Kong que

A film that bears no intention to entertain but a second viewing or more.I was 17 and I rent it home and I began to experience it alone.Dreams achingly dreamed and dreams never fulfilled.I was 17 and only cherished a rather vague outline of China in the late 1970s;China,my motherland.An age during which mass insanity was gradually quenched with mores still overwhelmingly domineering throughout the country.Blue trousers and white blouses and neatly tied-up long hair.You might encounter various feminine visages,but surely you wouldn't ever meet more than one style of dressing.It just went that way,like what the world sees now in North Korea.But hey,let's not be silly as to apply terms like human rights,etc. to the movie.It repels me to have to put up with those who're for ever seeking to impose upon any piece of art unnecessary or even absurd messages which it itself isn't even aware of.It's pregnant only with messages bound for it to be pregnant with,and let's not go too far and interpret no more.

This is actually an excellent work of art full of symbolism. The director doesn't force to impose his ideas into your mind, which is the very reason the pace is set slow. The movie was exposed with strong cinematic languages, such as stage drama-like long shots, great acting, and finally fabulous music. The music matches the theme so well that we are reminded of the music composed by Glass for "The Hours". It circumvents your usual expectation of a social environment of Mainland China in late 1970s' and early 1980s', during which the Chinese society was in the dawn of spectacular transformation, economically and culturally. It tells the story of the cruel reality of life. It looks like there is not bit happiness in the movie. No true love, no respect between people, all about humiliation and desperation, leaving alone realizing one's dreams. But the movie reveals tremendous subconsciousness of a lot of people who failed to express it by themselves and presents profound, twisted human nature in certain social circumstances. If you ever lived through that period in China (maybe even now, for some people, in some part of that country, although the situation has been greatly improved), it inspires enormous imagination and thoughts. Life, life, life, how many people didn't enjoy your beauty before you pass by without a trace? Surely the concepts of human dignity and meanings of life come upon surface again. The style is so "anti-Hollywood" and so efficient and once again proves that the language of films is universal. What a shame that only a very limited population have gotten the chance to watch it. Although it's pretty long (144 minutes), you just expect more from this great cameraman-turned-movie director. So what's his next? Could he recruit enough resource to make a movie about today's China with philosophical symbol? One can't help but holding his breath because this man is definitely talented enough to get out one some day.

Every single character in this movie is either mean or plain stupid, and utterly pathetic. If you just want cruel reality to see how miserable life can be, how life can suck EVERY MOMENT IN EVERY WAY, then Peacock is your best bet, even better than jail..

There seems to be some strong 'subtle' emotions that the director wanted to deliver, I didn't get it and I doubt people who haven't really been through the years in the movie can. Many details were painfully true to the old days (which might still be a good thing) but all things were made to go extreme pretentiously. Was the film intended only for viewers who no longer wants to taste real joy from life?? Gu may be an outstanding cinematographer, but he should stay just it.

We finally watched this a few nights ago. I brought the DVD back from China a few months ago. This is an extremely good movie -- in my opinion one of the best movies from China that I have seen in a while -- and I am surprised and disappointed that it hasn't been released in the states yet. This is not a bloated and overwrought effort at an epic of the sort that has become so common in China.

This is a touching study of the siblings in a single family, and their struggle to get by. This may seem like an odd analogy, but watching it made me think of Yasujiro Ozu's movies. Obviously the film is about China and not Japan, but there are some parallels in terms of the use of a single family as a lens for evoking a changing society. Someone with an interest in China could learn a lot about society there during the seventies and eighties.

As one would expect given Gu Changwei's background as a cinematographer, the film is absolutely beautiful to look at.

I hope this is released in the States - if it hasn't been already - so others have an opportunity to enjoy it.

Set in 1976 in some unidentified midsize city, "Peacock" tells the story of three young adult members of the Gao family trying to make their way in post-Cultural Revolution China. This is very much a fleeting moment in time when Chinese society is still marked by the austerity of the Maoist era and when foundational beliefs in communism have all but vanished--soon to be replaced by consumerism.

Structured as a kind of trilogy that puts each child successively into the foreground, it begins with the tale of Weihong (Zhang Jingchu), the daughter and youngest child. Returning home one day on her bicycle, she experiences an almost mystical encounter with a group of male and female paratroopers parachuting into a nearby field. When the parachute strings of the squad leader, a handsome man with a Beijing accent (as the subtitle indicates), gets tangled in her handle-bars, she resolves at that moment to become a paratrooper herself. That decision has more to do with the romance of the uniform, an attraction to the squad leader and the esthetics of the blue silk parachute than it does with the legend of the Red Army. Furthermore, the Beijing accent has a certain cachet for Weihong, which for denizens of her city must have the same class connotations that an Oxbridge accent has for somebody living in the East End of London.

After the Red Army rejects her application, she carries a torch both for the handsome squad leader and the numinous parachute. At home she sews together her own parachute, attaches it to the back of her bike like a kite and rides through the streets until unceremoniously crashing into another bike. While she lies semiconscious on the street, an admirer, whom she has rejected in the past, takes the parachute hostage. He will only release it after she has had sex with him in a nearby forest. In this film, love--like all other ideals--comes in short supply.

full: http://louisproyect.wordpress.com/2006/06/16/peacock/