Xi zao

This was a very enjoyable film. A humorous, but poignant look at family, and the obligations that come with it. The story of a man who comes home from his life in the city to his fathers bath house in a small Chinese village. There he learns to appreciate, even cherish the very things he left home to get away from. The film is as visually beautiful as it is emotionally beautiful.

I LOVE this movie! Beautifully funny and utterly believable characters. Each scene richer and more wonderful than the last. Every aspect of this movie is filled with wit and humour and love and depth. A complex and engrossing story, too. This movie is filled with love, humour, and intelligence. Totally great!

I had the privilege to see this movie at the Intenational Film Festival of Rotterdam.

'Xizhao' or 'Shower' is a $200.000 lowbudget movie about a father and his 2 sons. The father has a traditional bathhouse somewhere in a traditional Chinese village where local, mostly aged men, come to relax and to go bathing. The father has to sons: a 'retarded' son who lives with him and a son who lives in a big modern city and who comes to visit him. To this son the traditional village, the bathhouse and his 'retarded' brother seem strange and annoying, but this changes along the movie.

Though the story may sound cheesy or cliche, it's not. With really great performances, especially of the father and the 'retarded' son (sorry, I don't know their names) and a great story the movie was touching and funny at the same time.

If you got a chance to see this movie do it. It's a great alternative to mainstream Hollywood cinema.

This film is moving without being sentimental - meaningful without being pretentious. It tells a simple story of a family in danger of falling apart as the encroachments of technology and an advancing society make the family-run business increasingly untenable.

The acting is wonderful - though none of us in the west are likely to have heard of these actors, we should have long ago - they play their characters with honesty and reverence - these are flawed characters, each with major weaknesses, but with such utter humanity and kindness that it's impossible not to become engaged in the story.

We need more films like this - we need more western filmmakers creating films such as this.

How powerful and captivating simple quality filmmaking can be. This film tells it's tale with everyday scenes that manage to revel the poignancy hidden within. It's true as others have stated, how this film really makes it glaringly obvious how lost Hollywood is in it's special effects, overblown emotionalism and over the top climatic endings and have forgotten the essence of a meaningful story told with simple realism. So much of what these characters are going through is implied by the scene rather than spelled out in wordy dialogue. One aspect that I really enjoyed about the film was the contrast of the two brothers, one so very openly expressive in his childlike way and the other completely stoic but both able to evoke deep emotion. The older brother needed to say little, as he usually did, it was all there in that deadpan face of his! Beautiful cinematography, wonderful acting, great direction! Not to be missed!