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:
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:
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:
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:
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:
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:
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.