Han Sanping Movies

Inevitably recalling director Chen Kaige's 1993 masterpiece, the international smash Farewell, My Concubine, the sumptuous period epic Forever Enthralled (originally and more elegantly given the eponymous biographical title Mei Lanfang) dramatizes the life of Lanfang (Leon Lai), widely regarded as one of the most legendary opera performers in all of Chinese history. Though a male, Lanfang built his reputation on the basis of outstanding performances as female characters, and in fact, lived out his private life buckling under the weight of repressed emotions. Kaige structurally divides the epic into segments. The film commences with a 70-minute sequence that depicts Mei's reaction to a letter from his uncle, cautioning him against the dangers of an operatic career; in the years that follow, Mei recoils from social rules (wrought by his chosen profession) that severely restrict his actions. The narrative then moves forward in time by a decade, to a point where Mei has somehow managed to bound over the said limitations and establish himself as the single most popular opera star in all of China. Conflict lingers, however -- present in Mei's repeated on-stage duels with the performer Swallow 13 (an apocryphal character who represents a composite of several real-life figures), whose style is the polar opposite of his own. Kaige then moves ahead in time to explore Mei's efforts to juggle a second marriage to Fu Zhifang (Chen Hong) and his relationship with his manager, Oju Rubai (Sun Honglei), whose passion for Mei's on-stage craft (and, possibly, a desire for Mei himself) know no bounds. Sadly, a pitfall to Mei's familial security soon presents itself in the form of a young female admirer, Meng Xiaodong (Zhang Ziyi) with whom he lapses into a love affair. ~ Nathan Southern, All Movie Guide

Within the scope of Asian history, few events carry the ugly and sickening connotations of the Rape of Nanking. Japanese forces invaded that Chinese city on December 9, 1937, and in the six weeks to follow, soldiers raped thousands of women and annihilated hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians. Director Lu Chuan directs this black-and-white, docudrama account of that horrifying six-week period, with the benefit of an ensemble cast that includes Hideo Nakaizumi as a conscience stricken Japanese soldier, Fan Wei as the aid to a German humanitarian worker and Gao Yuanyuan as the head of a refugee camp. Chuan relays the events directly and straightforwardly, with a careful avoidance of sensationalism and excessive sentimentality, and uses the chronicle to meditate on the insanity of war for all of those involved. ~ Nathan Southern, All Movie Guide

Invisible Target director Benny Chan draws inspiration from the 2004 English-language thriller Cellular for this tense tale of a self-centered debt-collector who risks his life to rescue a desperate mother and her young daughter. Bob (Louis Koo) is a single father with a dead-end job as a debt collector. Essentially an easygoing, helpful guy, Bob tries in earnest to perform well in his new position while dealing attempting to clean up his act so his sister won't move to China with his son. He's making progress too, so when he receives a frantic phone call from a woman named Grace who claims she's been kidnapped, he reports the disturbing call to the local police. Although the detective on duty dismisses the call as a prank, Bob's instincts tell him differently and he quickly makes the decision to investigate. Realizing that he's the only personal capable of saving Grace and her daughter from a painful demise, Bob prepares to risk everything - including his own family - in order to save two people he's never met, and may not even exist. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide

Love, politics, and loyalty threaten to tear apart three soldiers in this lavish historical epic from Hong Kong. In 1870, the power of the corrupt Qing Dynasty has been threatened by the rise of a revolutionary army, led by religious fanatics, and civil war is tearing the nation apart. Pang Qingyun (Jet Li), a good man who finds himself fighting for the Qing leadership, is one of the only survivors of a bloody battle in between revolutionaries and Qing troops, and is looking for someplace to go when he's offered shelter by a beautiful peasant woman, Lian (Xu Jinglei). Pang and Lian spend the night in each others arms, and he finds himself falling in love with her. Pang sets out to make his way home when he's befriended by Zhao Erhu (Andy Lau) and Jiang Wuyang (Takeshi Kaneshiro), a pair of bandits. When Jiang is attacked in an ambush, Pang helps save his life, and the three men become blood brothers in a gory ritual. Pang convinces Jiang and Zhao to join him in the fight against the revolutionaries, and with their help Pang is able to achieve some impressive victories. However, when Pang allows his own ego and dreams of glory to override his common sense and loyalty, Zhao and Jiang come to distrust their ally, and matters become worse when it is revealed that Lian is Zhao's wife. Tou Ming Zhuang (aka The Warlords) was a major box-office success in China and Eastern Asia before making its way to theaters in Europe and the United States. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

