Chinese Film Festival 2013 Opens Soon

Posted Sunday 27 Oct 2013

This popular festival opens in Auckland on November 28 and runs until December 1 at the Rialto Cinema. It features a selection of contemporary Chinese films. Please see the list of films below and look out for information about the Festival as it travels to Wellington and Christchurch as well.

List of films featured in the 2013 (8th) Chinese Film Festival in New Zealand

?American Dreams in China?

Director: Peter Chan

Casts: Xiaoming Huang, Chao Deng, Dawei Tong

Genre: Drama, Romance, Comedy, Youth

Duration: 112 Minutes

Year of Release: 2013

Language: Mandarin Dialogue with English Subtitles

Awards History:

  • Nominated as the best director, the best script, the best leading Actor and the best supporting Actress in 2013 China Golden Rooster and Hundreds Flowers Awards

Synopsis

Three close buddies at Beijing's prestigious Yanjing University -- Cheng Dongqing (Huang Xiaoming), Wang Yang (Tong Dawei) and Meng Xiaojun (Deng Chao) -- are studying and simultaneously prepping for American visa interviews.

Wang is the first to be granted one but forfeits it to stay with his Western girlfriend and Cheng is repeatedly denied one. Only Meng actually gets a study visa and as he's leaving he tells his friends he has no intention of returning to China...:

?So Young?

Director: Vicky ZHAO

Casts: Mark Chao, Geng Han, Zishan Yang, Shuying Jiang

Genre: Drama, Romantic, Youth

Duration: 133 Minutes

Year of Release: 2013

Language: Mandarin Dialogue with English Subtitles

Synopsis:

When 18 year-old Zheng Wei arrives at college, she encounters a diverse world she's never experienced before; a world of new friendship and new love that will confuse and excite her like never before. With her new dormitory pals, she embarks on her new university life, finding it is not as simple as she had hoped, indicative of the future ahead.

?Lost In Thailand?

Director: Zheng Xu

Casts: Zheng Xu, Baoqiang Wang, Hong Tao

Genre: Drama, Comedy, Adventure

Duration: 100 Minutes

Year of Release: 2012

Language: Mandarin Dialogue with English Subtitles

Synopsis:

Lost in Thailand is the story of two rival business managers, Xu (Xu Zheng) and Bo (Huang Bo), who are fighting over a revolutionary new in-house technology for control of their company. If Xu wins, his future will be secured. The critical task is to secure control over the shares of the chairman, who is at a retreat in Thailand. Xu catches the first plane to Bangkok, where he meets the happy-go-lucky Wang (Wang Baoqiang), an unexpected travel companion who will open his eyes to life's true priorities.

Love is not blind?

Director: Huatao Teng

Casts: Zhang Wen, Baihe Bai

Genre: Drama, Comedy, Romance

Duration: 110 Minutes

Year of Release: 2011

Language: Mandarin Dialogue with English Subtitles

Awards History:

  • Won the best script in 2012 (49th) Taiwan Golden Horse Film Awards
  • Won the best script, the best leading actor and the best leading actress in 2012 (21st) China Golden Rooster and Hundreds Flowers Award

Synopsis:

In the film, the main character, Huang Xiaoxian, is a 27-year-old woman who dreams of marriage. She has been in love with her boyfriend for 7 years. But she finally breaks up with him after she sees her boyfriend going shopping with her best friend intimately. Xiaoxian starts recovering from depression as the movie begins. During that period, her partner, Wang Xiaojian, helps her a lot. In the end, Xiaoxian is deeply touched by Xiaojian. She finds the one who will always keep her company within 1 meter.

?Finding Mr. Right?

Director: Xiaolu Xue

Casts: Wei Tang, Xiubo Wu, Dante Lee Arias

Genre: Drama, Comedy, Romance

Duration: 123 Minutes

Year of Release: 2013

Language: Mandarin Dialogue with English Subtitles

Awards History:

  • Won the best Product plantation Film in 2013 (4th) Yien Film Industry Awards.

Synopsis

City girl Jiajia is traveling to Seattle to give birth to the son who's going to help her win over her rich, married boyfriend. Armed with his unlimited credit card and the singular goal of bringing a little U.S. citizen back to Beijing, Jiajia knows how to play this game of modern love. But when Jiajia arrives in Seattle, the city which inspired her favorite movie Sleepless in Seattle, nothing goes right: she's stuck sharing a small house with two other pregnant ladies, she has trouble reaching her boyfriend on the phone, and eventually, even the credit card stops working. To top that off, the only person willing to spend time with her is her driver Frank. Frank is the opposite of everything she ever wanted in a man... or could he be exactly the kind of guy she really needs?

?I  Do?

