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Director Jia Zhang-Ke returns with a sprawling portrait of romantic destiny culled from 22 years of footage with “Caught by the Tides,” his latest collaboration with his wife and muse Zhao Tao.

Here, she plays Quiaoqiao, who drifts through decades of Chinese history while witnessing its profound and turbulent political changes. Sideshow and Janus Films open “Caught by the Tides” in select theaters May 9, and IndieWire shares the exclusive trailer premiere below.

Here’s a synopsis courtesy of the New York Film Festival: “The preeminent dramatist of China’s rapid 21st-century growth and social transformation, Jia Zhang-ke has taken his boldest approach to narrative yet with his marvelous ‘Caught by the Tides.’ Assembled from footage shot over a span of 23 years—a beguiling mix of fiction and documentary, featuring a cascade of images taken from previous movies, unused scenes, and newly shot dramatic sequences — ‘Caught by the Tides’ is a free-flowing work of unspoken longing,...

Exclusive: Jia Zhangke’s Cannes Competition entry Caught By The Tides has been set for U.S. release on May 9, 2025 via Sideshow and Janus Films.

The latest from the Chinese auteur, known for movies including A Touch Of Sin and Ash Is The Purest White, is love story told over 23 years and set against the backdrop of explosive growth in China. Made up of old footage shot by the filmmaker over the past century as well as some new, the film traverses personal and national history including all of his films to date. Zhao Tao and Li Zhubin star.

Written by Jia and Wan Jiahuan, pic is produced by Casper Liang Jiayan, Shozo Ichiyama and Zhang Dong. The film is an X Stream Pictures, Momo Pictures, Huanxi Media Group Limited (Beijing) and Wishart Media (Quanzhou) production in association with mk2 Films, Ad Vitam and Bitters End. It played at festivals including Cannes,...

The 68th BFI London Film Festival has just announced the line-up and – as always – a wide variety of Asian films is included in the vast Programme. Over 12 days, the Lff will showcase 255 works from 80 countries, featuring 64 languages and including 112 projects made by female and non-binary filmmakers.

The London Film Festival, officially called the BFI London Film Festival is organised annually by the British Film Institute (BFI) since 1953. It is the UK’s largest public Festival of its kind and is visited by thousands of film enthusiasts who have the the ability to see films, documentaries and shorts from all over the world. The festival will take place at London’s BFI Southbank and The Southbank Centre’s Royal Festival Hall, as well as cinemas and venues across central London, and will run from 9 to 20 October 2024.

All the info about tickets and booking are Here.

And now, let’s browse the...

Anyone familiar with the filmography of Jia Zhangke will easily recognize “Caught by the Tides” as one of the celebrated director’s features. Such familiarity may well create interest and pleasure at seeing Jia revisit the characters, locales and subjects that made him famous. But this atmospheric film, in which mood and visuals prevail over plot, might also disorient and bemuse viewers who are not already intimate with his work.

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The film has been described as a career retrospective for the director, and with good reason. Stuck at home during the Covid 19 pandemic, Jia decided to review the enormous amount of footage he had shot since 2001. The images could be documentary-style footage capturing slices of life that had caught Jia’s ever-alert attention: singing crowds, swirling dancers, young people going to their favorite places, in Datong, Zhuhai, or many other places across China.

Sideshow and Janus Films have acquired the latest film from China’s great auteur Jia Zhang-ke, “Caught by the Tides.” The film premiered in competition at Cannes in May 2024.

A love story at heart, “Caught by the Tides” stars Jia’s wife, the longtime actress Zhao Tao, in a story set across 23 years. As with his previous masterpieces “Platform,” “The World,” “A Touch of Sin,” and “Mountains May Depart,” the film is a canvas on which to portray the rapid changes in China this century — a period of explosive economic and technological growth. Zhao is romantically entangled with Li Zhubin against this backdrop, some of which Jia actually shot over the past 23 years. Like his “24 City,” it combines non-fiction and fiction elements. In this case, even clips from Jia’s previous films appear.

Jia is unique in being a Mainland filmmaker deeply committed to exploring life in China today and...

by Simon Ramshaw

There is a moment in Jia Zhangke’s “Platform” where an argument between a cynic and an idealist creates an unexpected glimpse of a bright future. One of the film’s central characters Cui Mingliang (Wang Hongwei) declares “the four modernisations: Industry, Agriculture, Defense and Science” will be embraced by China in the year 2000, and it’s no mistake that this statement is a bitterly ironic one for his little town. Taking place between 1979 and 1989, Jia’s second feature film looks at the fallout of the death of Mao Zedong and the formation of the People’s Republic of China, which leaves the performers of provincial Communist theatre troupes without the purpose they once had in Mao’s lifetime. Their stage plays are state-sanctioned propaganda that young and old alike attend in their droves, yet there is the pervasive feeling that this nostalgia will take them nowhere.

The crime film is not exactly one known for its art-house aesthetics, as the frantic pace, the intense use of music, and the occasionally extreme violence are almost always, the traits that characterize the category. However, occasionally, and even more frequently during the latest years, we have seen a number of films that despite focusing on criminals and the whole concept of crime, implement mostly artistic aesthetics, with the focus being on them as much as on the story and characters, while the pace is most certainly slow. The quality, however, is by no means lower, as the titles we have winnowed here eloquently highlight.

