Watch Spring in a Small Town For Free

Terrible acting, screenplay and direction.

Purely Joyful Movie!

The first must-see film of the year.

There is, somehow, an interesting story here, as well as some good acting. There are also some good scenes

The narration here becomes a character in itself. Initially it takes on the mundane, lifeless quality of Wei Wei's life and domesticity, retelling her daily events with a monotony about it. This is the internalisation of her emotions having been married for 6 years but separated for at least 2. And then as Li Wei arrives as a spark the narrator is silenced and she finds her voice again, no longer disappearing into her thoughts and "floating along in existence". Her mind becomes anew, her eyes see again. Early on we see her wandering aimlessly. With Li by her side, she could stand there all day without care in the world. We see little of the small town. The focus is the love quadrangle, but in particular the childhood sweethearts. Their dialogue is suggestive as they dance around each other; the subtext of their attraction shines through (how many other romances have used this sort of tension - the audacious Hollywood version of it can be found in Gilda). But they only circle, they do not touch. In the Mood for Love was the pinnacle of this theme and we can see its influence here. Intimacy becomes locked in and internalised because it would be a moral wrong. Fei Mu almost doesn't want us to see it, bathing them in a sensual darkness. But it is spring and nature beckons. That final shot is such a poetic reconciliation of all the character's woes.

For decades it was almost impossible to see Chinese films here in the West so directors like Mu Fei meant little to us but if "Spring in a Small Town" had been the only film he'd made his place in cinematic history would still be assured. This small, simple masterpiece is one of the greatest love stories ever filmed and yet the lovers hardly ever touch and never kiss and sex never rears its head and yet theirs is a passion of the most devastating kind.The plot is incredibly simple and there are only five characters. A young husband, ill with TB, lives with his unhappy wife, his younger sister and a male servant in a house damaged from eight years of war. One day an old childhood friend comes to visit and, as it turns out, he is, unbeknown to the husband, an old flame of the wife's. The visitor is embarrassed by the situation as he awakens feelings in the wife that she has long repressed.There's an almost Chekovian sense of loss and regret to the picture that might have seemed rare in a western film of the period. It's beautifully acted, particularly by Wei Wei as the wife, and gorgeously photographed in black and white by Shengwei Li. It was remade in 2002 by Zhuangzhuang Tian and for once the remake didn't disgrace the original and shouldn't be missed either but this is the real deal. World cinema doesn't get much better.

Frequently voted China's greatest film ever by Chinese critics, as well as Chinese film enthusiasts from the outside, and, frankly, I don't get it at all. What I saw was one of the most generic melodramas imaginable, blandly directed and acted, with a complete shrew for a protagonist. Wei Wei (don't laugh) is that shrew, a young married woman who has suffered alongside her tubercular husband (Yu Shi) for the past several years. It is post WWII, and they live with the husband's teenage sister (Hongmei Zhang) in a dilapidated home with not much money (the man had been wealthy when they married). Along comes the husband's old best friend (Wei Li), who also used to be the wife's boyfriend when they were teens. She considers running away from her husband with this man, while the husband pretty much remains oblivious, thinking he may engage his little sister to his friend. That's the set-up, and it doesn't go anywhere you wouldn't expect it to. I've actually seen the remake, directed by Blue Kite director Zhuangzhuang Tian. It runs a half hour longer, and is actually kind of dull, too, but at least it was pretty. This supposed classic is pretty intolerable.

This is a film about deep and unspoken human relationships.Eventually they do become spoken, but is there a chance to change anything about the situation.Originally made in Shanghai 1948 and quite free of propaganda the film introduces us to the Dai Family. There is still some weight about the history that surrounds the family. History usually has weight in Chinese literature and serious film.A young married couple - Liyan, an invalid, and his wife Yuwen live in a once great family compound that is partially ruined.A bright contrast is Liyan's young sister who cannot really remember the past of the family but accepts everything in quite a natural way. Her spirit is as bright as the other two are reserved.Into this apparently stable world comes an unexpected visitor...I ended up feeling quite sad - but definitely a superior film.