Director: Zhou Sun

Casts: Bing Bing Li, Yihong Duan, Honglei Sun

Genre: Drama, Comedy, Romance

Duration: 106 Minutes

Year of Release: 2012

Language: Mandarin Dialogue with English Subtitles

Synopsis

Wei wei is an educated high paid 32 year old career woman who has only ever had one lover. She has pragmatically decided it is time to find a husband and have a family so she embarks on a series of blind dates. Through trial and error she meets Huawei who slowly becomes a part of her life and a close confidant. Just as Wei wei puts Huawei on a trial period as a potential husband, her ex lover who is now a wealthy businessman returns to her life.

?Feng Shui?

Director: Jing Wang

Casts: Bingyan Yan, Gang Jiao, Gang Chen

Genre: Drama, Family Story

Duration: 120 Minutes

Year of Release: 2012

Language: Mandarin Dialogue with English Subtitles

Awards History:

  • Won the best leading actress in 2013 <Youth Film Handbook> 10 best Film Awards
  • Won the best leading actress in 2012 China Film Director Association Awards
  • Won the best screenplay in 2013 China Film Association Cup Award
  • Won the best leading actress in 2013 Beijing International Film Festival
  • Won the best feature film, the best leading actress and the best screenplay in 2013 China Baihe Film Awards.
  • Won Special Jury Prize, the best leading actress in 2013 Beijing International Undergraduate Film Festival
  • Won the best feature film in 2013 Mainland, Taiwan and Hong Kong Film Awards
  • Won special jury prize in 2013 Shanghai Film Critic Awards
  • Won the best leading actress in 2013 Chinese Film and Media Awards.

Synopsis

One of the most acclaimed movies to come out of China last year, "Feng Shui" harnesses the talents of underrated actress Yan Bingyan to deliver this family drama about a woman desperate to ascend to the middle class and willing to pay any price. Powerful and emotionally tense, this is a portrait of the hidden side of the great Chinese success story. ?

Sleepless Fashion?

Director: Lichuan Yin

Casts: Vic Chou, Vivian Hsu, Alan Tam, Qiao Renliang, Chun Xiao, Wang Taili

Genre: Comedy

Duration: 90 Minutes

Year of Release: 2011

Language: Mandarin Dialogue with English Subtitles

Synopsis

Beijing, the present day. Three years after being hired as a shy university graduate by Alex (Alan Tam), editor-in-chief of leading fashion magazine Celebrity, Zhou Xiaohui (Vic Chou) has become associate editor, taken on the English name Patrick, and turned into an arrogant, pretentious young control freak. However, after a minor gaffe that threatens the company's future IPO, he was sacked by Alex. Proclaiming he'll set up a rival publication, Xiaohui is joined by only two of his staff, office dogsbodies Fatty (Tong Lei) and Yinghong (Vivian Hsu), and made a new magazine called Modern. The movie is a light comedy set in the well-ploughed field of the Beijing fashion scene, with a routine message about staying true to your friends and your roots, all reasonably slickly packaged.

Falling Flowers?

Director: Jianqi Huo

Casts: Jia Song, Jue Huang, Renjun Wang

Genre: Story, Romance

Duration: 120 Minutes

Year of Release: 2012

Language: Mandarin Dialogue with English Subtitles

Awards History:

  • Nominated as the best leading actress in 2013 (22nd) China Golden Rooster and Hundred Flowers Award

Synopsis

The movie directed by Huo Jianqi starts from a sickbed in Hong Kong where the seriously ill Xiao Hong tells Luo Binji, a young writer who admires her, about her tortured life.??Xiao Hong is the penname of Zhang Naiying who was born in 1911 to a land-owning family in Hulan county, Heilongjiang Province. As the movie goes, she leaves her family and goes to Beijing in 1930 to escape an arranged marriage. Still, she ends up living with the arranged fianc� because she becomes penniless after her family refuses to support her.

The  Bullet Vanishes?

Director: Chi-Leung Law

Casts: Xiang Bin, Gang Chen, Hei-Yi Cheng, Mini Yang

Genre: Drama, Action, Thriller

Duration: 108 Minutes

Year of Release: 2012

Language: Mandarin Dialogue with English Subtitles

Rating: R16

Awards History:

  • Won the best action design in 49th Taiwan Golden Horse Film Award
  • Won the best leading actor in 2013 Hong Kong Film Critic Award
  • Nominated as the best supporting actress and actor, the best cinematograper

and the best editing.

Synopsis

Ding (Liu Kai-chi), the overbearing owner of a bullet factory in Tiancheng County, intimidates his workers to keep them in line, leading to a public Russian roulette "suicide" of a female employee (Xuxu) accused of stealing a box of bullets. A curse relating to a certain "Phantom Bullet" is found written in red on the walls of the factory, though the workers are soon ordered to scrub it off. Subsequent deaths from "phantom bullets" which are never found, seemingly vanishing, suggest that the factory has really been cursed. Song Donglu (Lau Ching-wan), a newly promoted detective with a slightly eccentric personality, is summoned by Tiancheng's police chief Jin (Wu Gang) to assist Guo Zhui (Nicholas Tse), "the fastest gunman in Tiancheng", and novice policeman Xiaowu (Boran Jing) in investigating the peculiar murders.