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Unchanged Heart in Life and Death

Probably the most sheerly entertaining of all the films made in 1930s Shanghai by 'underground' leftists, this riff on The Prisoner of Zenda is funny and engaging from first to last. The irresistible Yuan Muzhi (director of Street Angel the following year) plays both Li Tao, a revolutionary on the run, and Liu Yuanjie, an American-Chinese teacher visiting China with his fiancée. Liu is mistaken for Li and thrown into jail; Li teams up with the fiancée (Chen Bo'er, Yuan's real life wife) to get him out of prison and into the spirit of revolution. Ying Yunwei (who started out playing female roles in Chinese opera) uses chiaroscuro lighting, highly mobile camerawork and zippy pacing to give it maximum impact, but it's Yuan who really keeps you watching.

Unchanged Heart in Life and Death

9.0 1936
Hua Mulan Joins the Army

A silent film based on the legend of Hua Mulan, released by Tianyi Film Company and directed by Li Pingqian. This silent film holds the distinction of being the first ever full-length feature film about Hua Mulan. Mulan is betrothed to a young man when war arrives and their wedding ceremony has to be put on hold. As her fiancé enlists in the army, so too does the filial Mulan, disguised as a man in place of her ailing father. These new plot twists lead to comedic moments when Mulan encounters her fiancé during training and he does not recognize her.

Hua Mulan Joins the Army

6.5 1927
The Love Songs of Tiedan

In his second feature, director/co-writer Hao pays rousing tribute to 'Er-ren-tai', a form of saucy musical performance closely associated with Hao's home region in the north-west near the Mongolian border. This colourfully accessible slice of backwater ethnography follows hapless hero Tiedan (Feng Si) from joyous childhood through to a maturity notable for an eventfully unorthodox love-life. Taking their cue from the Er-ren-tai songs themselves, which express passionate feelings in bursts of hyper-stylised intensity, Hao and his Korean editor Baek Seung Hoon sock over short scenes packed with freewheeling incident and comedy.

The Love Songs of Tiedan

6.6 2012
How Deep is Your Love

Chef Xia Mingjun of a fashionable restaurant and his wife Lin Mo have been married for seven years. The previous passion and romance has grown dull and dry. Lin Mo uses every trick she can think of to restore their marriage, but Xia Mingjun ends up leaving the city without a word. A year later, the reborn Xia Mingjun worked as a diving instructor on an unknown island. He meets a woman named Bai Jie, and falls in love immediately. Suddenly Mingjun realizes, all the methods Bai Jie used to approach him were the tricks he used to pursue Lin Mo; could this familiar yet strange woman Bai Jie be his wife?

How Deep is Your Love

NR 2020