Shanghai Dreams Details

[Highly rated reviewer]

A gem

This is a gem of a movie. It creates the world of small town China in the early 80s beautifully. The performances are superb. The mise-en-scene wonderful. It portrays the strains in society beautifully: the repressive morality and brutal governance of so-called 'Communist' China reminding one of Victorian Britain. I was transfixed - so much better than the 'kung fu' movies coming out of Beijing today which are just propaganda tools (beautiful as they are) for the regime

* * * This review contains spoilers * * *ShowHide

[Highly rated reviewer]

I want to wear my red stilleto's

THIS REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS

A suprise this film.

The title 'Shanghai Dreams' was suggesting something glitzy and overblown - 'a Chollywood' (like a Bollywood but with chopsticks)

But it was drab. And drab was good. Not a hidden dragon or a crouching tiger in sight. It was all small potatoes; a living out of underproduced, minuscule lifes.

Some films really get you there, to where they are - and this one did. I could imagine working myself stupid in the factory, having to do the morning callisthenics's, hanging out at the village disco, sucking on cheap woodbines, dancing to Boney M with blokes (cus the cute virgins are stood shy up the wall).

(There's a great scene at this disco when the local lothario does a funky disco trot in his bellbottom slacks and shades)

The oppression, and the supression, and the repression- sucks you in: of Communist China and strict Communist China dads scared their young virgin daughters are gonna get stuck underneath those slacks and shades.

The young heroine does. Gets raped. (It should have been her irritating squeaky-doll girlfriend) But the boyfriend who rapes her is too meek and mild-mannered to convince me he could have even got her red stiletto's off (he bought them for her) let alone her knickers. Not at all credible.

But everything else is. It feels authentic to both time and place - the real deal. The monochronal, monotonal, rigidity - of life lived in Commie China back in the 1980's.

You don't want to live there. You're glad you never lived there. But there's grim fascination at seeing what it was like (and probably still is for many millions of Chinese)