This review for “A Man of Integrity” was first published June 17, 2022, after its debut in New York City.
At a crucial point in Iranian filmmaker Mohammad Rasoulof’s blistering drama “A Man of Integrity,” a suffering friend of the main character says, “In this country, you’re either oppressor or oppressed. There are no other options.”
In the attempt of his beleaguered protagonist to live a third way — with values, unwilling to give in to corruption’s claws — lies the cloud-covered, Kafka-esque suspense of this seething, tense work.
Rasoulof is himself, to the cinema world, that code-driven figure, having been targeted by his country’s totalitarian regime for arrest (alongside Jafar Panahi in 2010), imprisonment, and a ban on filmmaking, and yet defiantly rolling cameras anyway. “A Man of Integrity” is from 2017 — its success at Cannes that year spurring the confiscation of his passport, and the aforementioned ban — and it...
At a crucial point in Iranian filmmaker Mohammad Rasoulof’s blistering drama “A Man of Integrity,” a suffering friend of the main character says, “In this country, you’re either oppressor or oppressed. There are no other options.”
In the attempt of his beleaguered protagonist to live a third way — with values, unwilling to give in to corruption’s claws — lies the cloud-covered, Kafka-esque suspense of this seething, tense work.
Rasoulof is himself, to the cinema world, that code-driven figure, having been targeted by his country’s totalitarian regime for arrest (alongside Jafar Panahi in 2010), imprisonment, and a ban on filmmaking, and yet defiantly rolling cameras anyway. “A Man of Integrity” is from 2017 — its success at Cannes that year spurring the confiscation of his passport, and the aforementioned ban — and it...
- 6/24/2022
- by Robert Abele
- The Wrap
A later-life love story of the gentlest kind, Li Ruijun’s “Return to Dust” is an absorbing, beautifully framed drama that makes a virtue — possibly too much a virtue — of simplicity. The story is straightforward: Two lonely middle-aged people, each barely tolerated by their more worldly family members, are pushed into an arranged marriage, which quietly blossoms into a companionable love match. The lead characters are simple, or are believed to be by their scornful neighbors, as they pursue a punishingly traditional farming lifestyle with only a long-suffering donkey to lighten the backbreaking load. Crops grow, seasons turn and anything too biting or topical or politically charged, the film simply avoids.
Li’s sixth feature unfolds in a small village in Gaotai (the director’s home region), which is being whittled away as its inhabitants move to the cities for work. The towering sand dunes nearby provide an evocatively dusty...
Li’s sixth feature unfolds in a small village in Gaotai (the director’s home region), which is being whittled away as its inhabitants move to the cities for work. The towering sand dunes nearby provide an evocatively dusty...
- 2/14/2022
- by Jessica Kiang
- Variety Film + TV
Society as a construct manifests itself, among other things, through a set of rules and boundaries, which, if we overstep them, may result in certain punishments. Even though we know these rules, those defined by an outside authority and those we make ourselves, there is a certain urge of breaking them. What sounds like an extract from a work about psychoanalysis is at the foundation of Zhang Qi’s feature debut “Singe Cycle”. What may seem outlandish or strange at first, he explains, is something we know from experience, the urge to look down the abyss and be fascinated about what may be at the ground. While there is something cryptic about his statement, there is no denying this fascination with “the abyss” is one of the themes of “Single Cycle”, an unusual family drama about loneliness, isolation and the desire to break out.
“Single Cycle” is screening at International Filmfestival Mannheim-Heidelberg
Many years ago,...
“Single Cycle” is screening at International Filmfestival Mannheim-Heidelberg
Many years ago,...
- 11/21/2020
- by Rouven Linnarz
- AsianMoviePulse
As a Tibetan director dedicated to illuminating, with love and insight, the everyday culture of his contested homeland, navigating China’s labyrinthine and often-changing filmmaking approval processes cannot be an easy task. And yet, over the course of now seven films, despite or possibly because of those restrictions, Pema Tseden has amassed the most quietly inspiring of filmographies, his novelist’s eye yielding storytelling far richer than just ethnography or social observation. His beautiful, funny and tragic newest film, “Balloon,” which follows the trail of his last, “Jinpa,” in premiering in the Venice Horizons sidebar before traveling on to Toronto, is a case in point — both , but alive always to the co-existence of the banal with the spiritual.
Three generations of a Tibetan farming family, represented by a grandfather (Konchok), father Dargye (Jinpa) and Dargye’s two rambunctious young sons (Druklha Dorje and Palden Nyima), are out on a hillock...
