#Xiu Xiu Movie An Almost

Initially budgeted at $1 million, with coin coming from sources in Taiwan, Hong Kong and China, according to Chen, pic was post-produced in California and officially flies under a U.S. She previously worked at TIFF Docs and the Toronto Reel Asian Film Festival, where she focused on.Based on a novella by Yan Geling вЂ” a writer originally from Shanghai whose вЂњSiao YuвЂќ was filmed in 1995 by Sylvia Chang вЂ” the film reps a considerable act of faith by Chen, who shot it without official clearance from ChinaвЂ™s Film Bureau in a remote location on the Sichuan-Tibet border last year. Drama.Betty Xie is an Asian Canadian filmmaker and curator. After being there for only a year, Xiu Xiu decides to leave to with Lao Jin, a Tibetan saddle tramp, who promises to teach her how to become a horse herder. Set back in the year 1975, a young teenage girl by the name of Xiu Xiu is sent away from her home in order to work for manual labor in the secluded area of the Sichuan steppes.

Led to believe sheвЂ™ll eventually head her own all-girl cavalry unit вЂ” a C.R. Despite her cute, girlish face, itвЂ™s made clear that Xiu Xiu already has the ripe body of a young woman вЂ” plus a character that doesnвЂ™t take stick from anyone.Cut to a year later, and sheвЂ™s riding the range in Tibet, an exemplary student but without the right political connections to get sent home. ItвЂ™s 1975, when the Cultural Revolution was virtually played out, making the disruption of her education and family life all the more tragic.FilmвЂ™s sexual element, which comes to the fore as the story progresses, is introduced early on in a rear nude shot of the girl having a bath.

Xiu Xiu Movie An Almost

In this respect, however, Joan Chen shows her roots: Rather than being Western in perspective and flavor, вЂњXiu XiuвЂќ has the emotional patterns of a mainland Chinese movie, even though direction and performances are reined in. In a largely reactive role, Tibetan-born actor Lopsang is also well cast.ChenвЂ™s uncluttered direction and Taiwanese composer Johnny ChenвЂ™s melodious score give the movie an almost fairy-tale flavor that some Western viewers may feel is at odds with the tragic events portrayed. ItвЂ™s an amazingly mature and textured perf, moving from cute little doll through bossy brat to petulant young woman, without losing the essential innocence at the heart of the character.Starting with her girlish open-air ablutions (the вЂњheavenly bathвЂќ of the novellaвЂ™s title) when she and Lao Jin reach their location, to the later scenes of sordid sex with faceless men, the actress exactly catches the hard-nosed Chinese pragmatism that saw millions of people through one of historyвЂ™s most wasteful political exercises. Silently observed by the neutered Lao Jin, she trades sex for promises from passersby and officials, still hoping her favors will earn her the right to return home.Given that pic is essentially a two-hander, and one of the characters is mostly taciturn, вЂњXiu XiuвЂќ depends almost entirely on its female lead, 16-year-old newcomer Lu Lu (aka Li Xiaolu).

Chen stated at her Berlin press conference that she turned to directing basically because she was fed up with making direct-to-video schlockers.