Lao pao er

In "Mr Six", we see the urban life of modern day Beijing; we see how some of its older resident (Lao Bei Jing) are struggling to adjust to the rapidly changing city; we see strained father -son relationships put under even more stress by the accelerated generational transition. But most of all, we see an aging anti-hero, well past his prime and caged in by values deemed old- fashion and unsuited for the new world, trying to set himself free. The main characters are as much as Mr Six as the city of Beijing itself. And both the film's director and Mr Feng, the director-turned-actor who played the leading role, did a good job in portraying both.

Not an action movie by any means but an interesting drama concerning traditional values versus new free-market attitudes seen from the perspective of an older criminal element trying to deal with the new-money, corruption-based variety.

The movie does a nice job of showing community life in the laid back old hutongs that still exist in Beijing and while the plot is a little slow it develops well. Since this film was designed to appeal to a domestic audience a lot of the nuance will be lost on foreigners. It emphasizes relationships, loyalty and honor in contrast to the quest for individual wealth, power and exaggerated regard of face. It also reinforces the notion that you can trust the Party to do the right thing but not the police.

Some ask "what's happened to Chinese cinema?" I guess the answer is that it is booming and delivering a wide variety of product. If you want a big budget action film with lots of CG you'll find it in Mo Jin - The Lost Legend. I enjoyed Lao Pao Er more though.

A so-so movie about some Chinese old farts who failed to adapt themselves into the ever changing, rapidly deteriorating environment and social structure in China, especially the horrible turn-out of Beijing. This film signed up the famous and controversial director as the leading character, an old fart that got nothing to do everyday, but hold and hanging a bird cage, walking around to deal with some injustice happened daily in that part of the Capital. An old fart who had a dark background and history when he was young, a widower with a rebellious son who didn't respect at all but despise him. The animosity and misunderstanding between father and son finally clashed and tested when the young one involved in a trouble, and his old fart father had tried to solve it with his old but die-hard rigid moral principles originated from his mobster time when he was young.

The whole movie was stretched too long just for the purpose of allowing these Beijing old farts to deliver some wise-cracking dialog that made the old Beijing people so self-important and so self-pompous, considering themselves a notch higher than the other people living outside of the Capital city. The wise-cracking dialog had stretched so thin that sometimes really needed your patience to sit tight to watch. The storyline and the scenarios involved lot of unnecessary sub-plots to patch up the whole somehow very hollow and weak story. It totally relied on this actor/director to deliver most of the pointless dialog. At first, the leading character gave you an impression that he indeed could talk the talk and walk the walk, but then, suddenly his obnoxious attitude and his toughness surrendered to his physical conditions, with heart disease. An old fart, tough with his mouth but scared to death to surgery and the small scalpels to be used in his surgery.

The storyline later turned out to be more ridiculous when he tried to meet the gangsters from the other side. So pretentious gestures in his preparation before the final encounter: shaving his hairs, putting up an old green military long coat, long boots and then, taking out a Japanese Katana, riding a bike through the Beijing streets, with an escaped ostrich aside all along.....These, are all parts of the prolonged to the extreme unnecessary scenes, so overly contrived to certain unbearable limit. And then, what we got is nothing but mucho thunders, not even thunderbolts, albeit rains.

This movie is just too Chinese to be appreciated by any other country's viewers. Even to the Chinese who did not grow up in Beijing would have a quite tough time to sit through the whole nine yards if the dialog in Chinese didn't keep interpreting with ( ) to make them understandable. A very contrite and pretentious, sometimes even quite shallow movie. Not too bad, but definitely not great either. Watchable, but need some patience to sit through.

I didn't expect to like this movie. The premise sounded dull and Feng Xiaogang was always known as a director rather than an actor. So imagine my surprise when I thought to myself after the credits rolled that wow, this is definitely one of my favorites of 2015.

I love everything about it, I am familiar with Guan Hu as I have watched two of his films which I also liked and I thought this would be the first movie of his that I would hate. Turns out it'd be one of his best.

Mr Six is not meant to be a hero or a sympathetic character even. He's an old guy set in his ways and stubborn to a great fault. Which is why the ending was fitting in all its symbolic glory.

The character that really stayed with me was Xiao Fei, the spoiled brat turned sympathetic kid who looks up to the values of old and yearns for a father's attention. The interesting thing about this movie was that it also had the story of a father and son but the more compelling story was the one between a father and another man's son.

I would recommend this movie to anyone. Brilliant and well-executed filmmaking.

This movie is really a cultural thing and it's for the people that grew in Beijing. Gladly, I am. Even a lot of Chinese people can't understand it since it contains a lot of Beijing dialect. As a guy born in Beijing and lived there for 15 years. I can't understand all the dialect in the movie. So it is impossible for foreigners to have a perfect experience on this movie since the dialect is the part that makes it a good movie (unless you're really good at Chinese and actually lived in Beijing for many years).

Although I admit there is some bad acting choice or bad filming, but it is a realistic represent of those Beijing "Lao Pao er". It appeals a lot to Chinese. Right now, we're losing a lot of these dialect and culture, this movie is about help us to recollect those tradition.

My advise is: Don't watch it. If you are interested in it and going to watch it, take it easy, don't have any thoughts like "this movie is gonna be amazing" before you watch it. The target consumers is Chinese (and mainly some of the Chinese). Asking foreigners to truly understand this movie is like asking a man to use a sanitary napkin.