Without further ado, here are 10 (and one more) great samples, in chronological order:

10. Breathless

The circle of violence started by domestic violence is the prominent focus of the film with nearly all of the characters going through such experiences. Sang-hoon’s abuse during his childhood...

World premiering at Berlinale shortly is a new film from Jia Zhangke titled Swimming out till the Sea Turns Blue, following his masterful Ash Is Purest White, but first, one of his earlier nonfiction gems will finally be getting a U.S. release, beginning at NYC’s Metrograph this Friday and expanding to other cities in the weeks to come, courtesy of Kino Lorber.

I Wish I Knew, which premiered at the 2010 Cannes Film Festival, features Hou Hsiao-hsien, Tao Zhao, and more recalling their experiences in a changing Shanghai over the course of nearly a century. This first-ever theatrical release in the U.S. will be presented in its 118-minute director’s cut and is one of the most essential watches in this early decade.

See the trailer below via Indiewire, along with the poster.

Shanghai’s past and present flow together in Jia Zhangke’s poetic and poignant portrait of this fast-changing port city.

Iranian family drama Castle of Dreams, directed by Reza Mirkarimi, dominated the key competition categories at the Shanghai International Film Festival's closing awards ceremony Sunday.

The film took the Golden Goblet prizes for best feature and best director, while its lead, Hamed Saberi Behdad, shared best actor honors with Chang Feng, star of Chinese drama The Return.

A jury led Turkish Palme D'or winner Nuri Bilge Ceylan decided Shanghai's winners this year. The jury, which included Chinese actress Tao Zhao and Italian director Paolo Genovese, described Castle of Dreams as "so sure of itself that it doesn't ...

Iranian family drama Castle of Dreams, directed by Reza Mirkarimi, dominated the key competition categories at the Shanghai International Film Festival's closing awards ceremony Sunday.

The film took the Golden Goblet prizes for best feature and best director, while its lead, Hamed Saberi Behdad, shared best actor honors with Chang Feng, star of Chinese drama The Return.

A jury led Turkish Palme D'or winner Nuri Bilge Ceylan decided Shanghai's winners this year. The jury, which included Chinese actress Tao Zhao and Italian director Paolo Genovese, described Castle of Dreams as "so sure of itself that it doesn't ...

Chicago – Obsessive love is a movie story staple, and “Ash is Purest White” puts a Chinese point-of-view on this strange phenomenon. This is a coupling in the background of organized crime and a changing China, and their success and failure is based on the events surrounding them as much as their devotion to each other.

Rating: 3.5/5.0

The film is dreamy, almost surreal, as it takes place between 2001 and 2018. The lead actors portraying the couple in essence represent the emerging capitalist China, setting their sights on territory, both within the relationship and the small fiefdoms that popped up in China’s soaring economy. At some point, after a key event, the film switches into a deliberateness that slows down everything, and it becomes a narrative not of action but of searching for something that didn’t exist in the first place. In a sense, the new China is precisely that … a...

In two weeks, Jia Zhangke’s new epic of crime and romance, Ash Is Purest White, will arrive in the U.S. courtesy of Cohen Media Group. The director with the most insightful eye on contemporary China, his latest film follows Zhao Tao’s character of Qiao on a decades-spanning journey. We’re pleased to premiere an exclusive clip, featuring Qiao under siege leading up to the film’s major turning point and a tour de force setpiece of filmmaking from the director.

In a rare A-grade review, Rory O’Connor said at Cannes, “There are few filmmakers with Jia’s ability to convey scales both physical (simply filming his actors walk past some soulless mega-structure or vast landscape) and existential (focusing on small shifts in his characters’ relationships as tectonic shifts seem to be taking place simultaneously in those same characters’ society).”

See our exclusive clip below along with...

The director with the most insightful eye on contemporary China, Jia Zhangke is returning this spring with a new epic Ash Is Purest White. Following Zhao Tao’s character on a decades-spanning journey of crime, romance, and reflection, it’s one of the best films of 2019, and now Cohen Media Group has unveiled the new trailer.

In a rare A-grade review, Rory O’Connor said at Cannes, “There are few filmmakers with Jia’s ability to convey scales both physical (simply filming his actors walk past some soulless mega-structure or vast landscape) and existential (focusing on small shifts in his characters’ relationships as tectonic shifts seem to be taking place simultaneously in those same characters’ society).”

See the trailer and poster below and watch the director’s recent iPhone-shot short film here.

A tragicomedy initially set in the jianghu Ash Is Purest White begins by following the quick-witted Qiao (Tao Zhao...

Jia Zhangke embarks once again on a triptych that highlights the changes China has experienced in the 21st century, through a long drama revolving around a gangster’s girlfriend and her life during three different decades.

“Ash Is Purest White” is screening at Toronto International Film Festival

The story begins in Shanxi, a dying coal town, where Qiao, a modern, feisty local beauty spends her time with her boyfriend, Guo Bin, a local gang boss and taking care of her father, who insists on fighting for the coal workers’ rights, although in an embarrassing fashion. Qiao is not Bin’s woman, as she carries herself as an equal among gangsters. When a group of young thugs starts making noise in the town, the clash with Bin’s gang is inevitable, and in the film’s most violent scene, Qiao ends up saving her boyfriend by shooting a gun, in a...

