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Shadow Magic

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Shadow Magic

Beijing, 1902: an enterprising young portrait photographer named Liu Jinglun, keen on new technology, befriends a newly-arrived Englishman who's brought projector, camera, and Lumière-brothers' shorts to open the Shadow Magic theater. Liu's work with Wallace brings him conflict with tradition and his father's authority, complicated by his falling in love with Ling, daughter of Lord Tan, star of Beijing's traditional opera. Liu sees movies as his chance to become wealthy and worthy of Ling. When the Shadow Magic pair are invited to show the films to the Empress Dowager, things look good. But, is disaster in the script? And, can movies preserve tradition even as they bring change?

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Release : 2001
Rating : 7.2
Studio :
Crew : Director of Photography,  Director, 
Cast : Jared Harris Xia Yu Yufei Xing Liu Peiqi Lü Liping
Genre : Drama History

Cast List

Reviews

Stellead
2018/08/30

Don't listen to the Hype. It's awful

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Chirphymium
2018/08/30

It's entirely possible that sending the audience out feeling lousy was intentional

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ThedevilChoose
2018/08/30

When a movie has you begging for it to end not even half way through it's pure crap. We've all seen this movie and this characters millions of times, nothing new in it. Don't waste your time.

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Zandra
2018/08/30

The movie turns out to be a little better than the average. Starting from a romantic formula often seen in the cinema, it ends in the most predictable (and somewhat bland) way.

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David Ecklein
2013/07/16

"Shadow Magic" (2000 award-winning co-production of mainland China, Germany, Taiwan, and US) is an epic melodrama about the coming of cinema to Old Peking. The year is 1902; the era of pigtails, the Empress Dowager, and the Boxer Rebellion aftermath distrust of foreign influence and domination. One of the more benign influences was photography, already somewhat accepted by those who could afford to have their pictures taken by the few Chinese professionals setting up shop in Peking and other large cities. Not so with motion pictures. Foreign entrepreneurs, usually small scale individual efforts, brought in movie equipment with early French silents and ran what amounted to raucous side-show entertainment on the teeming streets. This juxtaposition of modern novelty to Asian cultural tradition resulted in misunderstandings, sometimes tragic, but often hilarious.

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Charles Herold (cherold)
2005/09/11

A very sweet movie about a young Chinese man enamored of western technology and an Englishman trying to make his fortune showing movies in China. It's a very interesting story that is presumably based on true events, although I'm assuming it's more fantasy than real. It's got a fairy tale quality you rarely get in real life, and it's also got 8 people credited for the script, so they must have been making up stuff right and left.This is a very likable movie that conveys how magical film was to people who had never seen it before. It is not an especially deep movie, touching briefly on the loss of tradition and the encroachment of western culture but mainly just being a pleasant little movie. It's actually a movie I enjoyed very much that is already beginning to disappear from my mind 15 minutes after seeing it. Light as a soufflé, but I enjoyed every minute.

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mikehamilton
2001/11/09

This might not have been as horribly bad as it was if not for the absolutely awful acting job done by Raymond Wallace! This guy is so bad it wasn't even funny! His character was needed in the film, but why they chose this guy is beyond me. If you're looking for some quality Chinese films.....might I suggest "Raise the Red Lantern"...."The Story of Qui Ju"...."Red Sorghum"......Anything but this! I was surprised at how many people actually rated this highly! Really...the acting by this Wallace loser is so bad it overshadows the other good parts of this film. This was agreed upon by all 6 of us watching this movie last night!Stay Clear of this piece of garbage........

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amurph12
2001/04/30

This is a beautiful, funny, vivid film. It's even better than "Nuovo Cinema Paradiso" -- which it parallels but doesn't replicate. The story completes a full circle and had the theater beaming as the credits rolled. A hundred years after this story takes place, we're just as intrigued by flickering images in a dark theater.

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