Cinema Regained: Rediscovering the 4th Generation
Overview of films
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A Narrow Lane Celebrity
A brilliant, blackly comic script and the subtle comic genius of star Zhu Xu mark this as one of the best tragi-comedies of post-liberation Chinese
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The Alley
A disconcerting and exhilarating attack on both narrative cinema and politically repressive master narratives. A victim of persecution pitches a sc
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Little Flower
Wound up to a maximum fever pitch, fusing melodrama, romance and war epic, Little Flower is a big movie in every sense. Joan Chen became a star for
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At the Beach
A hidden masterpiece: one part rural elegy, one part urban romance, forged together in an editing tour de force. Rarely screened in China or outsid
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My Memories of Old Beijing
One of the greatest works of Chinese cinema, this lyrical masterpiece recreates 1920s Beijing through the eyes of a preternaturally intelligent you
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Evening Rain
Wu Yigong transmutes political protest into lyric poetry in this tale of the poet Qiushi, who is captured by Cultural Revolution radicals, travelli
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Sacrificed Youth
This lyrical, gently eroticised coming-of-age drama of a young Chinese woman ‘sent down’ to live in an ethnic minority village in remot
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Troubled Laughter
Absurdist political melodrama with experimental flourishes. A reporter dedicated to truth is lured into a nightmare of political propaganda from wh
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River Without Buoys
Intense, visceral, powerfully physical, this is a tale of three tough survivors sailing a lumber raft past villages caught up in political violence
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Black Snow
Urban alienation and despair mark this dark, politically daring story of an ex-con (the great Chinese actor Jiang Wen) with no home to return to. X
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Woman Demon Human
A powerfully unorthodox story of an opera actress whose onstage persona is the male underworld god Zhong Kui. Part biopic, part fantasy, part moder
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In the Wild Mountains
Two mismatched farming couples experience both sexual and social change in 1980s China. Husband-swapping and entrepreneurial zeal fuse in this supe