Shanghai Dreams

If you haven't seen some of Xiaoshuai Wang's films, you are missing some of the best new stuff to come from mainland China. Particularly successful was "Beijing Bicycle" which many consider his best film. It is not too bad a film, but far from being a really good film, not even the best among Wang's works. Wu Zemin and his wife Meifen moved from Shanghai to Guiyang in the late 1960s. That was during Mao’s Cultural Revolution, when idealistic communists volunteered to relocate to ‘undeveloped’ areas to build and run new factories. Their new home was the capital of Guizhou Province in China’s south-western hinterlands. At the time, China feared an attack from the Soviet Union, and the inland factories were seen as a 'Third Line' in the national defense, far from the more vulnerable eastern coast. In 1983, everything is different. Mao has died and Deng Xiaoping’s economic reforms are bringing an enticing new prosperity to the cities of Shanghai and Guangzhou. But the 'Third Line' volunteers are still stuck in backward inland areas, untouched by the government’s new policies. Like many others, Wu Zemin is looking for a way to return to his old home in Shanghai. He is determined that his daughter Qinghong and her young brother will have better lives than he and his wife have had in Guiyang. For Qinghong, though, Guiyang is the only home she’s ever known. Her school is there, her best friend Xiao Zhen is there, and she has a potential first boyfriend in the young factory worker Fan Honggen. Honggen waits for her every night at a spot high above the town, always hoping that she will show up to see him. But she doesn’t, so he buys a pair of red, high-heeled shoes and hides them in her desk at school. When she wears them, though, her father angrily throws them away. The story is boring and dull; The cinematography is pale and slow and dull (don't compare that with OZU, just like that one doesn't compare an orange with a panda) If you compare Shanghai Dream with Gu Changwei's Peacock or Jia Zhangke's movies, you can find how awkward Wang's film is. If you have watched Wang's SO CLOSE TO PARADISE, you might not believe Shanghai Dream is made by the same director... Wang is too speculative with little sincerity, not as far as i can see at least, this time