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Shadow Magic More at IMDbPro »
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| Index | 15 reviews in total |
9 out of 9 people found the following review useful:
Beautifully filmed tale of the early film industry in China., 20 March 2001
Author:
cinemel (melvin.matsil@worldnet.att.net) from North Woodmere, NY
Ann Hu‘s first directorial and writing effort is an ambitious project that belies her 2 month apprenticeship at the film school at New York University. `Shadow Magic' is a fictitious tale built around the introduction of the infant film industry in China of the very early 20th century. Raymond Wallace (Jared Harris) comes to Beijing to introduce the simplest of motion pictures to its natives. Liu (Yu Xia) portrays a youthful Chinese apprentice photographer who helps him encourage the locals to attend the show he calls `Shadow Magic'. The clashes of cultures form the backbone of the conflict. Filmed beautifully on location, acting, cinematography and music coalesce magically to draw today's audiences into its story, just as its characters are instantly charmed by the movies they come to see in filmdom's first theaters. This is a movie not to be missed by anyone who loves film.
6 out of 6 people found the following review useful:
Unpretentious, warmly human, and quite fascinating portrait of how the introduction of cinema opened new worlds to the people of China in 1902., 12 August 2002
Author:
martin lane (martylee13045burlsink342@yahoo.com) from Cortland Ny
Gentle and genial film seems to have been overlooked as a triviality...and to be fair the narrative is a bit tenuous and lightweight as drama....but I feel the simple wonder and joy of the scenes depicting the first impact of a new art on an alien and sceptical society have a radiance and naturalness which capture the century long romance between cinema and audience better than any film in years. Immensely sympathetic performance from Jared Harriss (who seems to have inherited all of his fathers charisma...hopefully without poor Richards penchant for hellraising and haminess)....and charming offbeat cuteness from costar Yu Xia combine to make this a real heartwarmer. Radiant location photography (including glowingly beautiful scenes at the great wall) and sensitive direction by Ann Hu give film added impact. In short a must for anyone ever enchanted by a shadow flickering to life...and making magic in the dark.
4 out of 4 people found the following review useful:
charming, 11 September 2005
Author:
Charles Herold (cherold) from United States
A very sweet movie about a young Chinese man enamored of western
technology and an Englishman trying to make his fortune showing movies
in China. It's a very interesting story that is presumably based on
true events, although I'm assuming it's more fantasy than real. It's
got a fairy tale quality you rarely get in real life, and it's also got
8 people credited for the script, so they must have been making up
stuff right and left.
This is a very likable movie that conveys how magical film was to
people who had never seen it before. It is not an especially deep
movie, touching briefly on the loss of tradition and the encroachment
of western culture but mainly just being a pleasant little movie. It's
actually a movie I enjoyed very much that is already beginning to
disappear from my mind 15 minutes after seeing it. Light as a soufflé,
but I enjoyed every minute.
2 out of 2 people found the following review useful:
Complex drama about film and east/west relations, 13 March 2001
Author:
freakus from San Francisco, CA
This film is about so many things. Most obvious is the hold that film can have over an audience and how capturing life on film can be a kind of magic. There is also the tense relationship between China and the West as many Chinese saw (probably rightly so) the "Barbarians" as trying to take over and pollute their way of life. Liu even seeks to preserve their way of life on film because he sees that it will one day disappear. Their is also Liu's internal conflict between the loyalties and traditions of China versus the self-determination philosophy of the West. All these themes are woven quite skillfully into a coherent and enjoyable whole by Hu. A very enjoyable film.
2 out of 2 people found the following review useful:
Gorgeous & Moving, 28 January 2001
Author:
A. Tad Chamberlain (script2screen@hotmail.com) from Van Nuys, California
A beautiful film about the coming of early silent cinema to China. SHADOW MAGIC deftly combines a love story with the drama of the cultural clash between China's ancient traditions and modern Western culture in the form of film. An amazing first film by Chinese director Ann Hu. If I correctly understood Ms. Hu's comments at the 2000 Sundance festival, this film was produced as an American film with co-funding by the Chinese government, and shot in China. SHADOW MAGIC reminds me of films like IL POSTINO and CINEMA PARADISO - not necessarily in theme or plot, but it has a similar feel.
3 out of 4 people found the following review useful:
Right movie for right mood., 2 September 2004
Author:
Vladimir Roudakov from Brisbane, QLD, Australia
This is good movie for historical drama mood. The movies is about the
introduction of cinematograph to people who never saw unique from one
point of view as it's tracking also the mixture of cultures, however
many small things you've seen million of times (people are afraid of
train on the screen). It's not boring, but it's not a masterpiece. It
has good cinematography as well as interesting plot.
From historical point of view it is interesting to watch the mixing of
Asian and European cultures, while cinematographic part of the movie
involve a lot Chinese refinements. So, if you have time, grab the DVD,
it won't disappoint you.
1 out of 1 people found the following review useful:
Very enjoyable., 7 March 2002
Author:
dsulpy from New Jersey
A lovely little film about the introduction of motion pictures to China. Captures the amazement of film's first audiences pretty much as it's described to have been worldwide, and uses actual Lumiere films for most of the actualities. I don't agree with other people about bad acting on the British fellow's part - I thought he was fine, but the Chinese lead really stole the show. In any case, I found myself with a smile on my face through most of the movie. People who fear subtitles might note that a lot of the film is in English (which for some reason is given subtitles as well as the Chinese on the DVD).
A Movie Working On Multiple Plans, 17 October 2011
Author:
Pierre Radulescu from United States
This "Shadow Magic" is a very ambitious endeavor, working on multiple
plans.
