Monday at the Chicago International Film Festival Chicagoland Final , CN Edition

"Devils on the Doorstep" *** (Wen Jiang, China). A fantastic mix of World War II social drama and very dark comedy, writer-director- star Jiang's goofball epic portrays the funny, terrible consequences when a fanatic Japanese POW and his translator are left behind in a rural Chinese v...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published inChicago tribune (1963)
Main Author Michael Wilmington Michael Phillips, Robert K Elder
Format Newspaper Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Chicago, Ill Tribune Publishing Company, LLC 17.10.2005
Subjects
Motion picture festivals
Motion pictures
Multiple review
Chicago Illinois
Online AccessGet full text

Cover

More Information
Summary:"Devils on the Doorstep" *** (Wen Jiang, China). A fantastic mix of World War II social drama and very dark comedy, writer-director- star Jiang's goofball epic portrays the funny, terrible consequences when a fanatic Japanese POW and his translator are left behind in a rural Chinese village in 1944. Placed in the charge of a pretentious local bumpkin (played by director Wen himself), the two uninvited guests quickly throw the village into turmoil, a political mess that mirrors the larger chaos of the war and the coming xenophobia of Mao's post-war rule. Shot in black-and-white, in a stunning rural location near the Great Wall, this film has been shortened by 23 minutes from the version that won the Grand Prize (runner-up to the Palme d'Or) at the 2000 Cannes Film Festival and then was banned in China. It's still a first-class work: robust, sharply drawn and frequently shocking. (In Mandarin Chinese and Japanese, with English subtitles.) 9 p.m., Mon., Landmark (also 4 p.m. Wed., Landmark; 7 p.m. Thu., Landmark). -- M.W.
ISSN:1085-6706