Chen Qi

A Chinese drama

During a night when Mei Liang and his girlfriend, Sima Qiu-Hong are on the same stage during a play for the Dajiang Theater Company, they receive a visit from Qiu-Hong's former classmate, Xie Yu-Lan. Under Yu-Lan's insistence, Mei Liang decides to break up with Qiu-Hong.

The film depicts Confucius's later life, as he traveled across a China divided by war and strife in an ultimately futile effort to teach various warlords and kings his particular philosophy.

Peach Blossom Lake

The Fatal Throwing Sword

Liu Lizhen is in love with her colleague, Zhang Li'an but marries her wealthy cousin, Lei Yingsun. She later gives birth to a child, who's father is Zhang Li'an which creates complications to her married life.

The Goddess (1934) is remade once again. In this version, Zhu Shilin tackles the anxiety concerning the clash of 20th century Chinese traditions and modern Western culture. Despite her father’s strict discipline, Fun still manages to have a boyfriend secretly and give birth to twins. After leaving her son to her father, she takes off with her daughter. Twenty years later, Fun has become a streetwalker. The three generations finally come face-to-face at the police station. Her father laments that his generation should be ousted while Fun’s generation has been sacrificed, leaving the future for the next generation to establish. Zhu carefully depicts the shame of selling one’s body without passing judgment while he finds balance and reflects on the pain in the age of progress. Even though the production was far from lavish, Zhu’s astute handling of the narrative and mise-en-scène makes this a vivid and exciting film to watch.

Dream of the Red Chamber, one of the big four of classic Chinese novels, has been adapted for film and television dozens of times over the past decades. Yet this sui generis Great Wall production daringly transposes the setting to modern-day 1950s. The contemporised story revolves nonetheless around the love triangle between Jia Baoyu and his two cousins. Both girls love him but his heart belongs to only one. The ending, however, is remarkably changed to separation of the lovers as a result of war—the war that was surely still haunting the minds of the filmmakers at the time when the film was made. Not only did Great Wall pour money into building extravagant sets just so to recreate down to the smallest detail the grandeur of the legendary Jia mansion, but the film also boasted of its lavish costume designs for the diverse female cast. (From Hong Kong Film Archive)