Directed by Jia Zhang-KeThis might be called epic in its large span of time (141 minutes), its large canvas of modern China and its grand timeless landscapes, especially that of the volcano whose ash is the reference in the film’s title.

The film opens in China at the outset of the 21st century and closes in 2018. Qiao is in love with Bin, a local mobster. During a fight between rival gangs, she fires a gun to protect him. Qiao gets five years in prison for this act of loyalty. Upon her release, she goes looking for Bin to pick up where they left off.

That would seem to encompass the story but what then ensues in the she-loves-him-he-spurns-her is their on-again off-again relationship which brings her to the final destination of running a gambling parlor in an old-fashioned place that seems totally out of place in modern day China but...

Cohen Media Group has acquired Us distribution rights to director Eva Husson’s Girls of the Sun, a drama focusing on the sisterhood of women taken prisoner by Kurdistan extremists, and director Jia Zhanqke’s Ash Is Purest White, a Chinese drama detailing a woman’s romance with a mobster.

Charles S. Cohen, the owner, chairman, and CEO of Cohen Media Group, announced the Cmg deals in advance of the closing ceremony of the 2018 Cannes Film Festival, where both films had their world premiere.

Cohen Media Group has distributed over 113 feature films and 10 shorts and has been nominated for eight Academy Awards, including The Salesman from Iranian Director Asghar Farhadi, which won the Academy Award for Best Foreign Film, and the Oscar-nominated Faces Places and The Insult.

Girls of the Sun stars Golshifteh Farahani and Emmanuelle Bercot and tells a story of resistance and sisterhood. Set in modern-day Kurdistan, the drama centers on Bahar, a young lawyer visiting her family. In a bloody attack led by extremists, her husband is killed and she’s taken prisoner with her son and thousands of other women and children. United by their quest for hope and justice, a universal sisterhood is born out of an unimaginable situation.

John Kochman and Georgia Poivre of Cohen Media Group negotiated the agreement for Girls of the Sun with Adeline Fontan Tessaur, co-founder and international sales director of Paris-based sales and acquisition firm Elle Driver.

Ash Is Purest White stars Tao Zhao and Liao Fan. It tells the story of Qiao, in love with Bin, a local mobster. During a fight between rival gangs, she fires a gun to protect him – which results in a five-year prison sentence. Upon her release, she goes looking for Bin to pick up where they left off.

Cmg’s Kochman and Poivre negotiated the agreement with Fionnuala Jamison, head of International Sales for MK2.

“These films, while set far apart from each other, both geographically and culturally, share an urgency and passion in stories of people whose lives have been thrown into chaos,” said Charles S. Cohen. “We’re thrilled to bring both films to wider audiences.”

Adeline Fontan Tessaur of Elle Driver added, “We are extremely proud to have been able to bring to light the destiny of these astonishing Yazidi Women fighters with Eva Husson’s impassioned film, Girls of the Sun. We are delighted to continue our longstanding partnership with Cohen Media Group in the Us, given their proven brio with distributing resonant cinema and powerful stories. It is a great satisfaction to bring such an important film to the American audience.”

“We are extremely proud to have been able to bring to light the destiny of theses astonishing Yazidi Women fighters, with Eva Husson’s impassioned film Girls of the Sun. We are delighted to continue our longstanding partnership with Cohen Media Group in the Us, given their proven brio with distributing resonant author cinema and powerfull stories. It is a great satisfaction to bring such an important film to the American audience.”

Fionnuala Jamison of MK2 praised Ash director Jia ZhangKe as “one of the world’s truly great filmmakers and with Ash he delivers anther profound and riveting look at China. While his wife and muse Zhao Tao gives a powerhouse performance as a gangster’s moll. Cohen Media’s passion for this epic love story and their excellent track record in bringing foreign language films to the Oscar’s leaves us no doubt in their ability to maximize Ash’s potential. We are thrilled to be working together.’...

Every week, IndieWire asks a select handful of film and TV critics two questions and publishes the results on Monday. (The answer to the second, “What is the best film in theaters right now?”, can be found at the end of this post.)

This week’s question: In honor of “Personal Shopper,” which finds Olivier Assayas re-teaming with his “Clouds of Sils Maria” star Kristen Stewart, who is the best director / actor duo in the movies today?

Mark Harris (@markharrisnyc), Vulture and Film Comment

Every time Matthew Broderick shows up in a movie directed by Kenneth Lonergan, I smile. It might seem an odd choice given that Lonergan has directed just three movies (“You Can Count on Me,” “Margaret,” and “Manchester by the Sea”) in 17 years, and also given that Broderick has played only supporting roles in those films. But Lonergan understands Broderick so well — his haplessness, his beleaguered, flawed decency,...

Jia Zhangke is back!

…less than two years after his last movie premiered, and about 12 months since it opened in the U.S., but the world’s best filmmakers getting new projects into motion is always a good thing, surely. And this next one sounds awfully promising: according to Variety, he’s partnered with MK2 for a project their own Juliette Schrameck describes as “an epic love story which unfolds over 15 years, as well as a thriller taking place in China’s crime underworld.”

Titled Money & Love, it starts in Datong, China circa 2001 and follows a young dancer, Qiao, who falls in love with a mobster, Bin, and ends up in jail after firing a shot to protect him during a gang fight. After serving a five-year jail sentence, she “goes looking for Bin to try and start all over again.”