Three generations of a Tibetan farming family, represented by a grandfather (Konchok), father Dargye (Jinpa) and Dargye’s two rambunctious young sons (Druklha Dorje and Palden Nyima), are out on a hillock...
- 9/4/2019
- by Jessica Kiang
- Variety Film + TV
In “Tale of the Sea,” the drama of lyrical despair that’s the opening-night film of the 1st Iranian Film Festival New York, the venerable Iranian filmmaker Bahman Farmanara, who wrote and directed the movie and also stars in it, plays Taher, an esteemed novelist who has just spent three years in a mental institution. Farmanara, now in his mid-70s, has a hangdog scowl, small burning eyes, and a jowly fleshy severity that makes him look like a literary-lion version of Charles Laughton. You wouldn’t exactly say his face lights up with feeling, but that doesn’t mean he’s not expressing anything. He has a world-weariness that tips into tenderness, and the silent haunted demeanor of someone who has grown used to seeing ghosts.
Taher is known to his acolytes as “Maestro,” and that word speaks volumes about his changing place in society. Thirty years ago, it...
Taher is known to his acolytes as “Maestro,” and that word speaks volumes about his changing place in society. Thirty years ago, it...
- 1/10/2019
- by Owen Gleiberman
- Variety Film + TV
The announcement of the Asian Movie Awards has just been released with some big films and actors going against against each other to win the big awards. Some of these include Drug War (Louis Koo), Outrage Beyond, actors such as Choi Min-sik and Tony Leung Ka-fai, to Directors such as Takeshi Kitano and Lou Ye.
I do have a few favorites in this list and i feel best movie could go to Drug War and best actor should fall to Choi Min-sik (just brilliant in every movie).
Here is the list of nominations below, feel free to write your favorites in the comment box at the bottom of the page.
Best Film
“Drug War” (Mainland China)
“Gangs of Wasseypur, Part 1 & 2″ (India)
“Mystery” (Mainland China)
“Outrage Beyond” (Japan)
“Pieta” (South Korea)
Best Director
Anurag Kashyap, “Gangs of Wasseypur, Part 1 & 2″ (India)
Abbas Kiarostami, “Like Someone in Love” (Japan/France/Iran)
Kim Ki-duk,...
I do have a few favorites in this list and i feel best movie could go to Drug War and best actor should fall to Choi Min-sik (just brilliant in every movie).
Here is the list of nominations below, feel free to write your favorites in the comment box at the bottom of the page.
Best Film
“Drug War” (Mainland China)
“Gangs of Wasseypur, Part 1 & 2″ (India)
“Mystery” (Mainland China)
“Outrage Beyond” (Japan)
“Pieta” (South Korea)
Best Director
Anurag Kashyap, “Gangs of Wasseypur, Part 1 & 2″ (India)
Abbas Kiarostami, “Like Someone in Love” (Japan/France/Iran)
Kim Ki-duk,...
- 1/20/2013
- by kingofkungfu
- AsianMoviePulse
Four Indian films have been nominated for the 7th Asian Film Awards with Anurag Kashyap’s Gangs of Wasseypur leading the pack with four nominations: Best Film, Anurag Kashyap for Best Director, Wasiq Khan for Best Production Designer and Rajeev Ravi for Best Cinematographer.
In other nominations, Nawazuddin Siddiqui will compete for Best Supporting Actor for his work in Talaash, Anand Gandhi contends for Best Screenwriter for his debut film Ship of Theseus and Pritam Chakraborty vies for Best Composer Award for his melodies in Barfi!.
Andy Lau, a noted actor of Hong Kong will head the judging panel. A total of 30 films from nine countries will compete under 14 categories at the award function to be held on 18th March, 3013. The annual event is organised by the Hong Kong International Film Festival Society.
Full List of Nominations:
Best Film
Drug War (Mainland China)
Gangs of Wasseypur, Part 1 & 2 (India)
Mystery (Mainland...
In other nominations, Nawazuddin Siddiqui will compete for Best Supporting Actor for his work in Talaash, Anand Gandhi contends for Best Screenwriter for his debut film Ship of Theseus and Pritam Chakraborty vies for Best Composer Award for his melodies in Barfi!.
Andy Lau, a noted actor of Hong Kong will head the judging panel. A total of 30 films from nine countries will compete under 14 categories at the award function to be held on 18th March, 3013. The annual event is organised by the Hong Kong International Film Festival Society.
Full List of Nominations:
Best Film
Drug War (Mainland China)
Gangs of Wasseypur, Part 1 & 2 (India)
Mystery (Mainland...
- 1/17/2013
- by NewsDesk
- DearCinema.com
Amir, here, back with more coverage of new Tiff films. The Toronto International Film Festival is winding down but luckily I have a couple of big name movies still scheduled. Here's a few from the last two days.
