A return to form in some ways, Zhang’s monochrome martial-arts drama is visually gorgeous but not always compelling.
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Shadow (2018)
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Tag / China
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Great Wall, The (2016)
Fairly entertaining inasmuch as it is a CG-fest ‘historical fantasy’ with spectacular visual flourishes, but ultimately generic and mechanical in its execution.
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City Dream (2019)
An old feisty street seller and his poor family fight for their right to make a living as local authorities demand their relocation in this engrossing, and at times, hilarious documentary filmed in pre-COVID Wuhan.
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Coming Home (2014)
The plot may involve repetition, but the dramatic power of its execution sees Zhang return close to the form of his early 1990s works.
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Flowers of War, The (2011)
A surprisingly uneven film with a lack of character and historical focus on 1937 Nanking.
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Three Sisters (2012)
The China that you won’t see, as Wang Bing observes with tenderness the daily lives of a young girl and her siblings in a poor rural village in Yunnan province.
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Under the Hawthorn Tree (2010)
A beautiful love story, directed and acted with such artful simplicity that it is difficult not to fall in love with its purity.
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Woman, a Gun and a Noodle Shop, A (2009)
Possibly the worst film in Zhang Yimou’s career, this remake of the Coens’ ‘Blood Simple’ is a travesty on every count.
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House of Flying Daggers (2004)
Zhang Yimou’s best film of the 2000s decade, this is a drama-cum-tragedy that is never uncomfortable to reveal its sentimentalism amid stunning action set-pieces.
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Story of Qiu Ju, The (1992)
This culturally vibrant but slowly-paced drama lacks the emotional pull that Zhang Yimou’s earlier films are famous for.
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