Li Xuejian Movies
Coinciding nicely with the 50th anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic of China, director Chen Guoxing's Heng Kong Chu Shi ("Roaring Across the Horizon") chronicles China's entry into the nuclear arms race of the 1950s and '60s, and offers a nationalistic look at the attitude towards foreign influences. Heng Kong Chu Shi focuses on the stories of two individuals--Lu Guangda (Li Youbin), a physicist in charge of a group of scientists developing a nuclear bomb, and General Feng Shi (Li Xuejian), whose job is finding an appropriate nuclear testing site. While working on the bomb, Lu (Youbin) is forced to be separated from his wife, and eventually forms a unique relationship with Feng (Xuejian). The title itself comes from Chinese poet Mao Zedong), and the movie implies that China would not have started a nuclear program had they not been concerned about the anti-communist threat coming from America and other countries.
~ Tracie Cooper, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Li Youbin, Li Xuejian, (more)
A man stretching the truth for his own sake soon begins doing the same for someone else, with increasingly complicated results, in this gentle comedy from China. Zhao (Zhao Benshan) is a guy in his early fifties who's out of work but still wants to marry his girlfriend (Dong Lifan). However, his often cranky sweetheart thinks he runs a hotel, and Zhao is trying to keep the illusion alive with the help of his pal Li (Li Xuejian) by turning an abandoned bus into a "love hotel" for couples who lack privacy in their homes. But business isn't all that good, since the old-fashioned Zhao asks unmarried couples to keep their doors open to ensure nothing untoward happens. As Zhao tries to convince his girlfriend to walk down the aisle with him -- and struggles to raise the money she demands first -- she introduces him to Wu Jing (Dong Jie), the blind teenage stepdaughter she inherited from her marriage to her now-deceased first husband. The woman insists that Zhao give Wu Jing a job in his hotel; since the bus/hotel has been towed away, this isn't a practical possibility. Zhao and Li put Wu Jing through a fake job interview to keep up appearances, and when she breaks down in tears talking about her deadbeat father, he decides he has to do something for her. Zhao moves Wu Jing into his home, and with the help of his friends, sets up a phony massage therapy center where Wu Jing works with the "clients" -- actually Zhao's friends, most of whom are also unemployed. But the bigger and more complex the illusion becomes, the harder it is to maintain, though Zhao feels compelled to do so for the sake of the girl's feelings. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Zhao Benshan, Dong Jie, (more)
A lavishly produced historical drama from China, Jing Ke Ci Qin Wang/The Emperor and the Assassin tells the complex, multi-facetted story of the man who became the first Emperor of a unified China, another man who has sworn to kill him, and a woman who is loved by both men. Late in the Third Century B.C., when China was comprised of seven rival kingdoms, Ying Zheng (Li Xuejian) was the leader of Qin. Ying Zheng had a dream in which he joined together the seven kingdoms into a single utopian state, and taking this as a mandate from God, he invaded the nearby state of Han as the first step toward this goal. However, not everyone in the neighboring states was happy with Ying Zheng's crusade, which seemed to indicate a lengthy war with many casualties. Lady Zhao (Gong Li), Ying's lover, devised a scheme to help Ying Zheng take over the nearby and uncooperative state of Yan; she fabricated a fake assassination plot against him, and framed the leader of Yan, once Ying Zheng's childhood friend, as the man behind the murderous plot. However, Lady Zhao did not choose the would-be assassin wisely; while Jing Ke (Zhang Fengyi) loved her and was willing to do her bidding, Jing Ke's previous assassination assignment caused the unintended death of an innocent blind girl, which left him full of regret and a bit unstable. When Jing Ke learned a closely guarded secret about Ying Zheng's past, he became blindly determined to kill the would-be emperor, whatever the cost. Produced on a lavish budget by Chinese standards ($15 million), Jing Ke Ci Qin Wang/The Emperor and the Assassin was directed by Chen Kaige, best known to Western audiences for the international success Farewell My Concubine. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Gong Li, Zhang Fengyi, (more)
Tian Zhuangzhuang, a charter member of China's politically beleaguered, so-called Fifth Generation of Directors (along with Ju Dou's Zhang Yimou), made this film about the gradual disintegration of an entire family targeted by Mao's political reformation movements of the '50s and '60s. Told in a series of three stories, the audience sees the little boy Tietou and his mother try and try again to rebuild their lives from the ashes left them by the madness of the era. Director Tian works from a palette of primary colors on widescreen images that are often fixed in an icy-white Kubrickian glare of omnipresent paranoia. Yet much of The Blue Kite is resplendent with palpable signs of ordinary life: noisy kids, happy weddings, loud mealtimes. Tian amplifies the human element of these heady days, so that viewers may genuinely feel the humanity ripped from this story as events overtake and shatter all hope. ~ Tom Keogh, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Lu Liping, Pu Quanxin, (more)
- 1992
The news that his first wife was pregnant with a child when they separated some ten years ago comes to official photographer Cao Depai (Li Xuejian) like a thunderbolt out of the blue. Now she is dead, and the son that he never knew was found wandering the streets. He is afraid to tell his new wife about this extra mouth to feed, and at first he attempts to house the lad at his darkroom. However, the boy sneaks visits to his father's current home frequently in order to play with his step-siblings, and eventually they are discovered together. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Li Xuejian, Song Dandan, (more)
