NEWS: BFI Celebrates Chinese New Year With Tian Zhuangzhuang

The Warrior And The Wolf

The British Film Institute (BFI) in London will be joining in with the Chinese New Year celebrations with the following screenings of director Tian Zhuangzhuang’s films between Thursday, 3rd and Saturday, 12th February 2011:

The Blue Kite
Probably the director’s most famous film, this impassioned drama follows the fate of a Beijing family and their acquaintances through the political and social upheavals of the 1950s and 1960s. The film’s child’s-eye perspective on the era wasn’t enough to prevent it being outlawed in China, with Tian himself banned from filmmaking for five years.

The Horse Thief
A largely wordless film set amid the expanses of the Tibetan plateau and influenced by the films of Kurosawa. The visual poetry of The Horse Thief captures not only the breathtaking beauty of the landscape but an elaborate depiction of Tibetan religious ritual. It follows the story of a man who has to reconcile his crime against man and god to fend for his family, and who must face the consequences of his action.

The Warrior And The Wolf
The director’s most recent film takes him into the controversial terrain of international co-production. Asian superstar Maggie Q figures in an erotic tale of the supernatural in which a soldier becomes stranded among a remote tribe and becomes both captor and prey. Filmed in China’s spectacular Xinjiang region, where gorgeous mountain vistas, epic wastelands and weather-ravaged battlegrounds provide apt location for this part epic, part fable in which distinctions between beast and man become blurred.

The Go Master
An intense, stately character study, following the fortunes of Wu Qingyuan, master of the ancient game of Go. A native of China, Wu emerged as a prodigy who, at a young age, moved to Japan and rose to prominence as the top Go player in the world. The tumultuous Sino-Japanese relations that dominated the 20th century form a dramatic backdrop to this poetically rendered true story. This screening features an extended introduction and overview of the career and context of director Tian Zhuangzhuang by Luke Robinson, University of Nottingham.

For more information, including screening days/times, head to the BFI’s website here.

The Go Master