The 11 Classic Chinese Films You Have to See Inline
Photo: Courtesy of Everett1/11Blind Shaft (2003)
If you’re a fan of film noir, you won’t want to miss **Li Yang’**s gripping tale set in and around the coal mines of China’s austere northwest. The story centers on two scam artists who murder miners, collect their insurance, and then blow the money. Relentlessly building to a startling climax, this gritty thriller—which raked in all manner of international awards—captures the amorality of a newly capitalist China where money is suddenly worth killing for.
Photo: Courtesy of Everett2/11Come Drink with Me (1966)
**King Hu’**s hugely enjoyable martial arts picture launched the whole cycle of kung fu films that led to Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. Centering on an inn during the Ming dynasty, it’s about the alliance between two brilliant martial artists—a warrior pretending to be a drunkard (Yueh Hua) and a young female knight, Golden Swallow, played by Cheng Pei-pei (who decades later would play Jade Fox in Crouching Tiger). The two band together to rescue a general’s kidnapped son. Filled with chivalry, good humor, balletic fighting sequences, and chivalrous motives, it feels as fresh today as it did half a century ago.
Photo: Courtesy of Everett3/11Farewell My Concubine (1993)
Sumptuous and operatic, **Chen Kaige’**s melodrama spans half a century of Chinese history from the mid-twenties to the mid-seventies. It’s the epic story of two young men who meet while studying at the Peking Opera, become fast friends, rise to stardom, then face one huge problem: Dieyi (Leslie Cheung) has fallen in love with Xiaolu (Zhang Fengyi) who himself marries a prostitute (Gong Li). Winner of the Palme d’Or at Cannes, this is a movie bursting with passion, betrayal, and the cruel handwriting of history, and it boasts an unforgettably good performance by the charismatic Cheung.
Photo: Courtesy of Everett4/11Flowers of Shanghai (1998)
Arguably the greatest filmmaker anywhere over the past 30 years, the Taiwanese director Hou Hsiao-Hsien reaches a pinnacle of delicacy in this ravishing, heartbreaking story about the high-class brothels, or “flower houses,” of late-nineteenth-century Shanghai, where wealthy men came for pleasures more complicated than sex. The beautiful women who draw them there can rise high—or plunge—depending on the men’s whims and the machinations of the other “flowers.” In capturing this gesture world where few things are ever spoken—nearly all the decisive action happens off-screen—Hou works with a refinement that you find only in the greatest artists. Imagine a novel by Henry James crossed with a painting by Vermeer.
Photo: Courtesy of Everett5/11In the Mood for Love (2000)
The most beloved film by Hong Kong director Wong Kar Wai, the artistic director of the “China: Through the Looking Glass” show, this tale of romantic longing is a masterpiece of style, from its dazzling costumes to its gorgeous choreography. Tony Leung and Maggie Cheung give richly moving performances as neighbors in an apartment building who, when their respective spouses spend time out of town, inexorably start falling in love. Driven by the most haunting musical theme in recent movies, Wong’s film has been voted by international critics one of the 25 greatest films of all time.