On one plan it is a tribute to the pioneers of Chinese movie industry.
It was the way this tribute was conceived that made some reviewers to
declare "Shadow Magic" a light movie, unpretentious, not to be ranged
within the masterworks of today's China film.
Well, like any tribute of this kind, it is a warm story, the fathers of
Chinese cinema are followed with genuine sympathy: like any pioneers in
any domain they simply were not aware of their future role in history;
the fathers didn't know that some day they would be THE fathers. They
were seeing themselves just as common guys and were behaving as such,
sometimes with mistakes, sometimes with naivety, sometimes like fools,
sometimes in love, sometimes bad tempered.
It is also another criticism brought to "Shadow Magic": that it suffers
from lack of originality, copying themes and moods from "Cinema
Paradiso." It is true that the wheel cannot be reinvented each time one
makes a movie about the beginnings of cinema. However I would note that
"Cinema Paradiso" is built differently, on a play of memory and
nostalgia, while in "Shadow Magic" there is no place for nostalgia: it
is not about a vanished world of movie theaters; by the contrary, it
shows the beginnings of what is today one of the most important schools
of cinema worldwide.
"Shadow Magic" called in my mind rather another film, "Diarios de
Motocicleta", where the main character, a sympathetic medical student
nicknamed Che is also totally unaware that one day he will become a
famous (or infamous, matter of perspective) revolutionary leader.
There is also another plan (that was also in Ann Hu's previous "Dream
and Memory"): the Englishman comes with his projector and suddenly East
meets West in 1902's Beijing. This contact seems to be of great
interest for director Ann Hu. What happens when the two universes come
into contact? What happens there on the border? Do they explode, do
they remain separate looking at each other across the trenches, or is a
new universe emerging on the surface of contact? In "Dream and Memory"
the border is in the mind of Hong, the Chinese who (like director Ann
Hu) moved long time ago to the US. For him one universe looks like a
dream, unclear and remote, while the present universe needs the
mechanisms of memory to reenact the lost dream. It's East coming to the
West, and West trying to recuperate East: China is far away and long
ago, America is here and now, China needs to be appropriated.
Here in "Shadow Magic" it is West that comes to the the East. England
is far away, China is here and now. And the border is in the heart of
Liu, the Chinese passionate to go beyond the limits of his known world,
while torn out by the force of his loyalties. It's a pop-out and a
push-back bringing the border now and then on the brink of explosion,
while little by little a coalescing universe begins to take shape.
Maybe this was also the case in the Big Bang model? Just kidding.
"Shadow Magic" is also a tribute paid to the charm of old Beijing, with
its incredible mix of people and carts and camels on the streets, that
incredible mix of present with its seemingly chaotic agitation and past
with its quiet force; all these found in Ann Hu an exquisite artist
painter. Here all reviewers are unanimous in recognizing her talent in
rending the images, her sensibility for each nuance of color, for each
detail of the street. Her mastership of the visual language is amazing,
and also her science of controlling the movement of each actor on the
scene. The movie has the synchronization of a ballet, any movement
comes in its exact place, no earlier, no later, no slower, no faster,
no shorter, no longer.
And I think nowhere in the movie it's the cinematic genius of Ann Hu as
overwhelming as in the scenes at the Great Wall. When it came there I
was afraid I would see kind of a tourist commercial (the risk any
moviemaker is running when shooting in a famous place). Well, it was
far from that. The Great Wall was playing together with the two actors,
the Englishman and the young Chinese, witnessing their enthusiasm to be
there, their feeling that they got the best life could give, because
being there! It was the way the Great Wall was shot that made it an
active part of the action! I saw only one other movie that gave me the
same impression, "Springtime in a Small Town" of Tian Zhuang-Zhuang,
cinematographed by Li Ping-Bin (a remake after another Chinese
masterpiece). It was there, in the movie of Tian that I had this
feeling, that the setting was an active actor in the drama!
Historic drama wrapped with light melodrama, 18 December 2002
Author:
lingmeister from New York City
This film is loosely based on history of the introduction of motion pictures
to China, with a westerner Raymond Wallace, bringing in the format to the
country and the shock and fear people had on this new piece of technology.
At the same time, it is embraced by a chinese named Liu Jinglun, who has the
curiosity for new things. Together, they eventually persuade the people
embrace the medium.
It is a light film, with the Liu facing the dilemma of respecting his
culture and tradition or embracing the new medium that is so frightening to
his people. There is also the side plot of his desire to marry Lord Tan's
daughter, but he would have to be rich. His path to richness would also
make Lord Tan lose respect for him, since Lord Tan is a performer in the old
medium of stage theater and his moving pictures would push that into
oblivion. Of course, we end up with a happy ending because the new medium
becomes a tool to supplement everything around it instead of taking it over.
Which is basically the point of the story. Don't fear it, embrace and
integrate it into your environment.
This film does not tackle the subjects it encounters very hard, it uses
light mellowdrama and resolve all the issues amicably.
All in all, this film is easy to enjoy, but it will not be mistaken for the
fifth generation films that came out of china a decade or so
ago.
0 out of 1 people found the following review useful:
a magic movie, 1 February 2003
Author:
Hunky Stud
Unlike some movies which you can wonder around and do other things, this
movie kept me in front of the screen for the entire two hours. I loved
every
minute of it.
However, I have to say that the story is not very believable. Especially
when the foreigner was expelled by the government, and then later on,
actually sent a package to the guy who helped him. Xiao Liu is a very
good
actor, he shows his emotions, and he shows his silliness, and his love
toward that girl.
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