Spring 2015
SATURDAY CHINESE FEATURE FILM SERIES
Ringling College of Art and Design / Academic Center Room Room 207
Admission is free.
All films have Mandarin sound-tracks and English subtitles.
Feb 14: 1:30 pm
Ip Man 叶问 Mandarin Ye Wen
Director Wilson Yip 叶伟信 Yé Wěixìn
Hong Kong, 2008, 108 min.
Stars Donnie Yen 甄子丹Zhēn Zidān
Martial Arts Choreographer Sammo Hung 洪金宝Hóng Jīnbǎo
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This award-winning movie is set in 1935-40 during the Second Sino-Japanese War when Japanese occupied the southern Canton广东省（Guangdong）city of Foshan 佛山, famous for its various martial arts schools. The tenacious resistance and unswerving cultural pride of Chinese people in the face of cruel and implacable invaders is embodied in the portrayal of Ip Man 叶问 (Mandarin Yè Wèn), Grandmaster of Wing Chun (咏春Mandarin yǒng chūn) martial arts who much later became Bruce Lee’s teacher. Historical accuracy is elided in favor of an action-packed compelling national narrative.
Mar 21: 1:30 pm
Pingounica.com
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Letter from an Unknown Woman
一个陌生女人的来信
Yīgè mòshēng nǚrén de láixìn
Director Xu Jinglei 徐静蕾 (女)
2004. 90 min.
Based on German writer Stefan Zweig’s1922 novella
Stars Jiang Wen 姜文
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On his birthday in the winter of 1948, a famous Beijing author receives a letter from a woman who recounts their relationship, which he has totally forgotten. She describes her teenage crush on him when he moved into their courtyard neighborhood, and their brief affair several years later when she was a college student, how she found herself pregnant and gave birth to their son during the Sino-Japanese war, and how eight years later he did not recognize her when they met again and spent a night together. A tender and artfully made film from one of China’s few women directors.
Apr 4: 1:30 pm
Directors Sean Baker and Shih-Ching Tsou
USA, 2004. 87 min.
(in Mandarin and English)
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Shot in the Upper West Side of Manhattan using both professional and nonprofessional actors, this gritty cinema verité film follows a “day-in-the-life” of an illegal Chinese immigrant working as a bicycle deliveryman for a Chinese take-out. By the end of the day he must give the ‘snakeheads’ who smuggled him into the States $800 cash in overdue payments. After borrowing $650 from friends and relatives, he must accrue the rest by earning twice his normal day’s tips, which come from an infinitely diverse and unpredictable but always interesting population of ordinary New Yorkers. A remarkable low-budget independent film.
Apr 25: 1:30
Ocean Heaven
海洋天宫 Haiyang tiangong
Director Xue Xiaolu 薛哓璐 (女), 2010. 96min.
Stars Jet Li 李连杰
Cinematographer Christopher Doyle 杜可风
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Pinimg.com
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A widower with a 21 year-old autistic son works as a technician at Qingdao’s Ocean Park, and brings his son to work every day. Fortunately the son is a natural born swimmer and spends his time in the tanks with the fishes. But when the father receives a diagnosis of late stage liver cancer, he struggles to find a way to insure that his son will be respectfully taken care of after he dies. Martial arts superstar Jet Li accepted this completely dramatic role without any pay in the interests of bringing viewers to an awareness of autism and the dilemmas it presents to both victims and their parents. By another of China’s few women directors.
Series is designed and hosted by Dr. Carolyn Bloomer to supplement the Liberal Arts Cross-Cultural Perspectives curriculum
and is co-sponsored by the Gulfcoast Chinese American Association,
the Sarasota Chapter of the U.S.-China People’s Friendship Association, and Sister Cities Association of Sarasota.
Location: Films will be screened on the campus of Ringling College of Art and Design in Room 207 in the Academic Center on the west side of Old Bradenton Road south of Martin Luther King Boulevard. The building is #34 on the campus map available on line at https://www.google.com/search?