Lost in Beijing - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

Lost in Beijing is a 2007

2007 in film

This is a list of major films released in 2007.-Top grossing films:Please note that following the tradition of the English-language film industry, these are the top grossing films that were first released in the USA in 2007...

Chinese film

Cinema of China

The Chinese-language cinema has three distinct historical threads: Cinema of Hong Kong, Cinema of China, and Cinema of Taiwan. Since 1949 the cinema of mainland China has operated under restrictions imposed by the Communist Party of China's State Administration of Radio, Film, and Television and...

directed by Li Yu

Li Yu (director)

Li Yu is a female Chinese film director and screenwriter. Li began her career in entertainment at a young age, serving as a presenter at a local TV station...

and starring Tony Leung Ka-fai

Tony Leung Ka-Fai

Tony Leung Ka-fai is a three-time Hong Kong Film Award-winning Chinese film actor.Because he is often confused with actor Tony Leung Chiu-Wai, Tony Leung Ka-fai is known as "Big Tony", while Tony Leung Chiu-Wai is known as "Little Tony", nicknames which correspond to the actors' respective...

, Fan Bingbing, Tong Dawei

Tong Dawei

Tong Dawei is a Chinese actor and singer. Tong is best known for starring TV series Jade Guan-yin, Struggle and the film Lost in Beijing....

, and Elaine Jin

Elaine Jin

Elaine Jin or known as Yanling Jin, Elaine Kam is a famous Taiwanese actress.She has been nominated five times in the Hong Kong Film Awards and won two for her supporting roles in Love Unto Waste and People's Hero...

. It had its international premiere at the 2007 Berlin International Film Festival

Berlin International Film Festival

The Berlin International Film Festival , also called the Berlinale, is one of the world's leading film festivals and most reputable media events. It is held in Berlin, Germany. Founded in West Berlin in 1951, the festival has been celebrated annually in February since 1978...

on February 16, 2007. Lost in Beijing is director Li Yu's third feature film after the lesbian-themed Fish and Elephant

Fish and Elephant

Fish and Elephant is documentary filmmaker and former TV hostess Li Yu's feature film directorial debut. The film is also often referred to as the first Chinese mainland film to broach the topic of lesbian relationships in China....

(2002) and the drama Dam Street

Dam Street

Dam Street is a 2005 Chinese film directed by Li Yu. Dam Street is Li's second feature film, after 2001's Fish and Elephant and was produced by screenwriter Fang Li's Laurel Films and Sylvain Bursztejn's French company, Rosem Fims....

(2005).

Lost in Beijing was produced by Laurel Films

Laurel Films

Laurel Films is an independent Beijing-based production company, operated by producer and screenwriter Fang Li. The company has produced several independent films from directors like Wang Chao, Li Yu and Lou Ye....

, a small independent production company owned by Fang Li and based in Beijing, and is being released internationally by the French company Films Distribution. Distribution in the United States was picked up by New Yorker Films

New Yorker Films

New Yorker Films is an independent film distribution company founded by Daniel Talbot in 1965. It started as an extension of his Manhattan movie house, the New Yorker Theater, after he discovered he was unable to obtain certain foreign titles for exhibition....

.

Like many films that touch on the underbelly of Chinese society (see for example, Li Yang's

Li Yang (director)

Li Yang is a Chinese writer-director. Though often grouped with the so-called Sixth Generation of Chinese filmmakers, he is in fact closer in age to the Fifth Generation and in interviews has denied membership with either group, claiming that such labels are only artificial differentiations.Born...

Blind Shaft

Blind Shaft is a 2003 film about a pair of brutal con artists operating in the illegal coal mines of present-day northern China. The film was written and directed by Li Yang , and is based on Chinese writer Liu Qingbang's short novel Shen Mu .-Production history:Most of the filming took place 700...

or Blind Mountain

Blind Mountain

Blind Mountain is a 2007 Chinese film directed by Li Yang and is Li's first feature film since his 2003 debut Blind Shaft. It is also known as Road Home....

, or Wang Xiaoshuai

Wang Xiaoshuai

Wang Xiaoshuai is a Chinese film director, screenwriter and occasional actor. He is commonly grouped under the loose association of filmmakers known as the Sixth Generation of the Cinema of China....

's Beijing Bicycle

Beijing Bicycle

Beijing Bicycle is a 2001 Chinese drama film by Sixth Generation Chinese director Wang Xiaoshuai, with joint investment from the Taiwanese Arc Light Films and the French Pyramide Productions. The film stars first-time actors Cui Lin and Li Bin, supported by the already established actresses Zhou...

