ALLIANCE OF WOMEN FILM JOURNALISTS

Female Film Critics 24/375

Chinese films

Festivals Reviews 

ABSENCE (Melbourne IFF 2023) – Review by Alexandra Heller-Nicholas

Alexandra Heller-Nicholas , , , ,

In Absence, Lee Kang-sheng stars as Han Jiangyu, recently released from prison who has spent a decade behind bars for taking the hit for his best friend, a shady property baron called Kai. He returns home to Hainan, a tropical island in southern China renowned for its luxury hotels, but for Jiangyu and his ex-girlfriend Su Hong (Meng Li) life is an altogether more piecemeal affair. A hairdresser by trade and struggling to bring up her young child alone, Hong puts her hopes, dreams and life savings into a new apartment in Kai’s latest development. When the deal falls through, Jiangyu steps up and with Hong finds another way to make their dream family home a reality.

Read more
Festivals Reviews 

DEEP SEA (Tribeca 2023) Review by Leslie Combemale

Leslie Combemale , , , , , , ,

CG artist and animation director Tian Xiaopeng spent seven years on Deep Sea and almost 1500 people worked to create this film, which is meant for audiences to experience like a dream. Xiaopeng wanted to give the 3D animated Deep Sea traditional Chinese aesthetics, and was particularly inspired by the look of Chinese ink painting. He actually invented new techniques to mimic the ink painting art style. He definitely achieved his aim. Visually, the film is nothing short of exquisite.

Read more
Reviews 

STONEWALLING – Review by Diane Carson

Diane Carson , , ,

Chinese Huang Ji fortuitously met Japanese Ryûji Otsuka while Otsuka pursued independent filmmaking in China. Director Ji’s focus on Chinese women’s predicaments resonated with cinematographer/producer Otsuka. Their harmonious real life and on-screen partnership is on full display in their co-directed work Stonewalling in which twenty-year-old Lynn, training as a flight attendant, grapples with an unexpected pregnancy.

Read more
Reviews 

STONEWALLING – Review by Nadine Whitney

Nadine Whitney , , , , , , ,

Writer/director Huang Ji and cinematographer Ryûji Otsuka’s Stonewalling forms part of a loose trilogy of narratives that investigates contemporary China’s social and cultural mores under ‘gig’ capitalism. Centered on a young women’s struggle for independence, it’s a slow-burn that’s rich in metaphor but gets to the point: Can people attain autonomy in capitalist China? Does the gig economy allow their success? What chances do women have to escape patriarchal strictures of a society that was supposed to be built on equality — but is not.

Read more
Reviews 

AWFJ Presents: ELECTRIC SHADOWS – Review by Susan Wloszczyna

Susan Wloszczyna , , , , , ,

Set during China’s Cultural Revolution, female director Xiao Jiang’s 2004 feature debut, Electric Shadows, is akin to Italy’s 1989’s Oscar-winning Cinema Paradiso as it focuses on how a makeshift outdoor theater brings together a village of cinema lovers. When we first meet film addict Mao (Xia Yu), he is footloose and fancy free. He earns a living by toting water jugs from place to place on his bike. He especially loves action movies, as an image of a Blade Runner poster with Harrison Ford’s face materializes on screen. But by accident, he tumbles into a wall of bricks and is conked on the head with a brick by an angry woman named Ling-Ling (Qi Zhongyang). When she gets arrested, she gives Mao the keys to her apartment and tells him to feed her fish.

Read more
Movie of the Week 

MOVIE OF THE WEEK December 9, 2022: HIDDEN LETTERS

Jennifer Merin , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

A secret written language shared among Chinese women, empowering a centuries-long legacy of covert sisterhood, is at the heart of Violet Feng’s thought-provoking, insightful documentary Hidden Letters. Known as Nushu, this language is an incredibly important part of China’s cultural history — but now that it’s no longer secret, can it retain its purpose and power? And are Chinese women really free of the circumstances that led to its creation in the first place?

Read more
Reviews 

HIDDEN LETTERS – Review by Susan Wloszczyna

Susan Wloszczyna , , , , , , , , ,

The documentary Hidden Letters, directed by Violet Du Feng, digs deep into Nushu, a traditional secret writing system used by women in Jiangyong County in China’s Hunan province. For thousands of years, Nushu has been a unique script used exclusively by local women. It is somewhat like calligraphy in that the figures are written with a brush and ink. Originally used in poems and songs, it not only provided women with a coping mechanism against the patriarchal hardships experienced before 1949 but gave them hope and allowed them to leave a legacy for future generations. The last descendant fluent in Nushu may have died in 2000, but efforts have been made to prolong its history.

Read more
Guest Posts Reviews 

LOVE BETWEEN FAIRY AND DEVIL – Review by Dana Ziyasheva (Guest Post)

awfj-admin , , , , ,

The Chinese show Love Between Fairy and Devil is such a carefully choreographed ballet of emotions and thoughts on the nature of love, power, and society — hammering home its points with an impossibly attractive cast and a highly addictive soundtrack — that I, a bone-weary middle-aged woman with grown-up kids, found myself pledging all my time (and the entirety of my soul) to it.

Read more
Reviews 

AWFJ Presents: ELECTRIC SHADOWS – Review by Susan Wloszczyna

Susan Wloszczyna , , , , , ,

Set during China’s Cultural Revolution, female director Xiao Jiang’s 2004 feature debut, Electric Shadows, is akin to Italy’s 1989’s Oscar-winning Cinema Paradiso as it focuses on how a makeshift outdoor theater brings together a village of cinema lovers. When we first meet film addict Mao (Xia Yu), he is footloose and fancy free. He earns a living by toting water jugs from place to place on his bike. He especially loves action movies, as an image of a Blade Runner poster with Harrison Ford’s face materializes on screen. But by accident, he tumbles into a wall of bricks and is conked on the head with a brick by an angry woman named Ling-Ling (Qi Zhongyang). When she gets arrested, she gives Mao the keys to her apartment and tells him to feed her fish.

Read more