All of which sounds like familiar ground for Jia,...

As Without So WITHINDear Fern,"Risky" festival choices can take all sorts of forms, whether betting on first time filmmakers (Hello Destroyer, which you rightly praised, and Ashley McKenzie's promising, incredibly compassionate debut Werewolf), or hoping that something as potentially goofy as Justin Timberlake + The Tennessee Kids might just be something special. (Judging by both our responses, it very much was—in fact, it's one of the best films of the year.) Still, I encourage you to come to Wavelengths with me—it's bliss!While much of the festival area here in Toronto is fairly condensed, which finds us sprinting across a multiplex with mere minutes between screenings or from one venue to another but a few blocks away—these being press and industry timeslots; the public ones are spread around a bit more—I had the pleasure to discover more of our host city by tracking down several...

This article was produced as part of the Locarno Critics Academy, a workshop for aspiring journalists at the Locarno Film Festival, a collaboration between the Locarno Film Festival, IndieWire and the Film Society of Lincoln Center with the support of Film Comment and the Swiss Alliance of Film Journalists.

While Ken Loach’s “I, Daniel Blake” was surprisingly awarded the Palme d’Or this May, many critics slammed the film (and Cannes judges) for its blunt portrayal of the disenfranchised worker. Few audiences dig being preached at, and Loach’s politics were seen to trump its storytelling. Regardless of how mawkish one may find Loach’s alleged swan song, his concern for a 59-year-old ex-carpenter from Newcastle battling to stay on welfare connected with the George Miller-led jury, highlighting the resonance of Loach’s timely social critique.

It should be no surprise then that the jobless were frequent fixtures at the 2016 Locarno Film Festival,...

This Week in New DVD ReleasesBelladonna of Sadness Brings Tragic Beauty and a Call for Sacrifice to Home VideoPick of the WeekBelladonna of Sadness

What is it? Jeanne and Jean are a young couple in love, but after their fairy tale wedding the pair are brought before the local lord to make an offering. He forces himself on her instead before sharing her with his court, and when even her new husband turns his back on her she finds pained, messy comfort with a devil-sent imp who offers to help in exchange for her soul.

Why buy it? Eiichi Yamamoto’s early ’70s slice of psychedelia, erotica, and still-relevant commentary is a beautifully disturbing descent into our shared history of sexual violence, oppression, and the abuse of authority. If it sounds heavy, well, it is — it’s also extremely graphic with watercolor frames and hand-drawn animation that capture the atrocities with gorgeously imaginative imagery. It...

Over the last handful of years, really ever since the debut of 2013’s A Touch Of Sin, director Jia Zhangke has become something of a household name within film circles that don’t lean towards the more esoteric of world cinema releases. A realist filmmaker of sorts, this 47 year old auteur has become a leading figure in the Sixth Generation movement in Chinese cinema, taking a clear eyed look at modern day Chinese culture and politics, often embedding rich themes within genre cinema tropes. With an interest in time and space, Zhangke is one of world cinema’s most interesting voices, and thankfully, with a new film in theaters this year in the form of the superb Mountains May Depart, it doesn’t look like he’s slowing down. And now he’s even the subject of a superb new documentary from a filmmaker worth his own weight in celluloid.

After picking up the Palme d'Or at last May's Cannes Film Festival, Jacques Audiard's "Dheepan" has again added to its festival haul, winning the Knight Competition Grand Jury Prize at last week's Miami International Film Festival. The festival also recognized other fest favorites like Yorgos Lanthimos' "The Lobster" (Grand Jury Award Best Director) and Zhao Tao's "Mountains May Depart" (Grand Jury Award Best Performance). Other winners included "Queen of Thursdays" and "Paulina."  Of his win, Audiard commented via a virtual acceptance statement, "There are two things I love in life: wearing a smoking (tuxedo) and drinking a dry, fresh martini. When I can do both at the same time, needless to say I am thrilled! Tonight, unfortunately I am not in my royal blue tuxedo with you, but I'll make myself a dry, dry, fresh martini and I drink to your health!" Read More: 'Eye in the Sky' Director Gavin.

Jacques Audiard’s Dheepan won the Knight Competition Grand Jury Prize and Argentine filmmaker Santiago Mitre’s Paulina won the Lexus Ibero-American Feature Film Prize at the 33rd edition of Miami Dade College’s Miami International Film Festival.

The Saturday awards ceremony preceded the Us premiere of Andrew Currie’s closing night screening The Steps.

Festival executive director Jaie Laplante presided over the ceremony, which marked the culmination of the festival, which ran from March 4-13 and screened 129 films from 40 countries.

In other top honours, the Knight Documentary Achievement Award went to Queen Of Thursdays (USA) from Jorge Alvarez, Orlando Rojas and Dennis Scholl

The Grand Jury Award Best Performance went to Zhao Tao for Mountains May Depart (China), while Yorgos Lanthimos won the Grand Jury Award Best Director prize for The Lobster (Ireland-Greece).

The Jordan Alexander Ressler Screenwriting Award went to Lorenzo Vigas for his Venice Golden Lion winner From Afar (Venezuela-Mexico).

“Every year we see...