Once Upon A Time In Anatolia (Nuri Bilge Ceylan)
This Cannes grand prix winner is a slow-paced police procedural in which a doctor, a prosecutor and a group of other police agents drag an alleged murderer along with them in the rural Anatolia region of Turkey so he can show them where he’s hidden his victim’s body. More than half of this gorgeously shot film is spent during the night and I for one wished the morning never came. Gokhan Tiryaki’s impeccable lighting and the varied range of shots he creates in the limitless but monotonous locale of the film easily tops my personal list of best cinematography of the year.
Once Upon A Time In Anatolia (Nuri Bilge Ceylan)
This Cannes grand prix winner is a slow-paced police procedural in which a doctor, a prosecutor and a group of other police agents drag an alleged murderer along with them in the rural Anatolia region of Turkey so he can show them where he’s hidden his victim’s body. More than half of this gorgeously shot film is spent during the night and I for one wished the morning never came. Gokhan Tiryaki’s impeccable lighting and the varied range of shots he creates in the limitless but monotonous locale of the film easily tops my personal list of best cinematography of the year.
- 9/16/2011
- by NATHANIEL R
- FilmExperience
The Golden Horse Awards were held last night. They're often thought of as the Chinese Oscars because the tradition goes back the furthest and honors a wide pool of Chinese language films from multiple countries (China, Hong Kong, Singapore, Malaysia, Taiwan, etcetera). Though neither Monga, Taiwan's submission for Oscar's Foreign Language Film competition, nor Aftershock (China's submission), were nominated for Best Picture they both had multiple nominations .
Monga, a popular youth crime drama we've mentioned before, won Best Actor for 28 year old Ethan Ruan (left), who amusingly brought a cardboard cutout of his co-star who was not nominated. And yes he brought the cutout with him onstage when he won. He said...
Woo! Sorry, I brought my buddy along. [mimicing his co-star] 'Hi everyone. I'm Mark Chao'...to big laughs from the crowd.
Here's the Best Actor presentation. The clips begin at 2:25 after Li BingBing and Tony Leung Ka Fai (yes,...
Monga, a popular youth crime drama we've mentioned before, won Best Actor for 28 year old Ethan Ruan (left), who amusingly brought a cardboard cutout of his co-star who was not nominated. And yes he brought the cutout with him onstage when he won. He said...
Woo! Sorry, I brought my buddy along. [mimicing his co-star] 'Hi everyone. I'm Mark Chao'...to big laughs from the crowd.
Here's the Best Actor presentation. The clips begin at 2:25 after Li BingBing and Tony Leung Ka Fai (yes,...
- 11/21/2010
- by NATHANIEL R
- FilmExperience
CANNES -- Lou Ye's Summer Palace is an intimate epic that works its way through recent Chinese political and social history, roughly from 1987-2001, by depicting young people's first taste of freedom and self-expression and its brutal suppression by authorities. That taste then changes course, embracing economic freedoms and greater productivity but at personal costs that lead to restless dissatisfaction and an emotional anguish that has never been resolved.
At the heart of the film is a powerful performance by the beautiful and most promising Hao Lei as its tempestuous, complex heroine. Captivating and infuriating to the men in her life, she seeks love again and again but never finds fulfillment for long. Her one great love is a grand folly, a love that challenges both lovers but will not yield to domestic bliss.
The film has a flaw in that it is far too long, a condition easily fixed with further editing. The more immediate problem is that this Chinese-French co-production may anger Chinese censors by screening in Cannes before obtaining their approval. The film could be denied exhibition in China and even overseas exposure. Certainly, the censors will find much to dislike not only in its graphic sex scenes but the entire Tiananmen Square sequence, which touches on what is still a forbidden topic in mainland China. You can only hope that this compelling film will at least get further exposure at international festivals.
Curiously, Lou situates the Tiananmen sequences -- which are the film's actual climax -- in the very middle. Of course, history did this, not Lou and his co-writers, Feng Mei and Ma Yingli. Nevertheless, this divides the story into two very different films.
The first is a heady, romantic tale of student life at Beijing University in the late '80s. Restless Hong Yu (Hao) leaves her boyfriend and village near the North Korean border to study in the capital. There she falls into a mad affair with fellow student Wei Zhou (Guo Xiaodong).
The two are compelled to jeopardize this love with dangerous games of sexual experimentation and one-upmanship. These sexual freedoms, the film implies, spill over into political unrest and demands for freedom and democracy. As students flock to the square in 1989 and flout social order, the film and the relationships of Yu, her lover, her girlfriend Li Ti (Hu Lingling) and her boyfriend Ruo Gu (Zhang Xianmin) boil over.
