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lancashi
Reviews
Wo de fu qin mu qin (1999)
Two notes on previous comments....
This is a wonderful and underrated film....
Just in response to some other posters, as someone currently living in China, I can testify that the Titanic poster is not anomalous. Titanic was extremely popular and continues to be so. Zhang Yimou may be highlighting the irony of Hollywood penetration of China, but the reference isn't really jarring: you still see Titanic merchandise in the oddest places.
Other commentators have fastened on the shallowness of the love story, yet miss that The Road Home is more a love story about the past than a specific romance. There is a scene near the beginning of the film when the son, told it will cost 4000RMB (~$500 USD) to hire the men to carry out the traditional funeral, nonchalently pulls 5000RMB from his pocket and hands it to the local cadre. Non-Chinese viewers may not appreciate that this is a very substantial sum of money: migrant workers in Beijing currently make about one-fifth of that monthly... and this is a much poorer mountain town. Among other contrasts, we see his great grandmother repair a broken bowl in part because it is cheaper than buying a new one.
There are many moments where The Road Home turns on itself to juxtapose the present and past. These are different worlds. The dramatic tension is caused by the viewer's curiosity over the demands of the mother, which are depicted as completely unrealistic at the beginning of the film. The climax comes with the acknowledgment and acceptance of her obligations by the son, and his filial efforts to address them in a way actually meaningful to her.
The end may be sentimental, but its detail in execution keeps it from being cloying or mawkish. Viewers who liked it and are looking for other excellent Chinese films about the emotional gap between present and past may enjoy "The Grass Hut" and "Balzac and the Little Seamstress".
Cannibal Women in the Avocado Jungle of Death (1989)
Sharp script and honest satire
I'm somewhat surprised at the low rating of this film.
Cannibal Women is a low-budget satire, and I thought a very funny and intelligent one. The script is absolutely fantastic. And the only reason I can imagine for the low reviews is that people either expected a (1) sexploitation flick with gratuitous nudity or (2) a polished adventure thriller in the Indiana Jones tradition. This is neither. It is a low-budget mix of "Heart of Darkness" and "Raiders of the Lost Ark" as transplanted to (of all things) feminist studies in southern California.
But it has genuine and unexpected laughs.