Jacques Audiard’s Dheepan won the Knight Competition Grand Jury Prize and Argentine filmmaker Santiago Mitre’s Paulina won the Lexus Ibero-American Feature Film Prize at the 33rd edition of Miami Dade College’s Miami International Film Festival.

The Saturday awards ceremony preceded the Us premiere of Andrew Currie’s closing night screening The Steps.

Festival executive director Jaie Laplante presided over the ceremony, which marked the culmination of the festival, which ran from March 4-13 and screened 129 films from 40 countries.

In other top honours, the Knight Documentary Achievement Award went to Queen Of Thursdays (USA) from Jorge Alvarez, Orlando Rojas and Dennis Scholl

The Grand Jury Award Best Performance went to Zhao Tao for Mountains May Depart (China), while Yorgos Lanthimos won the Grand Jury Award Best Director prize for The Lobster (Ireland-Greece).

The Jordan Alexander Ressler Screenwriting Award went to Lorenzo Vigas for his Venice Golden Lion winner From Afar (Venezuela-Mexico).

“Every year we see...

On March 17, at Macau’s Venetian Theater the 10th Asian Film Awards will be underway. Winners from nearly 1,600 submissions from 32 countries will be announced. Since its inauguration in 2007, the award has grown in scale and is now largest film awards event in Asia.

This year, The Assassin has the most nominations (best film, director, actress, supporting actress, cinematography, original music, costume design, production design, and sound). This historical drama featuring Shu Qi has been hailed as “the most ravishingly beautiful film Hou [Hsiao-hsien] has ever made, and certainly one of his most deeply transporting” by Variety.

Bajirao Mastani by Sanjay Leela Bhansali follows with five nominations. This Indian historical romance is one of the highest grossing Indian films of all time. It will compete with The Assassin, Three Stories of Love (Koibito Tachi, Japan), Mr Six (Hu Guan, China) and Veteran (Ryoo Seung-wan, South Korea) in the Best film category.

Asian...

Mountains May Depart (Shan he gu ren) Kino Lorber Reviewed by: Harvey Karten forShockya, d-based on Rotten Tomatoes Grade: B+ Director: Jia Zhangke Written by: Jia Zhangke Cast: Zhao Tao, Zhang Yi, Liang Jin Dong, Dong Zijian, Sylvia Chang, Han Sanming Screened at: Review 2, NYC, 2/8/15 Opens: February 12, 2016 Let your imagination soar, however disastrous this may lead. Consider that Donald Trump is elected President on the slogan, “Make America Great Again.” What would our country look like after eight years? Here is a strong possibility. Instead of one percent of Americans controlling thirty-three percent of its wealth, you now have one twentieth of one percent of Americans [ Read More ]

The post Mountains May Depart Movie Review appeared first on Shockya.com.

Photo by Darren HughesMidway through A Touch of Sin (2013), Jia Zhang-ke’s violent and reality-inspired account of China’s seismic economic shifts, a massage parlor receptionist played by Zhao Tao is attacked suddenly by a non-descript businessman, who beats her with a fistful of renminbi while shouting, “Isn’t my money good enough? Not a prostitute? Who is then?” Jia documents the assault in a two-minute, unbroken closeup, whipping the camera from side to side with each blow. By the end, Zhao’s cheeks and neck are flush from exertion and physical contact, which is an interesting intrusion of documentary into such a fantastic scene. She reaches for a hidden knife and then, with a swift slash to the man’s chest, becomes transformed into a wuxia warrior. A Touch of Sin seems to have marked a shift in Jia’s filmmaking, away from the contemplative, docu-realist style that...

Making its World Premiere at the Cannes Film Festival last spring, winning an Audience Award at the San Sebastian Film Festival, and picking up an Original Screenplay prize at the Gold Horse Awards, Jia Zhangke's latest film "Mountains May Depart" enjoyed a terrific festival run in 2015. This weekend, the drama arrives in cinemas and we've got an exclusive clip to give you a peek at the sprawling story. Read More: Review: Jia Zhangke's Ambitious 'Mountains May Depart' Starring Dong Zijian, Liang Jingdong, Sylvia Chang, Zhang Yi, and Zhao Tao, the film, powered by Pet Shop Boys' "Go West," opens in 1999 where in Fenyang, childhood friends Liangzi, a coal miner, and Zhang, the owner of a gas station, are both in love with the town beauty Tao. Tao eventually marries the wealthier Zhang and they have a son he names Dollar. As the years fly by, her son loses sight of everything in his childhood,...

A decidedly different piece of cinema from his last, breathlessly visceral A Touch Of Sin, legendary Chinese filmmaker Jia Zhang-ke’s latest motion picture, Mountains May Depart is not only one of the auteur’s most accessible works, but despite its sputtering final act, one of his most entrancing.

Despite also having a narrative broken up into segments, A Touch Of Sin’s brutal exploration of violence born out of oppression and vignette-style structure is nowhere to be found here, with Jia Zhang-ke opting for a story that feels far more personal, and far more narratively engaging. Mountains May Depart is a story told over 26 years, with our story touching down in the past (1999), relative present (2014) and the near future (2025). In the first segment, we’re introduced to a schoolteacher named Tao, who is caught in what appears to be a love triangle between she, her closest friend...

