Great Wall My Love
December 4, 2011 § 10 Comments
A film I co-wrote will be premiering in Beijing on December 9th.
Trailer: http://www.filmsmasharchives.com/musicvideo.php?vid=bc8facef3
Cherrie Ying and Dong Dawei
Advance PR from China:
‘Great Wall My Love’
The trailer has been released for ‘Great Wall, My Love’, a new romantic drama directed by Emily Liu (‘Woman Soup’). The film centres around a manga artist (Cherrie Ying) who teams up with a private investigator (Dawei Tong) to learn about her father’s upbringing near the Great Wall of China.
‘Great Wall, My Love’ is due for release across China on the 9th of December, 2011.
Jacqueline Austin 
Film is out, to good reviews.
Immediately, hundreds of temporary pirate sites and review sites sprang up and offered it for download. I clicked again on one of these sites, but within moments, that site had been taken down.
It wasn’t easy to write or to make this film. The relationship between Taiwan and China is a political issue. So no matter how mild the story, no matter how complete the transition from the parallel political love stories in our script, to romantic comedy, bringing this movie from script to screen is controversial. Even 1 1/2 hours of blank film would be loaded.
If the best we can hope for today, is that a love story with political edge becomes a light romantic comedy suitable for mainstream mainland audiences, maybe tomorrow, we can hope for something more.
Here’s the copy from one of these sites, translated from Mandarin:
Free movie download site [details]
Web site resources are free resources search robot automatically search results, movie resource site providing search results only and does not store any resources.
All video belongs to the original rights holders, will be deleted within 24 hours! We strongly recommend that all film lovers to buy genuine audio-visual products!
Powered reject all illegal, obscene movies, welcome to contact the administrator can monitor problems
[Google-translated–sorry!]
Poetic Nostalgia – A Review of “Chasing Love” (reproduced critic Amu)
2011-12-04 15:46:44 From: selul
Chasing love / love chase Comments 5 star rating5 star rating5 star rating5 star rating5 star rating 5
Because of historical reasons with the times, with poetic prose or nostalgia novel color was an important part of Taiwanese culture and literature, such as Lin wrote, “Wonderful” is for her kids to the growth of girlhood memories, full of with childlike eyes of strands with a trace of nostalgia, and later Wu Yigong directed the film version, is this the same mixture of sadness and melancholy with a touch of nostalgia show. The film directed by the Liu Yiming film “Chasing Love”, although the view from the title a bit vulgar, but in fact is one involving the two sides, filled with a touch of melancholy love story.
It tells the story of cartoonist Yang Chun of Taiwan refused to return after an absence of many years with his father to see the continent’s request, but after his father’s misfortune, With Young innocent with guilt and psychological legacy of a father yellowing photos, back to the to the home looking for photographs of the girls – show Qian, and in the way she also raises a series of people with the accompanying feelings between the parties Mindy, misunderstanding of the story … … Although the film’s title, “chasing love.” not amazing, with the opening of the modern streets of Taipei city’s sights, scenes, may give people a modern city, “courting a girl / chase Boy” theme of the romance, but in fact the film is based on a “search for fathers love “story, the characters through the film and its destiny, to bring out the father faint nostalgia for decades from their homes, but also brings out the daughter generation of insight and growth. Especially when the film’s climax plays an innocent Young finally found a photo in the “show Qian”, the joys and sorrows of the story even though it can not be legendary, but it will render that just right touch of sentiment, saying “this is life,” the feeling is much helplessness and vicissitudes, and after bearish down.
The film is also by way of poetic melancholy Dodge this. Although the father’s story is mainly in the Central Plains region is not Jiangnan bridges people or have the name of the Rainy lilac umbrella, but the Central Plains region of local flavor also makes people feel a refreshing sense of space and time making it because distance information errors which led to misunderstanding, students from, are also presented placid, dull people share images in the story, but felt a timeless mood, especially memorable moments retained in , grief without injury, endless finish … … Moreover, the film also arranged along the way Yang and Fang Mindy This innocent young men and women to understand and then to love by a misunderstanding of the growth process of change, but also makes the cross between two generations Love to form a relatively sharp contrast, and reflects the real life of the slightest promise of beauty and warmth many – including the father-daughter relationship in the film, although accompanied by her daughter Yang Chun refused to return home to see his father’s request, but directed by Yang innocent buy a gift for his father, in order to complete his father’s wishes and far from his home to find strange show Qian, etc., and reflects from the side of father and daughter Wife.
Overall, this film directed by Liu Yiming, “chasing Love”, played down the story’s ups and downs, and focus on the soothing rhythm, warmer pictures, poetic image, etc., rendering the inner character of these fluctuations emotions, and also makes the film’s affection, love, it is more lightly and moving, can be said that in recent years, Chinese poetic film masterpiece.