In the aftermath of the crushing of the democracy movement, the film traces the subsequent lives of these former students. Ti, Gu and eventually Zhou end up in Berlin. Yu drifts from lover to lover, finding that only in sex can she demonstrate her gentle, caring side.
Lou deliberately and bravely drains away the romantic fever of the first half for a more focused study in social compromises and encounters with Western culture and ideas. This is necessarily a more downbeat and sober story, one that could have used a quicker pace. Nevertheless, Lou has created a remarkable portrait of a headstrong woman and a generation of Chinese that still finds itself at a crossroads in that country's history.
Qing Hua's nervous, handheld camera plunges you into the thick of all the action, whether in school dorms or chaotic streets, and Peyman Yazdanian's Western-style musical score is somehow just right.
SUMMER PALACE
Dream Factory/Laurel Films/Rosem Films/Fantasy Pictures
Credits:
Director: Lou Ye
Screenwriters: Feng Mei, Ma Yingli, Lou Ye
Producers: Sylvain Bursztjen, Li Fang
Director of photography: Qing Hua
Production designer: Weixin Liu
Music: Peyman Yazdanian
Costumes: Katja Kirn
Editors: Lou Ye, Jian Zeng
Cast:
Hong Yu: Hao Lei
Wei Zhou: Guo Xiaodong
Li Ti: Hu Lingling
Ruo Gu: Zhang Xianmin
No MPAA rating
Running time -- 140 minutes...
At the heart of the film is a powerful performance by the beautiful and most promising Hao Lei as its tempestuous, complex heroine. Captivating and infuriating to the men in her life, she seeks love again and again but never finds fulfillment for long. Her one great love is a grand folly, a love that challenges both lovers but will not yield to domestic bliss.
The film has a flaw in that it is far too long, a condition easily fixed with further editing. The more immediate problem is that this Chinese-French co-production may anger Chinese censors by screening in Cannes before obtaining their approval. The film could be denied exhibition in China and even overseas exposure. Certainly, the censors will find much to dislike not only in its graphic sex scenes but the entire Tiananmen Square sequence, which touches on what is still a forbidden topic in mainland China. You can only hope that this compelling film will at least get further exposure at international festivals.
Curiously, Lou situates the Tiananmen sequences -- which are the film's actual climax -- in the very middle. Of course, history did this, not Lou and his co-writers, Feng Mei and Ma Yingli. Nevertheless, this divides the story into two very different films.
The first is a heady, romantic tale of student life at Beijing University in the late '80s. Restless Hong Yu (Hao) leaves her boyfriend and village near the North Korean border to study in the capital. There she falls into a mad affair with fellow student Wei Zhou (Guo Xiaodong).
The two are compelled to jeopardize this love with dangerous games of sexual experimentation and one-upmanship. These sexual freedoms, the film implies, spill over into political unrest and demands for freedom and democracy. As students flock to the square in 1989 and flout social order, the film and the relationships of Yu, her lover, her girlfriend Li Ti (Hu Lingling) and her boyfriend Ruo Gu (Zhang Xianmin) boil over.
In the aftermath of the crushing of the democracy movement, the film traces the subsequent lives of these former students. Ti, Gu and eventually Zhou end up in Berlin. Yu drifts from lover to lover, finding that only in sex can she demonstrate her gentle, caring side.
Lou deliberately and bravely drains away the romantic fever of the first half for a more focused study in social compromises and encounters with Western culture and ideas. This is necessarily a more downbeat and sober story, one that could have used a quicker pace. Nevertheless, Lou has created a remarkable portrait of a headstrong woman and a generation of Chinese that still finds itself at a crossroads in that country's history.
Qing Hua's nervous, handheld camera plunges you into the thick of all the action, whether in school dorms or chaotic streets, and Peyman Yazdanian's Western-style musical score is somehow just right.
SUMMER PALACE
Dream Factory/Laurel Films/Rosem Films/Fantasy Pictures
Credits:
Director: Lou Ye
Screenwriters: Feng Mei, Ma Yingli, Lou Ye
Producers: Sylvain Bursztjen, Li Fang
Director of photography: Qing Hua
Production designer: Weixin Liu
Music: Peyman Yazdanian
Costumes: Katja Kirn
Editors: Lou Ye, Jian Zeng
Cast:
Hong Yu: Hao Lei
Wei Zhou: Guo Xiaodong
Li Ti: Hu Lingling
Ruo Gu: Zhang Xianmin
No MPAA rating
Running time -- 140 minutes...
- 5/19/2006
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
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