Movies
It's good to see China is back to doing romantic films with a slice of fantasy (think Baober in Love or Lee's Adventure). Land of Broken Hearts is a sweet, frivolous, and touching romance that brings together two people forced apart by fate. The performances are good, the presentation is slick and the payoff is perfect. It's a film that took me back to two decades ago when China was still trying to figure out what their cinema outside the international arthouse sphere should look like. This is a lovely, creative little film that is sure to please people who embrace quirky romances.
A stylish and concise Chinese neo-noir. With Eddie Pang in the lead, Sylvia Chang as a strong backup, and Hao Ning producing the talent was there, but director Shipei Wen is the one who turned this into a formidable genre effort. The cinematography is lush, the plot is neatly structured and the performances are strong. There's hardly any fat to the story, the finale is powerful and the pacing is pretty much perfect. It's still a core genre film, so don't expect anything too out of the ordinary, but the execution is flawless.