After the big budget bombast of Hero, The House Of Flying Daggers and Curse of the Golden Flower it would appear that Zhang Yimou is well and truly back to being himself. And when being yourself means being the director of some of the most sensitive and compelling relationship dramas of your generation, well, that's a pretty good thing to be.
Yes, Yimou had one more typical film - the excellent Riding Alone For Thousands of Miles - tucked in the midst of his big budget trio but he's lived a rather odd life since, first coordinating the opening ceremony for the Beijing Olympics and then making a sort of Chinese opera inspired remake of the Coen Brothers' Blood Simple.
In that context it's hard not to see The Love Of The Hawthorn Tree as a deliberate return to roots, both in style and in roots, with the film being a young romance set against the backdrop of the Maoist revolution.
The first trailer - which is very oddly partly subtitled in English and partly not - has just arrived. Check it below.
Yes, Yimou had one more typical film - the excellent Riding Alone For Thousands of Miles - tucked in the midst of his big budget trio but he's lived a rather odd life since, first coordinating the opening ceremony for the Beijing Olympics and then making a sort of Chinese opera inspired remake of the Coen Brothers' Blood Simple.
In that context it's hard not to see The Love Of The Hawthorn Tree as a deliberate return to roots, both in style and in roots, with the film being a young romance set against the backdrop of the Maoist revolution.
The first trailer - which is very oddly partly subtitled in English and partly not - has just arrived. Check it below.
I had no idea that Soviet songs were that popular in China, though it is logical. That's the one in the end of the trailer.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xbKJ3rgaQD8
I can't for the life of me find how/where I stumbled upon that trailer. It was in some LiveJournal entry that had an interview with Zhang. He was lamenting the fact that there are so few pretty, young, Chinese women any more. He audition thousands for the film. He said something like 'pretty young chinese women these days marry some gold digger or a lonely bachelor with money. No wonder we're not producing pretty girls any more, girls without bangs and eyes as clear as a mountain spring.'
It was sad and funny.
Here it is (from echinacities):
Zhang Yimou: Untarnished Beauty is Rare in Chinese Women These Days
I'm not sure what time-frame Zhang Yimou is referring to, but I visited Beijing in 2002 and saw no signs of a shortage...
Not that this doesn't look gorgeous or anything, and Zhou Dongyu's bangs are alright with me. But I doubt it will pack the powerful political punch of his earlier films, and that's what been mostly missed in my opinion.