Chinese films

Continuing exploration of Chinese films - World without Thieves (Feng Xiaogang) and King of Masks (Wu Tianming) this week.

WWT was a lucky experiment and quite a strange film in some ways - first 20 minutes looked like a Chinese TV drama [of about 5 years ago]; next hour or so was a very slow road movie with pickpocketing sequences shot in style of martial arts film; last section had almost fairytale quality.

KoM much more conventional beast - traditional entertainer tries to adopt boy to train in dying art, discovers is in fact girl, rejects; reconciled; strong overtones of redemption all round.

Both are quite sentimental in places, though WWT gets away with it, whereas KoM on the whole doesn't and more interesting parts of film get submerged in what looks in the end like quite an arbitrary plot complication.

Unsentimental Chinese films: The World, Devils on the Doorstep...............?

(Mind you, after watching The Others last night I am feeling more than averagely kindly disposed towards the concept of the feel-good ending.)