One Night in Mongkok director Derek Yee takes a trip into the underworld with this crime drama starring Andy Lau, Lewis Koo, Daniel Wu, and Anita Yuen. An undercover cop infiltrates a major heroin ring, skillfully ascending the ranks from low-level dealer to middle management. After falling for a beautiful addict, the policeman is hand picked by the ailing crime boss to take over the entire syndicate once he's gone. His priorities blurred by an infernal combination of money, power, and seven years undercover, the cop chosen to clean up the streets finds his true identity gradually slipping away as a malevolent new persona begins to take hold. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide

Love and war leads to conflicted alliances between two couples in this period romantic drama from China. In 1937, Lu Ping (Chen Kun) is a barber working in Shanghai as his nation is locked in a war with Japan. While Lu Ping is in love with a beautiful singer, Yu Mian (Wang Yajie), when he mistakenly kills a Japanese GI he is forced to leave her and hide from the law in a remote village. Song Fengnian (Ren Guangzhi), whose brother ran the shop where Lu worked, agrees to take him in, and he gets to know Song's daughter, an alluring young woman named Jiayi (Zeng Li) who is engaged to marry Ye Jiangtian (Liu Guanjun), a man on track to become a career military officer. Lu forgets all about Yu Mian when he meets Jiayi, and she seems to be taken with him. However, Ye can offer Jiayi a financial stability Lu cannot, and she cannot bring herself to break off her engagement. When the war comes to an end in 1945, Lu returns to Shanghai, and resumes his romance with Yu Mian. However, Ye and Jiayi soon relocate to Shanghai as well, and as Lu and Jiayi try to channel their mutual attraction into a friendship, Ye begins an affair with Yu. Lifashi (aka The Music Box) was the final feature film for Chen Yifei; he died before final work could be completed on the picture, and his friend and colleague Ng See-yuen stepped in to finish the project. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

A woman's tainted family history proves to be both a blessing and a curse in this drama from Chinese-American filmmaker Ann Hu. Fei (Zhou Xun) is a young woman who was born as a result of an extra-marital dalliance by her father, the wealthy Master Li. When Master Li dies while Fei is away at school, she returns home to pay her respects. At the reading of his will, Fei learns that Li's final wishes have specified she must continue her education at the same school as Ying (Vivian Wu), her half-sister, and that the two girls must share a home. Fei is not happy with this new arrangement; Ying makes no secret of her dislike of Fei, while many of Fei's new classmates regard her as a nuevo riche who has rejected her proletarian roots. Fei meets Huang (Wang Zhiwen), Ying's rich but rebellious boyfriend, and finds herself becoming deeply infatuated with him; Ying, aware of her half-sister's feelings, insists that Huang set a date and marry her as soon as possible to bring their budding romance to an end. Mei Ren Yi Jiu (aka Beauty Remains) received its North American premiere at the 2005 Los Angeles Film Festival. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

Ma Liwen's You and Me offers a tale of unlikely friendship between a student and her landlord. Living away from her rural home for the first time, Xiaoma (Gong Zhe) puts up with her hard-nosed landlord who goes by the name Grandma. As she moves in, the two battle constantly over money, but soon Grandma attempts to fix her tenant up with her grandson. Their animosity alters into a deeply felt friendship. ~ Perry Seibert, All Movie Guide

A schizophrenic photographer becomes convinced that he murdered his cheating wife before disposing of her body in a cello case in director Zhang Bingian's blackly comic psychological shocker. As the lines between the conscious and the subconscious gradually begin to blur, madness begins to infect the mind of the deeply disturbed shutterbug (Ge You) who can't quite distinguish reality from fantasy. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide