 |  |  | | ALTERNATE SYNOPSIS:
The eight-year marriage of Dai Liyan (Wu Jun) and Yuwen (Hu Jin Fan) has let them both unfulfilled and distant. An unexpected visitor arrives from Shanghai, a smartly-dressed doctor called Zhang Zhichen (Bai Qing). He's an old school friend of Dai Liyan's and unbeknownst to her husband, Yuwen's childhood sweetheart. Delighted to be re-acquainted with Zhang, the husband believes that his cultivated guest would be a suitable match for his wife's lively schoolgirl sister, Dai Xiu (Lu Sisi). In turn, Yuwen believes that her former flame could be the solution to her own unhappiness. Elegantly show in long takes and tracking shots by cinematographer Mark Lee Ping Bing ("In The Mood For Love", "Millennium Mambo"), this is a tightly controlled tale of thwarted desires. | | LOG IN TO COMMENT ON THIS REVIEW! |
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| | | | by Asian Film Connections
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Tian Zhuangzhuang's first film after a 10-year hiatus from filmmaking (the first three of which were due to an official ban) amply rewards those cineastes who worried that THE BLUE KITE (1993) was to be the Fifth Generation director's abrupt swan song. Like its similarly titled source, Fei Mu's revered 1948 classic, Tian's remake is a meditation on Chinese culture, history and modernity luminously condensed into a chamber drama. Into the walled confines of a once-grand mansion in the provinces, a worldly doctor arrives, catalyzing a tempest in the seemingly serene world of a sickly gentleman and his wife. Duty soon crashes into desire, but Tian maps the heartbreak in subtle moves-through gesture, glances, double entendre and visual allusions. A beauty to behold, SPRINGTIME heralds the return of one of China's best. | | LOG IN TO COMMENT ON THIS REVIEW! |
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