), Li Yu's tale of prostitution, blackmail, and rape in modern-day Beijing has been plagued with censorship problems. The film also found controversy for what some critics described as "thumb-nosing gratuitous sex scenes." After nearly a year of delays, the film was finally banned by Chinese authorities in January 2008.

Plot

Liu Pingguo (Fan Bingbing) and her husband, An Kun (Tong Dawei

Tong Dawei

Tong Dawei is a Chinese actor and singer. Tong is best known for starring TV series Jade Guan-yin, Struggle and the film Lost in Beijing....

) are a young migrant couple from the northeast of China who have moved to Beijing

Beijing

Beijing , also known as Peking , is the capital of the People's Republic of China and one of the most populous cities in the world, with a population of 19,612,368 as of 2010. The city is the country's political, cultural, and educational center, and home to the headquarters for most of China's...

for a better life. Pingguo and An Kun live in a dilapidated apartment eking out their existence working menial jobs. An Kun works as a window washer, while his wife works in the Golden Basin Massage Parlor as a foot masseuse. Golden Basin is owned and operated by Lin Dong (Tony Leung Ka-fai

Tony Leung Ka-Fai

), an unabashed womanizer, and himself from Guangdong

Guangdong

Guangdong is a province on the South China Sea coast of the People's Republic of China. The province was previously often written with the alternative English name Kwangtung Province...

Province. His wife, Wang Mei (Elaine Jin

Elaine Jin

) practices Chinese medicine. Very soon, the two couples find themselves headed for a collision course.

When Pingguo's best friend, Xiao Mei (Zeng Meihuizi), assaults a customer, she is quickly fired by Lin Dong. Pingguo, wishing to commiserate, takes her friend out and promptly becomes drunk on bai jiu. Returning to the Golden Basin, she passes out in an empty office. Lin Dong, seeing the vulnerable Pingguo attempts to make a pass, which quickly turns into rape, a rape witnessed by the window washer, An Kun. Furious at the sight, An Kun begins a campaign of harassment against Lin Dong, defacing his Mercedes Benz, and attempting to blackmail him for ¥

Renminbi

The Renminbi is the official currency of the People's Republic of China . Renminbi is legal tender in mainland China, but not in Hong Kong or Macau. It is issued by the People's Bank of China, the monetary authority of the PRC...

20,000. When Lin Dong ignores the furious husband, An Kun goes directly to Wang Mei, who rather than acquiescing, seduces the naive window washer.

Soon, it is discovered that Liu Pingguo is pregnant, though neither An Kun nor Lin Dong can be certain of who is the father. Lin Dong, however, sees in Pingguo an opportunity to make things right with his barren wife as well as to settle things with Pingguo and her husband once and for all. Soon, the two husbands have concocted a scheme wherein An Kun initially receives ¥20,000 for his mental suffering. If the child has Lin Dong's blood type, he will go home with the massage-parlor owner and An Kun will receive ¥100,000. If however, the baby is An Kun's, no money is exchanged, but Pingguo and An Kun keep the baby. Moreover, if Lin Dong again sleeps with Pingguo, half of his assets will go to Wang Mei in a divorce proceeding. During these negotiations, Pingguo remains conspicuously silent.

As the baby is carried to term, Lin Dong becomes more and more attached to the idea that he will at last be a father. When the baby is born however, An Kun discovers that it is indeed his child. Unable to turn down the money, he manages to convince Lin Dong that it is his son, allowing him to collect the ¥120,000. Although, seeing how happy Lin Dong is with the baby, An Kun grows increasingly jealous, at last resorting to a clumsy and ultimately doomed kidnapping. After being released (presumably by Wang Mei, who has decided to divorce her husband), An Kun attempts to "repurchase" his child, to which Lin Dong promptly refuses. Pingguo, who had moved into Lin Dong's home after the birth as a nursemaid, at last has had enough. Quietly, she gathers the money that An Kun had returned, and taking her child, walks out the door. The film then ends as the two men, Lin Dong and An Kun, attempt to search for her, only to have their car break down on a busy Beijing highway...

Cast

Tony Leung Ka-fai
Tony Leung Ka-Fai
Tony Leung Ka-fai is a three-time Hong Kong Film Award-winning Chinese film actor.Because he is often confused with actor Tony Leung Chiu-Wai, Tony Leung Ka-fai is known as "Big Tony", while Tony Leung Chiu-Wai is known as "Little Tony", nicknames which correspond to the actors' respective...

- Lin Dong, Pingguo's employer, the owner of the massage parlor, the Golden Basin. For Lin Dong's backstory, Fang Li and Li Yu decided to make his character a nouveau riche
Nouveau riche
The nouveau riche , or new money, comprise those who have acquired considerable wealth within their own generation...

businessman, but also a Beijing outsider. Hailing from the southern province of Guangdong
Guangdong
Guangdong is a province on the South China Sea coast of the People's Republic of China. The province was previously often written with the alternative English name Kwangtung Province...

