Country: China
Language: Mandarin
Year: 2012
Running Time: 96 min
Beijing, 2012. San Bao is deserted by his girlfriend and fired by his employer in the same day. Worse still, his landlord has also kicked him out of the shabby apartment he can barely afford and his dog “Lucky” has left him. In extreme distress, he attempts to end his life by lying across the train tracks and later by eating a glass; but he survives both attempts. He ends up in a hospital where he shares a ward with a transvestite poet/dancer with an attraction to plastic surgery. Later when he is released, he finds that the predicament of his circle of close friends parallels his own - a spiral downwards from what already seemed to be a pretty low point. Included in this group of Beijing outsiders are his best friend, a hotel car attendant whose girlfriend has dumped him for a rich guy, a composer/pub singer whose band has dumped her for someone more “connected” and his transvestite poet pal who is “not appreciated in his homeland”. Each, struggling with their own life predicaments in the glamorous, prosperous, modern metropolis called Beijing, find solace and support in each other.
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Director
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Zhang Yuan
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Screenplay
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Zhang Yuan
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Screenplay
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KONG Ergou
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Screenplay
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LI Xinyun
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Screenplay
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YANG Yishu
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Production Company
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China Film Co.,Ltd
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Production Company
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Beijing Asian Union Culture & Media Investment, Ltd
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Production Company
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Beijing Century Good-tiding Co.,Ltd
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Produced by
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Zhang Yuan
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Executive Producer
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Dong Ping
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Executive Producer
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Han Sanping
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Director of Photography
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Zhang Yuan
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Director of Photography
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CAI Tao
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Art Director
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An Bin
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Music by
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LIU Yijun (Lao Wu)
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Sound
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ZHAO Bo
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Duan Bowen
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as San Bao
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Lv Yulai
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as Wang Min
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Shi Shi
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as Xiao Shi
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LI Xinyun
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as You Zi
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Han Wenwen
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as Su Mo
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Beneath the dazzling economic boom, exists the downtrodden and the forgotten “little” people that bear the weight of life’s trials and injustices.
Independent film director and producer Zhang Yuan was born in Nanjing, China, in 1963. He graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Cinematography from the Beijing Film Academy in 1989. In 1990, Zhang produced and directed his first feature film, MAMA, which subsequently won the Jury Award and a Special Mention at France’s Festival des Trois Continents in Nantes. His second feature, BEIJING BASTARDS, completed in 1992, won a Special Mention at the Locarno Film Festival and the Jury Award at the Singapore Film Festival. In 1994, Zhang produced, directed and filmed a long documentary, THE SQUARE, which won a Jury Award at the Hawaii Film Festival. The following year he produced and directed SONS, which won the Tiger Award at Rotterdam. His next film EAST PALACE, WEST PALACE, the story of a gay writer and his captor, produced in 1996, won various awards including best direction at Mar del Plata Film Festival. The next two years saw him revisiting his favorite genre and the results are two documentaries: DEMOLITION AND RELOCATION, 1998, a winner of the 3rd “Asia Now” TV Documentary Proposals Competition, and CRAZY ENGLISH, 1999, which won the Best Documentary award at the 2nd Filmmakers Film Festival, Milan, Italy.
In 1999 Zhang Yuan also directed a feature film SEVENTEEN YEARS, a family drama of hate, crime and reconciliation, which won the Best Director award at the 56th Venice Film Festival. 2002 was his most productive year: he directed three films: JIANG JIE, a cinematic version of a revolutionary Beijing Opera of the same title; I LOVE YOU, an urban romantic drama; and GREEN TEA, a romantic mystery. Zhang is also an active MTV producer and director. His direction of Cui Jian’s WILD IN THE SNOW won the Best Asian MTV Award at the American MTV Awards in 1991. His A PIECE OF RED CLOTH won a Special Mention at San Francisco’s Golden Gate Awards. Zhang Yuan was selected by TIME MAGAZINE in 1994 as one of the hundred young world leaders for the next century.
2012 BEIJING FLICKERS (YOU ZHONG)
2008 DADA’S DANCE (DADA)
2006 LITTLE RED FLOWERS (KAN SHANG QU HEN MEI)
2002 GREEN TEA (LU CHA)
2002 JIANG JIE (JIANG JIE)
2002 I LOVE YOU (WO AI NI)
2000 HAINAN HAINAN (HAINAN HAINAN)
2000 MISS JIN XING (JIN XING XIAOJIE)
1999 SEVENTEEN YEARS (GUONIAN HUIJIA)
1999 CRAZY ENGLISH (FENGKUANG YINGYU)
1998 DEMOLITION AND RELOCATION (DING ZI HU)
1996 EAST PALACE, WEST PALACE (DONG GONG, XI GONG)
1995 SONS (ERZI)
1994 THE SQUARE (GUANGCHANG)
1992 BEIJING BASTARDS (BEIJING ZAZHONG)
1990 MAMA (MAMA)