Mountains May Depart begins as a love triangle, whose three connecting lines separate and recross across three segments in 1999 (two years after Jia Zhangke’s debut feature), 2014 and 2025. The 1999 opening brings us back to Jia’s native Shanxi, whose streets by now look very, very familiar to anyone who’s kept up with his work. As Tao, the woman at the center of the love triangle, Jia’s professional/personal partner Zhao Tao is introduced in period peasant style: strategically layered brightly lined sweaters, nothing too form-fitting or fashion-forward, hair straight and uncomplicatedly pulled-back. In 2014 — following marriage and divorce to wealthy Zhang Jinsheng (Yi Zhang) — she’s […]...

It’s possible that no frequent pairing of helmer and star in contemporary cinema — or, for that matter, creative union of husband and wife — is quite as fruitful as Jia Zhangke and Zhao Tao‘s, and their new picture, Mountains May Depart, is potentially their most impactful yet. A three-part epic about the China of the recent past, contemporary moment, and near future that explores as many aspect ratios as it does decades, it’s a film whose large ambition, courtesy Jia’s continued fascination with wherever his native nation might stand and where it could go, is given a human face by Zhao’s magnetic presence and perceptible absence.

Shortly after seeing their project at last year’s New York Film Festival, I was fortunate enough to interview the pair and probe this film’s many layers, from recent changes in language and communication formats to evolving forms of digital video.

In an online free live stream conference the Asian Film Award Academy announced the list of nominees for the 10th Asian Film Awards. The Assassin (Taiwan) by Hsiao-Hsien Hou lead the list with 9 nominations (Best Film, Best Director, Best Actress, Best Supporting Actress, Best Cinematography, Best Original Music, Best Costume Design, Best Production Design and Best Sound), Then comes Bajirao Mastani (India) by Sanjay Leela Bhansali (Best Film, Best Editing, Best Original Music, Best Costume Design and Best Visual Effects) and Port of Call (Hong Kong) by Philip Yung (Best Supporting Actress, Best Newcomer, Best Screenplay, Best Editing and Best Cinematography) with 5 nominations each. Mountains May Depart (China) by Jia Zhang Ke, Mr. Six (China) by Guan Hu and Veteran (South Korea) by Ryoo Seung-wan have 4 nominations each.

Best Film

The Assassin (Nie yin niang) by Hou Hsiao-Hsien

Hong Kong, China, Taiwan | 2015 Bajirao Mastani by Sanjay Leela Bhansali – India...

Hou Hsiao-hsien’s The Assassin leads the nominations for the 10th Asian Film Awards with nine nods, followed by India’s Bajirao Mastani and Hong Kong’s Port Of Call with five apiece.

The Assassin, which won best director in Cannes last year, was nominated for best film, director, actress (Shu Qi), supporting actress (Zhou Yun), cinematography (Mark Lee Ping-bing) and four other technical categories.

Another sumptious period epic, Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s Bajirao Mastani, was also nominated for best film, along with best editing, original music, costume design and visual effects.

Philip Yung’s social drama Port Of Call, based on the true story of a mainland prostitute who was murdered in Hong Kong, picked up nods for best supporting actor (Michael Ning), newcomer (Jessie Li), screenplay, editing and Christopher Doyle’s cinematography.

Rounding out the best film category are Jia Zhangke’s Mountains May Depart (France-China); Hashiguchi Ryosuke’s Three Stories Of Love (Japan...

How would you program this year's newest, most interesting films into double features with movies of the past you saw in 2015?Looking back over the year at what films moved and impressed us, it is clear that watching old films is a crucial part of making new films meaningful. Thus, the annual tradition of our end of year poll, which calls upon our writers to pick both a new and an old film: they were challenged to choose a new film they saw in 2015—in theatres or at a festival—and creatively pair it with an old film they also saw in 2015 to create a unique double feature.All the contributors were given the option to write some text explaining their 2015 fantasy double feature. What's more, each writer was given the option to list more pairings, with or without explanation, as further imaginative film programming we'd be lucky to catch...

Jia Zhangke, the button-pushing Chinese filmmaker behind A Touch of Sin and 2004’s The World, is on the verge of releasing his new film in the west. Entitled Mountains May Depart, the time-hopping drama quickly became something of a festival favorite following its premiere at Cannes earlier in the year, and it’s now set for a bow in the States on February 12, 2016.

To stoke excitement, a new trailer has surfaced online for Zhangke’s latest directorial effort, showcasing the ways in which the film weaves in and out of three separate timelines: 1999, 2014, and 2015. Starring Dong Zijian, Liang Jingdong, Sylvia Chang, Zhang Yi, and Zhao Tao, Mountains May Depart follows a love triangle that spans generations.

Releasing at an opportune time, Mountains May Depart is in many ways a depiction of the changing face of China as a country, which has fast become one of the most important film markets...

"Daddy will make you lots of dollars!" Kino Lorber has debuted a new official Us trailer for veteran Chinese filmmaker Jia Zhangke's latest film, titled Mountains May Depart. This film premiered at Cannes in May and played at a bunch of prestigious festivals through the year. I saw it at the New York Film Festival and was taken back by it, still impacted by the audacity of the story. Set in China and Australia, the film is a tryptich that follows a few people across three different periods of time - showing how China has devolved into a culture of materialism and how this will affect relationships and human connection in the long run. It stars Zhao Tao, Zhang Yi & Liang Jingdong. Anyone in search of bold storytelling should take a look at this. Here's the official Us trailer for Jia Zhangke's Mountains May Depart, from Kino Lorber's YouTube:...

