CEAS Film Series

Special Screening and Q&A with Film Director Jian YiNew Socialist Climax (红色之旅)“Take Communist Viagra, Make Capitalist Love, and Get a New Socialist Climax!”An ARTiSIMPLE ProductionProduced by JIAN Yi (Yale World Fellow)Directed by JIAN Yi & XIAO Qiping (Douglas)Edited by SONG Ling (Eva)2009/Chinese Dialogue/English Subtitles/80-Minute Draft EditionThis documentary aims at capturing and examining various levels of reality in China’s recent state-sponsored Red Tourism, a national campaign which brings people, especially government employees and young people, to the old Communist...

Yin Ma Ferry 印马渡 Directed by Gong Xiangyang, 2006 (57 min.)In central Hunan Province, on the Cheshui River is the Yin Ma Ferry. Song Zhuchu, who is over fifty, has been here ferrying people for over thirty years. Three years ago, his wife abandoned their home, leaving the ferryman and his mute, intellectually handicapped son to make their home on the boat. Though living a poor life, Song deeply enjoyed the time spent with his son, and was trying to save 1000 yuan a year to build a pair of brick houses so his son could eventually marry. However, a tragedy struck this tiny family, further...

Torch Troupes 火把剧团 Directed by Xu Xin, 2007 (110 min) “Torch Troupes” got their name during the Cultural Revolution, when traditional Sichuan Opera was prohibited in public and troupes could only tour remote rural areas, performing underground at night by torchlight. Today, the Opera struggles under different, yet just a difficult, conditions of survival. In 2001, six national Sichuan Opera companies were integrated into one that rarely performs. Smaller local troupes were dismissed. Today, the informal show troupes created by Sichuan Opera actors dismissed by national companies in 1990s...

Ohayo (1959, 94 minutes)Ozu Yasujiro RetrospectiveUniversally considered to be one of the great masters of Japanese (or any) cinema, Ozu Yasujiro had a remarkable career that crossed five decades. This weekly retrospective, co-sponsored by the Council on East Asian Studies and the Cinema at the Whitney, will provide a rare opportunity to see films from all periods of Ozu’s career, drawing attention to his playful humor as well as his formal genius and profound understanding of shifting family relations. All films will be screened in new 35mm prints. For More Information...

Special screening and Q&A with Director and Filmmaker Sue WilliamsStarting in 2004 Sue Williams began filming nine Chinese Gen X’ers at home and at work, returning once a year to record the changes in their lives. The film tracks four wildly ambitious graduates, a media savvy hip hop artist, two migrant workers living precariously on society’s edge, a dedicated medical resident and a courageous environmental activist.What happens along the way is surprising: some find themselves torn between traditional culture and tantalizing new opportunities; several begin the heady ride to wealth and...

Early Summer (麦秋 Bakushū)(1951, 112 minutes)A Straightforward Boy (Tokkan kozo)(1929, 14-minute short, silent)Make Way for TomorrowDirected by Leo McCarey (1937, 91 minutes)Ozu Yasujiro RetrospectiveUniversally considered to be one of the great masters of Japanese (or any) cinema, Ozu Yasujiro had a remarkable career that crossed five decades. This weekly retrospective, co-sponsored by the Council on East Asian Studies and the Cinema at the Whitney, will provide a rare opportunity to see films from all periods of Ozu’s career, drawing attention to his playful humor as well as his formal...

Fearless(霍元甲)(2006, 103 min.) Jet Li’s Fearless reunites the actor and martial arts superstar with producer Bill Kong (Hero) and action choreographer Yuen Wo Ping (Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon) as he portrays martial arts legend Huo Yuanjia, who became the most famous fighter in all of China at the turn of the 20th Century. Films of Fury Series on Martial Arts Cinema - Spring 2008 CEAS China Film Series

We Are the…of Communism 我们是共产主义省略号 Directed by Cui Zi’en, 2007 (94 min.) The Yuanhai Migrants Children’s School is suddenly closed for unknown reasons. The students manage to have classes first in a ruined manufactory then in the street. Unfortunately, even these makeshift classrooms are taken away one after another. From summer to winter, the number of students drops from 720 to 16. Many either move to more expensive schools farther way or simply return to their rural hometowns. Winter settles further in. Students below third grade can only have classes in a minibus. Those from grade four to...

2:00 PM A Tale of Two Sisters Directed by Kim Ji-woon, 2003 (115min) Adapting a Korean fairytale to one of the most dreadful gothic horrors, Kim Ji-woon, master of all genres, casts outrageous puzzles of desire and psyche that implode a teenage girl’s Oedipal circuit. The stylistic trigger of the “sad beautiful horror” that has yielded not a few epigones in Korea. 4:15 PM Sympathy for Mr. VengeanceDirected by Park Chan-wook, 2002 (129min) The internationally acclaimed director Park Chan-wook’s most radical film in the “vengeance trilogy,” followed by Oldboy. This hardboiled thriller with...