Cinema Regained: Rediscovering the 4th Generation
Overview of films
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The Alley
Yang Yanjin | 100' | China | None
A disconcerting and exhilarating attack on both narrative cinema and politically repressive master narratives. A victim of persecution pitches a scree -
At the Beach
Teng Wenji | 108' | China | None
A hidden masterpiece: one part rural elegy, one part urban romance, forged together in an editing tour de force. Rarely screened in China or outside, -
Black Snow
Xie Fei | 99' | China | None
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.… -
Evening Rain
Wu Yigong, Wu Yonggang | 80' | China | None
Wu Yigong transmutes political protest into lyric poetry in this tale of the poet Qiushi, who is captured by Cultural Revolution radicals, travelling -
In the Wild Mountains
Yan Xueshu | 105' | China | None
Two mismatched farming couples experience both sexual and social change in 1980s China. Husband-swapping and entrepreneurial zeal fuse in this superbl -
Little Flower
Huang Jianzhong, Zhang Zheng | 105' | China | None
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… -
My Memories of Old Beijing
Wu Yigong | 89' | China | None
One of the greatest works of Chinese cinema, this lyrical masterpiece recreates 1920s Beijing through the eyes of a preternaturally intelligent young -
A Narrow Lane Celebrity
Cong Lianwen | 86' | China | None
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… -
River Without Buoys
Wu Tian Ming | 89' | China | None
Intense, visceral, powerfully physical, this is a tale of three tough survivors sailing a lumber raft past villages caught up in political violence in -
Sacrificed Youth
Zhang Nuanxin | 92' | China | None
This lyrical, gently eroticised coming-of-age drama of a young Chinese woman ‘sent down’ to live in an ethnic minority village in remote southwestern -
Troubled Laughter
Yang Yanjin | 90' | China | None
Absurdist political melodrama with experimental flourishes. A reporter dedicated to truth is lured into a nightmare of political propaganda from which -
Woman Demon Human
Huang Shuqin | 106' | China | None
A powerfully unorthodox story of an opera actress whose onstage persona is the male underworld god Zhong Kui. Part biopic, part fantasy, part modernis