Festival puts cinema icons in frame
June 16, 2013, Sunday
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Print Edition
Print Edition
FANS of Alfred Hitchcock, Yasujiro Ozu and Leslie Cheung are guaranteed special treats during the 16th Shanghai International Film Festival (SIFF). Classics such as Hitchcock's "Blackmail," Ozu's "Tokyo Story" and Cheung's "Rouge" will be screened at more than 20 city cinemas.
SIFF will also be showcasing many rarely screened movies, including productions from Canada and India. Organizers say the wide-range of movies on offer includes something for all ages. Check the full screening schedule online at www.siff.com/ApplyUserEn/FilmArrange.aspx and book your tickets before they sell out!
Fondly remembering a tragic star
MUCH-LOVED and much-missed Hong Kong actor, singer and director Leslie Cheung undergoes on big screen revival during the Shanghai International Film Festival, 10 years after his untimely death.
Cheung, who committed suicide in 2003, created numerous memorable and classic characters: from a young police officer whose brother leads a criminal gang ("A Better Tomorrow"), a timid debt collector in a romance with a beauty ghost ("A Chinese Ghost Story"), a Beijing Opera star who loves his senior male partner ("Farewell My Concubine") and a thief fighting his foster father ("Once a Thief").
The versatile Cheung is fondly remembered by people born in the 1970s and 1980s on the Chinese mainland, not only for his acting, but as a popular singer and for his live performances.
Through the digitally restored movies being shown during the festival, audience can enjoy Cheung's performances and also masterpieces from top directors including Chen Kaige, Wong Kar Wai, Siu-Tung Ching, Stanley Kwan and John Woo.
Other top performers also featured in the movies include Ti Lung, Joey Wang, Maggie Cheung, Chow Yun-Fat and Anita Mui.
(Zhu Shenshen)
The low down on Japanese master
This year's Shanghai International Film Festival features the work of legendary Japanese director Yasujiro Ozu (1903-63). The eight films being screened include some of the most-celebrated of Ozu's career.
"Late Spring," from 1949, is widely regarded as the watershed in which Ozu's directing and cinematography reaches its full maturity.
Set in Kamakura, Kanagawa Prefecture, the film focuses on the life of middle-class families and the love and relationship between parents and children.
Noriko grows up with her widowed professor father and now, at the age of 27, still lives with and takes care of him. Everyone around her tries to talking her to get married but she doesn't want to leave her father. However, he tells her that he's found a new wife, which means that the daughter needn't look after him any more.
Yet it turns out to be a lie. At the end of the film, after Noriko's marriage, her father is seen sitting alone on a late spring evening.
"Late Spring" epitomizes Ozu's distinctive cinematography. He paid great attention to composition, preferring to shoot from a low position to present the so called "golden-ratio perfection." He treated his camera and himself a calm onlooker, calmly recording life as the story unfolds. While Ozu's work may seen plain and unadorned, it's always poetic and thought-provoking.
Ozu's career reached its peak in 1953's "Tokyo Story," continuing the director's focus on daily life and ordinary people. The film follows two generations in a traditional Japanese family after World War II.
When the children move to Tokyo and start their own families, their parents are gradually neglected. The film shows in a restrained, elegaic fashion that the traditional big family and its values will fall apart with urbanization.
In 2009, "Tokyo Story" beat Akira Kurosawa's "The Seven Samurai" to top the best 10 Japanese films in history selected by prestigious Japanese film magazine Kinema Junpo.
Ozu's focus on Japanese family details, the love between parents and children, the disputes and reconciliations between husbands and wives, and children's growing pains, capture Japanese culture of the time.
"Flavor of Green Tea Over Rice" (1952) is a good example that intertwines its narrative - a marital dispute - with Japanese folklore.
Viewers can find also popular 1940s references, such as baseball and pinball, plus tradition - in the green tea over rice that gives the movie its title.
Other screenings include 1958's "Equinox Flower," Ozu's first color film and "The Taste of Saury" his final work.
(Liu Xiaolin)
Hitchcock films promise thriller
Alfred Hitchcock, the great director who pioneered many techniques in the thriller film genre, is loved by fans around the world as an icon of cinema.
He directed more than 50 films in a career spanning over half a century. Even now, more than 30 years after his death, Hitchcock is still regarded as one of the most successful directors of all time.
This year Hitchcock is coming to "meet" his Shanghai fans at the Shanghai International Film Festival, with many of his early movies restored especially for Shanghai audiences.
"The Lodger," from 1927, which Hitchcock regarded as his real first film, reveals his talent in creating a story full of suspense and predicts the signature movie language of later work.
"The Farmer's Wife" from the following year is one of his rare comedies Hitchcock successfully turned a stage play into a silent film, using body language to replace the actors' lines.
Another thriller a Hitchcock fan won't want to miss is "Blackmail." The classic was previously screened during the 2010 Shanghai International Film Festival. This time, the audience gets to see a newly restored version.