, Lin Dong has moved to Beijing to become the owner of one of the first successful foot massage parlors after a successful stint as a restaurateur in his home province.
Fan Bingbing - Liu Pingguo, a young woman from the countryside who works as a foot masseuse in a massage parlor in Beijing. Director Li Yu has indicated that both Pingguo and her husband An Kun are from poor families in China's northeast, who have come to Beijing for better jobs.
Tong Dawei
Tong Dawei
Tong Dawei is a Chinese actor and singer. Tong is best known for starring TV series Jade Guan-yin, Struggle and the film Lost in Beijing....

- An Kun, Pingguo's husband, a window washer.
Elaine Jin
Elaine Jin
Elaine Jin or known as Yanling Jin, Elaine Kam is a famous Taiwanese actress.She has been nominated five times in the Hong Kong Film Awards and won two for her supporting roles in Love Unto Waste and People's Hero...

- Wang Mei, Lin Dong's wife. Her inability to bear children leaves the marriage with Lin Dong strained. Wang Mei's character is also meant to be originally from the south, and she is the daughter of a government official.
Zeng Meihuizi - Xiao Mei, a friend and fellow masseuse with Pingguo.

Berlin premiere controversy

Originally scheduled for a market screening on February 2 and a general screening on February 16, 2007 at the 2007 Berlin International Film Festival

Berlin International Film Festival

, it soon emerged that the film and its producers had run afoul of Chinese censors who demanded 15 cuts of scenes that depicted sex and gambling. Initially, the filmmakers agreed to compromise and accepted 65% of the cuts suggested by the censors. Additional complaints from the censors, however, were met with frustration from producer Fang Li, who made it clear that further cuts would damage the film's message.

By February 7, it appeared that the filmmakers and the censors had reached a compromise. Beijing would allow the film to be screened if a further fifteen minutes were cut, including several seemingly innocuous scenes depicting China's national flag, Tiananmen Square

Tiananmen Square

Tiananmen Square is a large city square in the center of Beijing, China, named after the Tiananmen Gate located to its North, separating it from the Forbidden City. Tiananmen Square is the third largest city square in the world...

, and even a scene of a Mercedes-Benz

Mercedes-Benz

Mercedes-Benz is a German manufacturer of automobiles, buses, coaches, and trucks. Mercedes-Benz is a division of its parent company, Daimler AG...

driving through a puddle-filled pothole.
Ultimately Berlin organizers screened an apparently uncut version at both screenings.

Despite its troubles with the Chinese authorities, the film nevertheless obtained an international distributor from the Paris

Paris

Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...

-based Films Distribution.

Domestic release problems

Even after its international premiere, Lost in Beijing continued to run into censorship issues in China. In particular, a high-level meeting

17th National Congress of the Communist Party of China

The 17th National Congress of the Communist Party of China was held in Beijing, China, at the Great Hall of the People from 15 to 21 October 2007. The Congress marked significant shift in the political direction of the country as CPC General Secretary Hu Jintao solidified his position of leadership...

of Communist Party

Communist Party of China

The Communist Party of China , also known as the Chinese Communist Party , is the founding and ruling political party of the People's Republic of China...

officials in the fall of 2007, as well as the run-up to the Olympics led to repeated delays for the domestic release of the film. Along with other titles (such as Li Yang's

Li Yang (director)

Blind Mountain

Blind Mountain is a 2007 Chinese film directed by Li Yang and is Li's first feature film since his 2003 debut Blind Shaft. It is also known as Road Home....

), Lost in Beijing saw its release date pushed aside in favor of "patriotic" films.

While continuing to face issues on the Mainland, Lost in Beijing did manage to be released in Hong Kong in November 2007. Hong Kong, with its own cinema censorship system independent of Mainland China and relatively less susceptible to government intervention, was so far the only place this film could officially reach the Chinese audience. The film received "Level Three: Persons Aged 18 and Above Only" (III) rating in Hong Kong motion picture rating system

Hong Kong motion picture rating system

The Hong Kong motion picture rating system is a legal system of movie screening and rating. An official government agency issues ratings for any movie that will be shown in Hong Kong movie theatres.-History:...

for its sexual content.

Back on the Mainland, prospects for a release continued to decline. While the film was briefly released on a limited basis in Beijing in December 2007, the version of the film was heavily edited and known as "Apple." The film's screening license was eventually revoked a month later on January 3, 2008. On January 4, 2008, the State Administration of Radio, Film, and Television

State Administration of Radio, Film, and Television

The State Administration of Radio, Film, and Television is an executive branch under the State Council of the People's Republic of China...

