China
#aiww: The Arrest of Ai Weiwei, Hampstead Theatre online review – imbued with an urgent new relevanceTuesday, 28 April 2020
London’s Hampstead Theatre has recently been very successful in bringing some of its best shows to a wider public – despite coronavirus. This week, it’s the turn of Howard Brenton’s #aiww: The Arrest of Ai Weiwei, which was first staged at this... Read more... |
Valerie Hansen: The Year 1000 review - the first globe-trotting ageSunday, 12 April 2020
In 1018, the Princess of Chen – a member of the Liao dynasty that ruled northern China – was buried in a treasure-filled tomb in Inner Mongolia. Excavated in the 1980s, her grave contained luxury items sourced in Egypt, Syria, Iran, India, Sumatra... Read more... |
Clarence Clemons: Who Do I Think I Am? review - documentary about Springsteen's saxophonistSaturday, 11 April 2020
I must confess the sum total of my knowledge of Clarence Clemons before watching this documentary was that he was, for many years before his death in 2011 at the age of 69, the mighty saxophone player in Bruce Springsteen's E Street Band. And what a... Read more... |
The Iron Mask review - preposterous multi-national fantasyWednesday, 08 April 2020
Director Oleg Stepchenko’s follow-up to his 2014 yarn Forbidden Kingdom swaps the latter’s Transylvania for a fantastical computer-generated frolic round 18th century Russia and China, as pioneering cartographer Jonathan Green (Jason Flemyng) sets... Read more... |
DVD/Blu-ray: Raining in the MountainTuesday, 03 March 2020
King Hu is the original master of wuxia or martial arts films – visual feasts of balletic conflict and near-slapstick humour – and this 1979 film is one of his best, though perhaps less well-known than Dragon Inn (1967), A Touch of Zen (1971) and... Read more... |
Long Day's Journey into Night review - Chinese art-house stunnerSaturday, 28 December 2019
Marketed as a couples-friendly romance, Bi Gan’s Long Day’s Journey into Night made a massive $37 million on its opening day in China but was subsequently denounced by irate viewers who felt they’d been conned into watching a neo-noir pastiche that... Read more... |
So Long, My Son review - an intimate Chinese epicSaturday, 07 December 2019
Two young boys play by the water. Soon, one is dead. This enigmatic tragedy is the core of a four-decade Chinese saga of grief, guilt and love, at once intimately personal and scarred by the state’s grinding turns. Director Wang Xiaoshuai shuffles... Read more... |
Jung Chang: Big Sister, Little Sister, Red Sister review – China's century in three women's livesSunday, 27 October 2019
In 1930, a couple of romantically involved Chinese expats in Berlin – both revolutionaries in their own way – went on a farewell date. One of them, Deng Yan-da, was due to return home to continue his clandestine political work. The pair saw Marlene... Read more... |
The Farewell review - warmly comic culture-clashFriday, 20 September 2019
The cancer weepie is knocked off its tear-jerking axis by Lulu Wang’s sly and heartfelt autobiographical tale. Drawing on the first-generation immigrant, internal culture-clash she experienced after her Chinese grandmother’s terminal diagnosis, and... Read more... |
The King of Hell’s Palace, Hampstead Theatre review - Chinese scandal freezes the bloodFriday, 13 September 2019
New artistic directors are popping up all over British theatre. Every week seems to usher in a refreshingly versatile talent taking the reins of a major theatre. Tonight, veteran new writing advocate Roxana Silbert, the new head of Hampstead Theatre... Read more... |
DVD/Blu-ray: Ash Is Purest WhiteTuesday, 23 July 2019
Chinese director Jia Zhangke has made a masterful career from following the changes that his native land has undergone in the 21st century, catching the speed of its transition from old ideological order to the relentless dynamism of subsequent... Read more... |
Chimerica, Channel 4 review - fake news, true dramaThursday, 18 April 2019
Chimerica is a stage-to-screen adaptation that has certainly kept up with the times. When it opened at the Almeida back in 2013 – a West End transfer followed, along with an Olivier award for Best New Play – Lucy Kirkwood’s drama was (very... Read more... |
