Beijing - Beijing - page 462

CINEMA
Pre-1949
Cinema in China dates back to 1896, when a Spaniard with a film projector blew the socks
off a crowd in a Shànghǎi tea-house garden. Although Shànghǎi's cosmopolitan gusto
would help make the city the capital of China's film industry pre-1949, China's first movie
- Conquering Jun Mountain (an excerpt from a piece of Peking opera) - was actually
filmed in Běijīng in 1905.
BEST FILMS ABOUT BĚIJĪNG
» In the Heat of the Sun (1994) Adapted from a Wang Shuo novel, a fantastic, dream-like, highly evocative tale of
Běijīng youth running wild during the latter days of the Cultural Revolution.
» The Last Emperor (1987) Bernardo Bertolucci's celebrated (seven Oscars, including best director, best costume
design and best cinematography) and extravagant epic charts the life of Puyi during his accession and the ensuing
disintegration of dynastic China.
» Summer Palace (2006) Unusually explicit love story between students set against the backdrop of the
Tiān'ānmén Square protests that got its director Lou Ye banned from making films for five years.
» Farewell My Concubine (1993) Charting a dramatic course through 20th-century Chinese history from the
1920s to the Cultural Revolution, Chen Kaige's film is a sumptuous and stunning narrative of two friends from
Peking opera school whose lives are framed against social and political turmoil.
» Cell Phone (2003) Feng Xiaogang's funniest movie, a delicious satire of Běijīng's emerging middle classes
centred on two men's extramarital affairs.
» Lost in Beijing (2007) Directed by Lu Yi, China's leading female director, this banned production examines the
ménage à trois between a young female worker in a massage parlour, her boss and his wife against the backdrop
of a rapidly changing Běijīng.
» Beijing Bicycle (2001) Eschewing the lavish colour of Fifth Generation directors and viewing Běijīng through a
realist lens, Wang Xiaoshuai's film follows young and hapless courier Guo on the trail of his stolen mountain
bike.
» The Gate of Heavenly Peace (1995) Using original footage from the six weeks preceding the ending of the
Tiān'ānmén protests, Richard Gordon and Carma Hinton's moving three-hour tribute to the spirit of the student
movement and its demise is a must-see.
» The World (2005) Jia Zhangke's social commentary on the effects of globalisation is set in a Běijīng theme park
called 'World Park', where workers and visitors play out their lives among replicas of the world's monuments.