Lim Giong Movies

When the state-owned Factory 420 becomes a luxury apartment complex known as "24 City," the stories of three generations and eight characters meld together to offer an intimate glimpse into the history of China. The line between documentary and fiction blurs as the towering factories on which socialism was built are dismantled and employees are laid off, paving the way for a free-market economy. Located in Sichuan's capital city of Chengdu, the 420 plant used to produce airplane engines. For more than 50 years, it was the center of life for hundreds of workers. Now, as builders prepare to transform the factory into luxury condos, interviews with real workers and ex-workers are intercut with vignettes about a lonely Shanghai woman (Joan Chen) exiled in Chengdu, a mother (Lu Liping) who lost her son on the long trip from Shenyang, and a young professional (Zhao Tao) pondering the uncertain fate faced by her elderly working-class parents. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide

Having previously explored the art of Liu Xiao-dong in his 2006 documentary Dong, filmmaker Jia Zhang Ke turns his lens on the Chinese fashion industry in order to explore the toll that time and money have taken on creativity to offer a compassionate look at the world's largest exporter of garments. In sprawling factories illuminated by neon, the laborers of the fashion industry compete with machines to turn out precision work in a timely manner. These people, as well as the struggling artisans who know that the laws of the new economy will likely force them to find work on the streets or in the coalmines, are the people who constant stand on the edge of a great abyss. In contrast to these tireless workers, Ke also visits with Ma Ke - the design director of innovative Chinese clothing brand Exception who has just debuted her latest brand Wu Yong (which translates into English as "useless") at Paris Fashion Week. Ke is a designer who draws on Taoist philosophy in order to create her groundbreaking creations, and describes Wu Yong is less prêt-à-porter, and more conceptual work of art. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide

Jia Zhang Ke's haunting minimalist drama Still Life (aka Sanxia Haoren) takes as its focal point the real-life construction of the Three Gorges Hydro Project and it accompanying massive dam over the Yangtze River in China (allegedly the largest manmade dam in the world) -- a project that required engineers to flood the surrounding territories, including the two millennia-old city of Fengjie. Jia interweaves two stories in connection with the geographical transformation of that area. In the first, Han Sanming (Han Sanming), a miner from northern China, revisits the vicinity after a 16-year absence and attempts to find his wife and his adult daughter -- trying to locate them at addresses that now exist underwater. In the second story, nurse Shen Hong (Zhao Tao) also returns to the site of Fengjie and scours the area for her husband, who has been estranged from her for two years, and who, it seems, has become consumed by the work and lifestyle of an executive. The marriage, it turns out, is irreparable. Meanwhile, as a documentary-style backdrop to these stories, the old structures of Fengjie are continually destroyed -- walls brought to crumbling heaps, towers blown to bits -- and new, makeshift structures installed as replacements. The film thus becomes a sad-eyed meditation on the nature of social change and progress, but it is one that requires the audience to extract these deeper themes and tropes on its own, via inference and deduction. ~ Nathan Southern, All Movie Guide

Chinese writer/director Jia Zhang Ke's The World is his fourth feature, but it's his first set in a major city, and the first film he's made with the cooperation of the Chinese government. The World is set at the eponymous amusement park in Beijing. Tao (Zhao Tao, who played the Mongolian King girl, Qiao Qiao, in Jia's Unknown Pleasures) is a dancer at the park, which contains scale replicas of landmarks from around the globe. "The Twin Towers were bombed on September 11," says Taisheng (Chen Taisheng), a security guard, proudly, pointing to a miniature New York City skyline, "but ours are still here!" Tao is dating Taisheng, who, like her, moved to Beijing from the provinces for work years earlier. Taisheng thinks Tao is just stringing him along until she finds somebody better, so he gets involved with another woman, Qun (Wang Yi-qun), who makes her living creating knockoffs of Western fashions. Xiaowei (Jing Jue), another dancer, also dates a security guard at the theme park. Niu (Jiang Zhong-wei) is extremely jealous and possessive, and constantly demands to know where Xiaowei spends her time. Youyou (Xiang Wan), who also performs at the park, is secretly dating the boss. When a group of Russian performers comes to work at the park, Tao befriends one of them, despite the language barrier. Friends of Taisheng arrive from the provinces, desperate for work. One of them is injured in a construction accident. The characters often communicate through text messages, which Jia displays in animated sequences. The World was shown by the Film Society of Lincoln Center at the 2004 New York Film Festival. ~ Josh Ralske, All Movie Guide

Two young people begin a tragic love affair against a backdrop of political turmoil in Lin Cheng-sheng's Xingfu Jinxingqu. In 1945, Taiwan is under Japanese occupation and Yu (Hsiao Shu-shen), a merchant's daughter who is a member of a theater troupe, falls in love with a musician named Jin (Lim Giong) who works with her group. However, Yu's father is not pleased, as he hopes she will some day wed Ren-chang (Yang Cai-hsia), the son of a prominent doctor. When Allied forces begin bombing Taiwan, the players are forced to disband, and Yu and Jin do not see each other for two years. When they do, a great deal has changed; the Kuomintang, under the leadership of Chiang Kai-shek, have established a Chinese-directed government in Taiwan, and local dialects are forbidden while residents are forced to speak Mandarin. Despite the new hardships, Yu and Jin renew their love and pledge to marry on Feb. 28, 1949 -- a day now remembered in Taiwan for a bloody massacre in which the Kuomintang forces attacked helpless Taiwanese citizens. Xingfu Jinxingqu was Lin Cheng-sheng's fourth film to be shown at the Cannes Film Festival, and his first to be screened in official competition. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

Hou Hsiao Hsien rounds out his loose trilogy on Taiwanese history -- The Puppet Master dealt with Japan's occupation of the island and City of Sadness focuses on Chiang Kai-shek's bloody occupation immediately following the war -- with this mediation on the anti-Communist campaign during the 1950s. The story is ostensibly about the real life events of Chiang Bi-yu (Annie Shizuka Inoh), who ventures to China with her new husband, Chung Hao-tung (Lim Giong), to join the anti-Japanese resistance along with three other friends. Once in China, they are immediately suspected of being Japanese spies and are almost executed. While working with the resistance, Chiang is forced to give up her first-born child -- the call of the motherland had no time for motherhood. When the war ends, they return to Taiwan. Chung takes a job as the principal of a school in the south of the island and starts a Marxist journal called the Enlightenment. As the Red Army swept down the Korean peninsula, Chiang Kai-shek -- at the behest of the Americans -- instituted the White Terror, which rooted out communists of every color. Soon Chung and Chiang are rounded up and brutally interrogated. Chiang is eventually released to her small brood of children while Chung is thrown against the wall and shot. Hou complicates this narrative by layering an additional story line about an actress, Liang Ching (also played by Annie Shizuka Inoh), who is rehearsing for a movie about the life of Chiang Bi-yu. Still reeling from the murder of her gangster boyfriend, Ah Wei (Jack Kao), three years previous, Liang is being faxed daily pages of her stolen diary, forcing her to confront her past. Soon the borders between the lives of Chiang and Liang become less and less distinct. This film was dubbed the single best film of the 1990s by Cahier du Cinema. ~ Jonathan Crow, All Movie Guide