Lost in Beijing

Ping Guo is a gem of a movie! I've been watching a lot of Chinese movies recently, but Ping Guo is one of the best of the bunch.

The story is about two couples intertwined due to unlucky circumstances, but most of them in their hands. During the movie, a very harsh and very real light is shed on the difference between poor and rich in modern Beijing and it will leave your mind thinking about it long after the movie is over. This is a very good thing - in my opinion movies are supposed to make you think, supposed to move you. Ping Guo did just that and is worthy of watching for everyone who isn't afraid of foreign movies and who is willing to look at something else than popcorn Hollywood.

This movie will keep you entertained for nearly two hours and will make you want for more movies of this director. And that's a very good thing!

I see this movie as a commentary on the new morality in Beijing brought on by modernization. This modernization could not have happened unless there was a mobile work force so the government made a conscious effort to diminish the familial bonds. How else could a worker travel thousands of miles to Beijing or Shenzen to find work? Money had to become of greater importance. The other modernization was that men could only legally marry one woman. In previous times, men would take another wife. In previous times, families would buy children.

With these two changes to Chinese society, this movie could ensue. An Kun and Liu can now be in Beijing. Lin Dong and Wang Mei would be childless. The lust, heartbreak, the anguish, the loathing, all results. The viewer is left with the question whether the new morality is better than the old. I think the writers preferred the old.

A truly wonderful movie.

It is rare (incredibly so, given the number of mindless and/or self-pitying movies that spew out from Hollywood) to find a movie that portrays the strengths, weaknesses, goods and ills of its protagonists so well.

The people (note: not characters) in this flick are so well portrayed that, by the end, you don't know whom to hate and whom to side with (with one obvious exception -- but are even that person's decisions the right ones?) Given that it has been banned in China, I perhaps foolishly succumbed to the current US government's anti-China propaganda, and expected there to be political reasons for the ban, but that is quite obviously not the case.

If anything, the ban was more from the fear that people "down on the farm" would come to think that living in a major Chinese city carries with it the same fears and worries as living in a major US city -- which, let's be absolutely honest, is nowhere near the truth.

It's beautifully written and beautifully realised. Far and away better than any Western movie I've had to sit through, lately -- the words "sex" and "city" come to mind. In some ways, it's the same basic idea as that movie , but there's just no comparison.

The only possible bug-bear for Western viewers is that Chinese emotions may be "inscrutable" to them, because they're not used to the East/West differences in facial characteristics. I'm British, with a Royal Navy background, so I can perhaps see such things more easily than someone from "down on the farm" in the US -- but it can't be that hard to see what the characters are feeling, when the actors are playing the parts so well.

Be ready to laugh, to "maintain a stiff upper lip", to hate people for what they do, and to love those same people for other things they do.

It's a blinder, this one. Watch it.

Addendum: Could the IMDb spellchecker be made to take note that the Websters is not a real dictionary?

This is the first movie I've seen come out of Mainland China of respectable quality. I'll admit I haven't seen many, but from what I have seen, this is certainly above and beyond.

The story is about a poor migrant couple and a wealthy couple living in Beijing. Their lives become intertwined through a set of unfortunate and somewhat disturbing circumstances.

I'm not perfectly fluent in Mandarin, but the acting was good from all four main characters. The less experienced Bingbing Fang was especially good as Ping Guo, the lead character. The scenery is set amid the toxic haze of a sprawling Beijing with lots of greys and muted colours.

The best thing about the movie for me was the amazing contrast between the lives of the rich and the poor. Even though I'm surrounded by it daily, this movie gives a little bit more intimacy than what I'm normally exposed to. Other common themes were greed and face.

Ultimately, the production values of the movie were very good, from the cinematography to the acting, but the conclusion doesn't really leave you with a good taste in your mouth. I think this is good though, because it sticks closer to what reality might be like, instead of having clearly defined heroes and antagonists with a full circle ending.

A lower class, working, married woman gets pregnant with lots of plot twists, money, moral dilemmas and human intrigue. If a travelogue/vocabulary brush up is your motive for watching there are some shots of Beijing looking bleak in winter, Tienamen Square, and the Forbidden City in the background during a conversation. My food-traveler mother wanted to know if there was food. With the key character being a pregnant female, she's eating all the time. If low-grade, sordid, masseuse/hooker scenes are what you seek, quit watching after the early drunken rape by boss scene. Otherwise that cutoff point is where you will quit watching, disgusted, wondering why the film wasn't cataloged as porn, but it is also exactly when the film gets interesting and stays interesting to the end. I started cleaning the kitchen at that point but checked in on the film running in the background just in case it redeemed itself. It did redeem itself, and turned out to be captivating.