[Google-translated, sorry!]
“Chasing Love”: in the history of the door in search of the truth (reproduced critic Yunfei Yang)
2011-11-28 15:35:13 From: God knows horses
Chasing love / love chase Comments 5 star rating5 star rating5 star rating5 star rating5 star rating 5
In a very busy late autumn afternoon, the evening came, read the “chase love.” To the final ten minutes, my eyes with tears. Not to say how good the film, this adaptation of director Liu Yiming said the true story of a family film, has been able to impress me, of course, because empathy. Liu Yiming Qiu Gangjian writer with the “chase love”, this title is too easy to misunderstand the audience, neither small fresh dramas, nor is sprinkled idea that farce, but between documentary and fiction and between colleagues in the film, the other two a more general title story: “The Great Wall outside the home,” “help me find Zhang Xiuqian.”
Young innocent beauty of Taiwan cartoonist (children should be taken decorated) has called for “a very innocent and not empathy” until the woman left into the ranks of frustrated when his father suddenly turn of events, leaving a mysterious old photographs to guide her must reveal the father Yang Guobin (hook decorated peak) of the mystery of marriage; young people to the mainland side Mindy (Tong Dawei ornaments) for hate “no empathy”, established privacy research firm price tag, is the diamond level of the big boys, but yin yang poor Young innocent mistake involvement of the decryption program; Thus, an abstract thinking pretty brutal sister station hired a rational thought made innocent 007, the two embarked on over the mountains, across the Hayden city, fun, twists and turns of love chase of the trip.
Between the two young men in the story of the moment is to bring the ultimate separation of sixty years ago. 1949, large Jiang Dahai, some young people went to Taiwan, never an opportunity to stay in the mainland of love and love. My grandfather, too, his brother, third brother went to Taiwan. When finally returned home when his grandfather, grandmother back in the late 1950s left the earth, together in 1991, I never seen his grandfather and father, as he and many veterans, poor health, and ultimately death in Taiwan. That is far less “chasing love,” the lucky, if not recognized, or at least can see.
I was about nine years old, knew the family of some of the truth, since we often see on Taiwan, veterans of the text and images, are relatively easy to indulge in. “Chasing Love” or some small the first half crazy comedy, children should be adopted and toss each other with Tong Dawei heartless, hormone excess road film, often the focus of the first half of the short erratic. In the roots of the process, and gradually realize the self-wave flow of chase. To the latter half of the debts of history surfaced. Man-made barrier, causing the same in the moon, love, but hard to meet the sea, to recognize. Because the separation is too long, dull to meet is right, life and life to death misunderstanding, only daughter of dismay, once again found his father’s lover, was able to piece together the facts and truth. In the history of the door in search of the truth, it is difficult, one would never inattentive, or deformation, is fictional, or even fabricated, Gouxian. “Chasing Love” is the case, peace is so round, “stream of the river” is so “big Jiangtai Hai 1949” as well. Often based on the history of countless big damage at the expense of specific individuals, from look to the future great man waved his hand and said, most people may not be able to restore the fortune. VIP can be the next big plates of chess, the fate of ordinary people are often pawns are not really even across the river, frequently thrown into a corner of history, as the composition of the dust era small footnote.
Great Wall outside the home, adolescents do not know why you on the boat, girls firm to wait, however, the communication of information but it is so difficult, it can not help feelings of regret, sigh individuals as dust on the stage, I do not know what direction the wind You can blow away. See Pai, Lung, Hsi Mu-jung, Lai’s text and images so no one can beat the time, we can only stolen the crack in the history of the twelve spring, first vent should cherish peace years as well. Peacetime does not give individuals more choice, may also be missed forever missed. Sea the moon,天涯共此时, according to the ancients had this month, the best Star hereinafter Wangxing Kong.
FilmBiz Asia Review:
By Derek Elley: Engaging chemistry between its leads makes this odd-couple road movie a light delight. Asian events.
http://www.filmbiz.asia/reviews/great-wall-my-love
Update: In top ten (in box office) on several Asian lists. Not bad for a small independent movie.
