Kaili Blues (2015)

When it comes to slow cinema, there can sometimes be a split inside myself during the experience. Like in Kaili Blues (2015), there’s a beautiful long take of the camera watching Chen Shen (Yongzhong Chen) on the back of a motorbike as it winds around mountain roads, greenery and mist in the landscape behind them. […]

Pickpocket (1997)

In Jia Zhangke’s Pickpocket (1997) aka Xiao Wu, which was shot in the Chinese town of Fenyang (where Zhangke grew up), there are a few street scenes where something happens, often to the main character, and people passing by begin to stop and look; there’s a feeling that these are not extras, but actual people wondering what’s going […]

Still Life (2006)

I was watching Still Life (2006) in several sittings due to timing and being away on holiday. Not an ideal way to experience the film, and one I would have loved to have seen in a cinema, but its approach and tone suited the intermittent immersion. Dipping in and out of the movie like I […]

Ash Is Purest White (2018)

Wanting to explore more of Chinese director Jia Zhangke’s filmography, Ash Is Purest White (2018) intrigued me because of how it appeared. In the poster and key images I’ve seen, the film is marketed as a romantic crime movie. And yet, that’s only one third of the story. While I was watching Ash Is Purest […]

Drug War (2012)

Of the Johnnie To movies I’ve seen, they often work in a macho register like Michael Mann movies, focusing on professionals and process. As an action thriller, the main driver for Drug War (2012) is surveillance, as drug enforcement police in China get wind of a deal happening. One member of a drug syndicate, Timmy […]