multiple episode format just creates so many more plot possibilities.
Of course, there are good and bad. My first try was a bullseye: "Chinese-Style Divorce" (中国式离婚) kept me hooked because of the high tension marital drama. On the other hand, my girlfriend recommended Haoxiang Haoxiang Tanlian'ai (好想好想谈恋爱), a Sex In The City knock-off that was well done but waaaay over my head language-wise. Best to stock to dramas, and away from comedies.
Hi Micah
Thanks for this! I also had a shot at Chinese Style Divorce, as recommended by a friend. Good drama, but I stopped after the first five hours or so - the story looked to be of excellent quality, but was failing to keep my attention span.
Since then I've been watching very much more shallow dramas, either because it's young beautiful people having affairs with each other (where pretty much every hour has several interesting story developments, e.g. the singapore based drama that has been on the lifestyle channel recently), or stories with lots of controversy (such as the one on CBN recently with a wealthy family who's daughter turns out to have been fathered by a gambling addicted worker hand who subsequently blackmails the family and attempts to kidnap her.)
Most recently I've bought a few more - including Black Ice, and Vancouver I think. Quite a few. Hope to find time for them sometime. Ideally I think it'll be when I'm doing business travel, stuck in some hotel in the middle of nowhere!
That sex in the city thing sounds interesting - especially if it's a challenge language wise! I'm finding TV more enjoyable than hard learning now. It serves as excellent practice, sometimes gives me new vocab, but mostly it's relaxation in the chinese language environment.
For hard slog, I'm still going back to Chinese Style Management, by this old taiwanese chap. With business language and carefully thought through analysis, the vocab he uses is very different to day to day language.
Post a Comment
<< Home