The count would be much higher, if not for the enormous amount of pirated copies. (I’ve seen as many as 5000-8000 downloads on each of many sites which were just up for a day).
http://www.filmbiz.asia/reviews/great-wall-my-love?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=facebook
The thorny problem of China-Taiwan reunification beats mildly below the surface of love-left-behind heartwarmer Great Wall My Love 追愛, ironically co-produced by the same Mainland company (Jiuzhou Audio-Video Publishing Corporation 九州音像出版公司) that made Wang Quanan’s drama referencing the same theme, Apart Together 團圓 (2010). Both films start with an aging man travelling back from Taiwan to China to meet the woman he deserted in the late 1940s when the Nationalists fled to Taiwan. But whereas in Wang’s movie they meet and chew over the past, in Emily LIU 劉怡明’s the search is taken up by the daughter when the man suddenly dies of a heart attack. As the daughter pairs with a young Mainlander as her guide, her father’s history becomes a problem inherited by the younger generation — one a young woman who was born in Taiwan and has never had any interest in visiting the Mainland, the other a young Mainlander who sees her as some kind of strange alien. As the woman discovers her family roots, the only big question in whether she’ll be able to swap the life she knows in Taiwan for a new one in her “native land”.
To the film’s credit, these undercurrents don’t get in the way of the entertainment. Great Wall My Love can be enjoyed simply as a road movie-cum-odd couple romance, with two highly engaging performances from its leads (China’s TONG Dawei 佟大為 and Taiwan-born Cherrie YING 應采兒) and bright, positive photography by ace Taiwan d.p. Jong LIN 林良忠 (Eat Drink Man Woman 飲食男女 (1994)) of locations in Shanxi, Gansu, Ningxia and Inner Mongolia. An actor who hasn’t always justified his star status in movies, Tong (I Love You 我愛你 (2001), Lost in Beijing 苹果 (2007), The Flowers of War 金陵十三釵) here exudes a genuine charm as a young private detective who finds himself falling for his quirky client. But it’s Ying, whose career started promisingly in Hong Kong (Visible Secret II 幽靈人間Ⅱ 鬼味人間 (2002), Throw Down 柔道龍虎榜 (2004)) a decade ago but lost traction during the mid-noughties, who dominates the movie in perhaps the best performance of her career. Animated and sexy, and a natural comedienne, Ying makes the role of the mercurial Chun-chun far fresher and more substantial than it seems on paper — and likable rather than annoying. Her chemistry with Tong is what drives the movie and prevents it from becoming just a glorified travelogue.
There’s not a mention of politics in the entire film. Instead, Great Wall is more about trust: on the surface, Chun-chun’s trust in men in general, though by extension Taiwanese trust in mainland China. To the credit of director Liu and star Ying the tone is kept light while still managing emotional undertow, and even the supporting performances are deftly drawn in limited screen time (Kelly KO 柯素雲’s mother, DONG Xuan 董璇’s jealous work colleague). A champion of then-unfashionable mainstream film-making (Kangaroo Man 袋鼠男人 (1994)) at a time when Taiwan cinema was trapped in an arty, festival ghetto of its own making, Liu, based in Beijing for several years, shows no signs of her 10-year lay-off since her last movie, Woman Soup 女湯 (1999). At a technical level it’s very smooth, and slides along effortlessly, even when not much is happening apart from the characters riffing off each other in beautiful locations.
Less use of manga-like animated inserts (which mark the film as rather chick-flicky Taiwanese), and B&W flashbacks to the father’s Mainland youth, would have been better — and allowed the film to work itself out just in contemporary terms between the two leads. But at the end of the day Great Wall still packs an emotional clout thanks to its simple, unaffected charm and quiet humour. The Chinese title means Chasing Love.
Article today in China Times. Basically, I think this says (after a brief intro to the film and Emily), that at the start of the shoot in the Gobi Desert, Emily called for a blessing. And that was followed by a 3 day rainstorm–something which has not happened in the Gobi for 20 years!
If you speak Chinese, please translate. Thanks!
曾任李安《推手》製片人的旅美導演劉怡明，今年重執導筒拍攝公路愛情電影《追愛》，找來應采兒與電影《金陵十三釵》男星佟大為，攜手展開愛情長征。劇組跑遍大江南北，由陝西一路拍到內蒙首府呼和浩特，還前進蒙古戈壁記錄大漠景致。連年乾旱的戈壁沙漠，卻在劇組開拍時一連下了３天滂沱豪雨，詭異天象連當地導遊都直呼不敢置信。
曾執導《袋鼠男人》、《女湯》的導演劉怡明，為求拍攝順利，在開拍前請「大師」為劇組祈福，連開機儀式都仔細推敲，不料開機第一天，就碰上連年久旱的戈壁沙漠連下３天暴雨，驚人的雨勢連當地導遊都看傻眼，直呼20年沒這光景。劇組後來發現，當地製片在開機儀式時，調整了「大師」原先指點的方位，沒想到竟造成如此神奇後果，讓劉怡明聽了好氣又好笑。
Taiwanese readers: This film will be opening in Taiwan on March 9th.
Although im not a native speaker I’ve just seen the film here in uk and loved it, good work, i’m really getting into the south-east asian scene, could you reccommend me some classic movies and how to get a hold of them online? cheers