Jia Zhangke has long been one of the most celebrated directors to emerge from China, and while his latest film "Mountains May Depart" didn't quite land the impact you might've expected at the Cannes Film Festival earlier this year, any work from the auteur is worth a look. The film is gearing up to hit cinemas stateside, and a new U.S. trailer has arrived. Starring Dong Zijian, Liang Jingdong, Sylvia Chang, Zhang Yi, and Zhao Tao, the movie splits across three timelines —1999, 2014, and 2015— to tell the story of a young couple and their child, and how their relationships and circumstances change over the years. Here's the official synopsis: China, 1999. In Fenyang, childhood friends Liangzi, a coal miner, and Zhang, the owner of a gas station, are both in love with Tao, the town beauty. Tao eventually marries the wealthier Zhang and they have a son he names Dollar. 2014. Tao...

The American Film Institute announced today the films that will screen in the World Cinema, Breakthrough, Midnight, Shorts and Cinema’s Legacy programs at AFI Fest 2015 presented by Audi.

AFI Fest will take place November 5 – 12, 2015, in the heart of Hollywood. Screenings, Galas and events will be held at the historic Tcl Chinese Theatre, the Tcl Chinese 6 Theatres, Dolby Theatre, the Lloyd E. Rigler Theatre at the Egyptian, the El Capitan Theatre and The Hollywood Roosevelt.

World Cinema showcases the most acclaimed international films of the year; Breakthrough highlights true discoveries of the programming process; Midnight selections will grip audiences with terror; and Cinema’s Legacy highlights classic movies and films about cinema. World Cinema and Breakthrough selections are among the films eligible for Audience Awards. Shorts selections are eligible for the Grand Jury Prize, which qualifies the winner for Academy Award®consideration. This year’s Shorts jury features filmmaker Janicza Bravo,...

Mountains May Depart

Written by Jia Zhangke

Directed by Jia Zhangke

China/Japan/France, 2015

Following the brilliant A Touch of Sin, auteur and Chinese master Jia Zhangke returns with a similarly structured, yet more narratively linked, portrait of China in the new millennium. Mountains May Depart is two-thirds of a gripping relationship drama that captures not only a China in constant flux, but also the universality of human experience. Unfortunately, in the last act the threads of the narrative begin to fray and fall apart, to the point where the strong final sequence is left weaker by the undercooked scenes that precede it.

Taking place over three distinct time periods, the film begins in the year 1999 at the dawn of the new millennium. Young friends Tao (Tao Zhao), Zhang (Yi Zhang) and Liangzi (Jing Dong Liang), like the rest of China, are happy and hopeful with what the new century may bring.

Stars: Zhao Tao, Zhang Yi, Liang Jin Dong, Dong Zijian, Sylvia Chang | Written and Directed by Jia Zhangke

Admitting this is the first film by Jia Zhangke that I’ve seen may lose me some street cred, but I was pleased to finally discover the filmmaker via his latest exploration of modern China, Mountains May Depart. A universal story of the irresistible draw of the present meeting the inexorable march of the future, the film stands as a bold, compassionate statement for the power of gestures and the ripples they cause through time.

And it opens with a dance sequence set to the Pet Shop Boys’ “Go West”, which is about as ambitious an opening as you could hope for.

Taking place in three different periods – 1999, 2014 and 2025, with changing aspect ratios to match – in China and later Australia, the film charts the ups and downs in lives of three friends:...

The first trailer for Mountains May Depart was released last week and the Cannes nominee looks to be one of the more interesting films of the year. It is directed by Jia Zhang-ke.

The official synopsis is as follows:

At once an intimate drama and a decades-spanning epic that leaps from the recent past to the present to the speculative near-future, Jia’s new film is an intensely moving study of how China’s economic boom – and the culture of materialism it has spawned – has affected the bonds of family, tradition, and love. Mountains May Depart opens in 1999 to the strains of the Pet Shop Boys’ “Go West,” a song whose promise of blue skies captures the dreams of affluence that seized so many Chinese youth at the turn of the century. In Fenyang, childhood friends Liangzi, a coal miner, and Zhang, the owner of a gas station, are...

“I think in order for a movie to be appreciated, it ultimately needs to be an aesthetic creation,” director Jia Zhang-ke told us at Cannes this year. “Who would care for a film depicting a lot of social realities but devoid of a sense of aesthetics? If my movies have appealed to an international audience, I hope it’s because on a substantial level, they bring the contemporary Chinese experience to the big screen, and that at the same time, they have an artistic quality to them.”

There’s certainly an appeal over here for his latest, Mountains May Depart, which is a three-part, decades-panning drama that stops by New York Film Festival this week following Cannes, Tiff, and more. Ahead of a release in the first half of next year by Kino Lorber, the first (unsubtitled) international trailer has landed, along with a set of evocative posters.

One...

Steven Spielberg’s Bridge of Spies, starring Tom Hanks, will make its World Premiere at the 53rd New York International Film Festival, running from September 25 to October 11. The film was one of 26 announced as part of the festival’s main slate, along with one of four World Premieres.

