Farewell My Concubine

“Farewell My Concubine” is a literary film produced by Tomson Films Co., Ltd., adapted from Li Bihua’s novel of the same name. It is directed by Chen Kaige and written by Li Bihua and Lu Wei, starring Leslie Cheung, Gong Li and Zhang Fengyi. The film revolves around the half-century of joys and sorrows between […]

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Kung Fu Panda 3

The bumbling dragon warrior Po is back and he has got his biological father Li (Bryan Cranston), his adopted father, the furious five and a village of pandas with him. Visually thrilling and filled with heart, this third film in the Kung Fu Panda franchise is as endearing as its rotund hero. What was my […]

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Ne Zha

The top-grossing Chinese animated film of all time, about a demon-child superkid, proves that the blockbuster style is flowing around the globe. It’s not unusual to encounter an animated tale in which the hero is an incorrigible child (just look at “Boss Baby” or the Teen Titans). But the title character of “Ne Zha” is […]

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Monkey King: Hero Is Back

Dasheng, once imprisoned for 500 years for defying Buddha, must learn how to help children not get eaten by monsters in this PS2-esque Chinese tale. Monkey King: Hero is Back is a simple, entertaining movie tie-in game which feels like a lost PlayStation 2 title, with all the benefits and detriments that statement contains. Based on the Chinese animated […]

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A Bite of China

When the Chinese documentary series A Bite of China debuted in 2012, its bucolic scenes of mushroom gathering, mud fishing, and family reunions sparked something deep in the Chinese psyche. The food safety crises of the past decade were still fresh in the mind, along with the idea of urbanization robbing the country of its rich food […]

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The Last Emperor

Bernardo Bertolucci’s The Last Emperor is the story of Pu Yi, the last imperial ruler of China, crowned at the age of three, sheltered inside the Forbidden City through a constant wave of revolts and violent takeovers before becoming in turns an exile, despot, and gardener who treaded lightly as Mao’s cultural revolution took over the nation […]

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