Action! - Yimou: Vivid Emotions Amongst The Stunning

Haven’t seen none of Zhang’s films following Red Lantern all the way to Hero so I can’t tell if this is a coincidence or a pattern. But basically we have yet another smaller in scale and slow burn feature where he abandons a lot of the stunning visuals and entrancing story for something more intimate. A lot of it is shot in an almost docu-style, which often than not lends the film a bigger sense of realism, which in many ways heightens this rather human story. Gong Li once again teams up with the director for another winning collaboration in which the actress gets to deliver yet another performance in which she…

Or "Zhang Yimou goes neorealist." The deliberately thin, er, story is, in some ways, merely a springboard for the Fifth Generation Chinese filmmaker to try a new stylistic approach from his usual extravagant color melodramas, one that favors documentary-style realism and observational detours while still bound to a central narrative. If anything, the vivid textures are what one might come away remembering the most from The Story of Qiu Ju: Country and city life, for instance, are depicted with such immediacy and attention to detail that one can feel the contrasts between both in one's bones, while Zhang uses clever repetitions of shots and music to suggest lives governed partly by habit.

Still, the actual story Zhang tells in the…

Zhang Yimou certainly has a fondness for stubborn heroines, and Qiu Ju is no exception. In this film, an average Chinese farmer’s wife decides to rebel against both the patriarchy and the political system, resulting in an equally inspiring and gritty urban dramedy that captures Chinese realism cinema at its peak.

Gong Li, the legendary Chinese acting chameleon, takes on the titular role of an "earthy" housewife whose naïveté reminds me of Not One Less. Zhang's deep understanding of down-to-earth characters allows him to craft a twisty, engaging, and politically subversive story that challenges the Chinese status quo, all while featuring a female protagonist who unapologetically rocks the world of cinema. This film feels like a bridge between Iranian realism…

A remote rural village in northern China where locals work cultivating chili during the harsh winter is the setting for this story about a pregnant peasant facing bureaucracy in search of justice after her husband is beaten by the village chief. In the background we observe the great social transformations that took place in China in the early 1990s with the eternal dichotomy between the countryside and the city, the demographic explosion, traditions, and the chaos of contemporary life.

The Story of Qiu Ju recounts the individual's struggle against the system and the great strength of a young woman who does not give up in the face of adversity. The personal deed taken from the private sphere to the public…

"I just wanted an apology. That's all I wanted, nothing more"

The Story of Qiu Ju is the first film from Yimou that I've sat down with and sort of had a hard time with. Packed with pride and a consistent following of a pregnant Gong Li moving back and forth between her countryside home and the bustling movement of the big city it begins to wear on you. Surprisingly this doesn't keep me from enjoying it to a good extent. The slowness does creep in but I never felt disengaged.

As a result of her husband being kicked in the nuts by the village chief, Li goes on a quest fueled for her need to have someone hold him…

Or: www.youtube.com/watch?v=voOQ-Fph7Fc

Any film that revolves the plot around a guy getting kicked in the nuts=me laughing my ass off on the inside. Most of this film is built on absurdity—the repeated journeys back and forth to higher systems of authority, all that exploit people that don't understand how the legal system work. Would have enjoyed more if I wasn't feeling burnt out on art house master shot (there's only one close-up in the film, which is Gong Li's face that—wait for it—is of course a freeze frame (!) for the final shot). But that's unfair to judge Zhang on that so we'll leave it there.

Gonna skip to my qualm here, because the strengths are quite obvious to anyone…