MUST-SEE MOVIES

CLIFF WALKERS

Zhang Yimou’s latest is a spy movie set in 1930s Japanese-occupied Manchukuo.Four spies race through the winter forests of northeastern China to smuggle a man out of a Japanese prison camp; however, a local collaborator doublecrosses the mission.Intrigue ensues in an expertly choreographed action film that recreates the old city of Harbin on set, filling it with fedoras, cigarettes,snow, and betrayal.The movie is acclaimed for its lush and engrossing visuals,befitting of one of the biggest-budget blockbusters to come out this season.

SISTER

When 24-year-old An Ran (Zhang Zifeng) loses her parents in a car crash, her relatives urge her to give up her own dream of becoming a doctor to assume care of her 6-year-old brother.The tearjerking family drama directed by Yin Ruoxin topped the box office for 10 consecutive days after its release in April, and has been widely and critically applauded for challenging the traditional preference for sons over daughters in many Chinese families.The film also unflinchingly tackles tough issues such as the cruel consequences of the now-defunct onechild policy and the sexual assault of children.

THE ELEVENTH CHAPTER

This grungy, rollicking drama-comedy features a murder within a play within a film.Ma Fuli (Chen Jianbin), a convicted murderer who insists he was innocent,goes to great lengths to stop theater director Hu Kunding (Dapeng) from putting on a play adapted from his alleged crime.The rehearsal of the play, set in 11 chapters, involves an increasingly complex web of characters who beg, seduce,and cheat in this emotionally explosive feature.The story ultimately calls into question the concept of truth, as well as the power of interpretation.Director Chen Jianbin also wrote and stars in the film.

TRACING HER SHADOW

Director Peng Fei’sTracing Her Shadowis a Chinese-Japanese co-produced drama based on the oral histories of Japanese orphans abandoned and raised in northeastern China after Japan’s surrender in 1945.The elderly Chen Huiming(Wu Yanshu) travels to Japan in search of her adopted daughter, with whom she lost contact years ago.Chen is aided in her search by a retired policeman and a young Japanese woman whose parents were war orphans.As the eclectic cast wander the Japanese countryside together, each character is revealed to be searching for something different.