Other early Hitchcock films on screen includes "The Ring" and "Pleasure Garden." And look out for cameos from the director himself!
(Zhou Yubin)
SIFF will also be showcasing many rarely screened movies, including productions from Canada and India. Organizers say the wide-range of movies on offer includes something for all ages. Check the full screening schedule online at www.siff.com/ApplyUserEn/FilmArrange.aspx and book your tickets before they sell out!
Fondly remembering a tragic star
MUCH-LOVED and much-missed Hong Kong actor, singer and director Leslie Cheung undergoes on big screen revival during the Shanghai International Film Festival, 10 years after his untimely death.
Cheung, who committed suicide in 2003, created numerous memorable and classic characters: from a young police officer whose brother leads a criminal gang ("A Better Tomorrow"), a timid debt collector in a romance with a beauty ghost ("A Chinese Ghost Story"), a Beijing Opera star who loves his senior male partner ("Farewell My Concubine") and a thief fighting his foster father ("Once a Thief").
The versatile Cheung is fondly remembered by people born in the 1970s and 1980s on the Chinese mainland, not only for his acting, but as a popular singer and for his live performances.
Through the digitally restored movies being shown during the festival, audience can enjoy Cheung's performances and also masterpieces from top directors including Chen Kaige, Wong Kar Wai, Siu-Tung Ching, Stanley Kwan and John Woo.
Other top performers also featured in the movies include Ti Lung, Joey Wang, Maggie Cheung, Chow Yun-Fat and Anita Mui.
(Zhu Shenshen)
The low down on Japanese master
This year's Shanghai International Film Festival features the work of legendary Japanese director Yasujiro Ozu (1903-63). The eight films being screened include some of the most-celebrated of Ozu's career.
"Late Spring," from 1949, is widely regarded as the watershed in which Ozu's directing and cinematography reaches its full maturity.
Set in Kamakura, Kanagawa Prefecture, the film focuses on the life of middle-class families and the love and relationship between parents and children.
Noriko grows up with her widowed professor father and now, at the age of 27, still lives with and takes care of him. Everyone around her tries to talking her to get married but she doesn't want to leave her father. However, he tells her that he's found a new wife, which means that the daughter needn't look after him any more.
Yet it turns out to be a lie. At the end of the film, after Noriko's marriage, her father is seen sitting alone on a late spring evening.
"Late Spring" epitomizes Ozu's distinctive cinematography. He paid great attention to composition, preferring to shoot from a low position to present the so called "golden-ratio perfection." He treated his camera and himself a calm onlooker, calmly recording life as the story unfolds. While Ozu's work may seen plain and unadorned, it's always poetic and thought-provoking.
Ozu's career reached its peak in 1953's "Tokyo Story," continuing the director's focus on daily life and ordinary people. The film follows two generations in a traditional Japanese family after World War II.
When the children move to Tokyo and start their own families, their parents are gradually neglected. The film shows in a restrained, elegaic fashion that the traditional big family and its values will fall apart with urbanization.
In 2009, "Tokyo Story" beat Akira Kurosawa's "The Seven Samurai" to top the best 10 Japanese films in history selected by prestigious Japanese film magazine Kinema Junpo.
Ozu's focus on Japanese family details, the love between parents and children, the disputes and reconciliations between husbands and wives, and children's growing pains, capture Japanese culture of the time.
"Flavor of Green Tea Over Rice" (1952) is a good example that intertwines its narrative - a marital dispute - with Japanese folklore.
Viewers can find also popular 1940s references, such as baseball and pinball, plus tradition - in the green tea over rice that gives the movie its title.
Other screenings include 1958's "Equinox Flower," Ozu's first color film and "The Taste of Saury" his final work.
(Liu Xiaolin)
Hitchcock films promise thriller
Alfred Hitchcock, the great director who pioneered many techniques in the thriller film genre, is loved by fans around the world as an icon of cinema.
He directed more than 50 films in a career spanning over half a century. Even now, more than 30 years after his death, Hitchcock is still regarded as one of the most successful directors of all time.
This year Hitchcock is coming to "meet" his Shanghai fans at the Shanghai International Film Festival, with many of his early movies restored especially for Shanghai audiences.
"The Lodger," from 1927, which Hitchcock regarded as his real first film, reveals his talent in creating a story full of suspense and predicts the signature movie language of later work.
"The Farmer's Wife" from the following year is one of his rare comedies Hitchcock successfully turned a stage play into a silent film, using body language to replace the actors' lines.
Another thriller a Hitchcock fan won't want to miss is "Blackmail." The classic was previously screened during the 2010 Shanghai International Film Festival. This time, the audience gets to see a newly restored version.
Other early Hitchcock films on screen includes "The Ring" and "Pleasure Garden." And look out for cameos from the director himself!
(Zhou Yubin)
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