Some of the main slate highlights include Todd Haynes’s Carol, featuring Cannes Best Actress Winner Rooney Mara alongside Cate Blanchett, Miguel Gomes’s three part saga Arabian Nights, Hou Hsiao-Hsien’s The Assassin, the Us premiere of Michael Moore’s latest Where to Invade Next, Michel Gondry’s French film Microbe et Gasoil, and the World Premiere of the documentary Don’t Blink: Robert Frank, about the life of the fames photographer and filmmaker.

Previously announced films include the World Premiere of The Walk, Robert Zemeckis’s Philippe Petit biopic serving as the opening night film, the World Premiere of...

The entwined subjects of time passing and landscapes changing have always been synonymous with the work of Chinese director Jia Zhang-ke; his latest feature, Mountains May Depart, expands these ideas to a point that exists beyond any previously established horizon. The film may well be Jia’s most ambitious to date, in this respect: it spans three decades in all, touching down in 1999, 2014 and 2025, so essentially covering our past, present and future. As with all of Jia’s work, location here plays an integral role – like Platform and Pick Pocket, the narrative revolves around the director’s hometown of Fenyang – with scenes unfolding among local festivities on packed streets, or upon the scorched earth of a local coal mine that recalls similar shots in Barbara Loden’s Wanda. And just as we witnessed the gradual construction of the Yangtze River’s Three Gorges Dam (and inevitable destruction of the...

Who knew that watching films can be this exhausting? The first thing any press person at Cannes will tell you is probably how tiring festival grind is – press screenings from 8.30 am till midnight, endless queueing sessions (variously put to use for writing up or sun-tanning), the adrenaline rush of the literal rush to the next screening.

What few filmmakers premiering their work at Cannes seem to realise – based on the average two-hour run of the majority of films this year – is that at a film viewing marathon such as Cannes, critics’ attention is yours during the first hour and twenty minutes and then you’d better start getting ready for a wow of an ending. The editor is your friend and if you want the press to be a friend too, it’s good to shed extraneous long-windedness and not irk the critics – unless you are Miguel Gomes, then you can go on forever…...

You may not have heard of Chinese actress Zhao Tao, but chances are you will during the awards ceremony at the end of this year's Cannes Film Festival. Tuesday night, the movie she starred in, Mountains May Depart, directed by her husband and longtime collaborator Jia Zhangke (A Touch of Sin, Still Life), got a seven-minute standing ovation. And the loudest cheers and applause came for Zhao — who had tears streaming down her face. More and more, she's looking like a likely spoiler for the Best Actress race. Before the festival started, the smart money was on Cate Blanchett or Marion Cotillard. In Todd Haynes's Carol, Blanchett plays a chic ’50s divorcée defying repressed times by seducing Rooney Mara's much younger shopgirl. Cotillard plays none other than Lady Macbeth opposite Michael Fassbender. Harvey Weinstein is distributing both of them, so you know how your Oscar race is looking.

Cannes — Even at a more civilized festival such as Cannes, it can be hard to catch every single movie in competition. There are always a few that will slip through the cracks and you can always count on the inevitable life drama moment to rear its ugly head. Unlike other festivals, Cannes has less repeat screenings across the board. That also makes things tough for one person to chronicle it all. With less than 24 hours left in the festival we’re happy to say we've been able to cover 10 Cannes selections in depth. Here are capsule reviews for another six selections you may still be curious about. [Expect full reviews of “Macbeth,” “The Little Prince” and “Chronic” by the end of the weekend as well as some thoughts on whether Oscar stepped out on la Croisette this year.] "Louder Than Bombs" Director: Joachim Trier Cast: Jesse Eisenberg, Gabriel Byrne, Amy Ryan, Isabelle Huppert, David Strathairn, David Druid Reaction: Trier’s first English language film is sort of a mixed bag. On the one hand, he often has creative and new ideas on how to stage scenes.

Almost splitting his time equally between the Lido and the Croisette, with almost a dozen features in (a mix of fiction and docus), Jia Zhangke first arrived in Cannes back in 2002 with Unknown Pleasures, 2008’s 24 City, followed those up with docu offering in 2010’s Un Certain Regard selected I Wish I Knew, and of course, wowed the establishment in 2013 with A Touch of Sin — which won for Best Screenplay. Re-teaming with his muse and wife Zhao Tao, Zhangke uses the vignettes approach again with a sprinkling of the English language in Mountains May Depart — in what Variety describes as a “polymorphous snapshot of 21st-century capitalism“. As you can see below, our critics are all over the map on this title.

Check back with us twice daily for the latest grades and make sure to click on the grid below for a larger version.

I left Marie-Pierre the task of teasing out the nuances of Chinese director Jia Zhangke's film in competition, Mountains May Depart, which thankfully leaves me some space to talk about it without assuredness but with avid curiosity. Because, you see, it is a tremendously odd film, as dramatic a change from his last film as that one, A Touch of Sin, was from what came before it. I don't think of Jia as a filmmaker who constantly surprises, yet looking back on his last features, I realize he keeps doing just that: I Wish I Knew, A Touch of Sin—all come from a new, acute angle than the previous film, sweeping up in their dramatic and visual expanses new ways of telling stories about a China both old and new. Here, thankfully, is an art house master whose inspiration cannot be quelled, who refuses to fall into habit.Imagine...