(SARFT) officially banned the film accusing the filmmakers of releasing the deleted scenes on the internet, for inappropriate promotion of the film, and also for the film's unauthorized screening in Berlin the year before. SARFT also banned the production company Laurel Films

Laurel Films

and director Li Yu from filmmaking for two years.

American release

Though Lost in Beijing had played briefly in the Tribeca Film Festival

Tribeca Film Festival

The Tribeca Film Festival is a film festival founded in 2002 by Jane Rosenthal, Robert De Niro and Craig Hatkoff in a response to the September 11, 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center and the consequent loss of vitality in the TriBeCa neighborhood in Lower Manhattan.The mission of the festival...

, it did not see a commercial release until a limited run in New York beginning on January 25, 2008.

Reception

Besides Berlin, Lost in Beijing has screened at a handful of important film festivals, including the 2007 Bangkok International Film Festival

Bangkok International Film Festival

The Bangkok International Film Festival is an international film festival held annually in Bangkok, Thailand, since 2003. In addition to film screenings, seminars, gala events and the Golden Kinnaree Awards.-First years:...

, where it won a Special Jury Prize, and the 2007 Tribeca Film Festival

Tribeca Film Festival

where it garnered an honorable mention for screenplay.

Critics, meanwhile, were reserved in their praise. While many agreed the leads' performances are well played, a few have argued that the film's plot, and particularly some dramatic leaps of faith were difficult to swallow. Ray Bennett of The Hollywood Reporter

The Hollywood Reporter

Formerly a daily trade magazine, The Hollywood Reporter re-launched in late 2010 as a unique hybrid publication serving the entertainment industry and a consumer audience...

, for example, wrote that the film's "plot doesn't really hold up" and that "[while] the cast does well, [...] the demands of sudden changes of emotion are a bit overwhelming." Derek Elley of Variety

Variety (magazine)

Variety is an American weekly entertainment-trade magazine founded in New York City, New York, in 1905 by Sime Silverman. With the rise of the importance of the motion-picture industry, Daily Variety, a daily edition based in Los Angeles, California, was founded by Silverman in 1933. In 1998, the...

, however, appears to accept the dramatic licenses taken, and instead focuses on the film's excellent technical credits, and the performances of the four main leads.

Among the Mandarin-speaking audience though, the film has gained much attention and notoriety, first for its explicit sexual content which some have called unnecessary (while some argue are integral to the film's message), and for its scathing social commentary. "Underground film", a Wuhan based underground Chinese film magazine rated it the "Best" boundary pushing film in China of 2007.

With its commercial release in the United States in early 2008, the film's profile was raised, although critics continued to be ambivalent in their reviews. Review databases like Rotten Tomatoes

Rotten Tomatoes

Rotten Tomatoes is a website devoted to reviews, information, and news of films—widely known as a film review aggregator. Its name derives from the cliché of audiences throwing tomatoes and other vegetables at a poor stage performance...

reported only 45% of reviews were positive as of January 27 while Metacritic

Metacritic

Metacritic.com is a website that collates reviews of music albums, games, movies, TV shows and DVDs. For each product, a numerical score from each review is obtained and the total is averaged. An excerpt of each review is provided along with a hyperlink to the source. Three colour codes of Green,...

reported a rating of 58 indicating "mixed or average reviews." American critics moreover, like those of Variety

Variety (magazine)

and The Hollywood Reporter

The Hollywood Reporter

Formerly a daily trade magazine, The Hollywood Reporter re-launched in late 2010 as a unique hybrid publication serving the entertainment industry and a consumer audience...

, continued to note the film's difficult to swallow leaps of faith. A.O. Scott, of The New York Times

The New York Times

The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...

, for example, praises the film's acting (particularly Elaine Jin and Tony Leung), but notes that these performances serve to cut "against the schematic artifice of its story." Other critics, like Richard Brody of The New Yorker

The New Yorker

The New Yorker is an American magazine of reportage, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons and poetry published by Condé Nast...

focused on the clear social criticism of the film, noting that "[t]hough Li’s direction is slapdash and her script (co-written with the producer, Fang Li) disheveled, the film’s furious protest is unmistakable."

Alternate versions

Lost in Beijings brief release in China consisted of a version very different from the versions seen at Berlin or in the United States. Complying with SARFT demands, the filmmakers excised nearly 20 minutes from the film, including an entire subplot wherein Elaine Jin's character has an affair with Tong Dawei's younger man as revenge for her husband's infidelities. Other sensitive topics such as tangential references to prostitution

Prostitution

Prostitution is the act or practice of providing sexual services to another person in return for payment. The person who receives payment for sexual services is called a prostitute and the person who receives such services is known by a multitude of terms, including a "john". Prostitution is one of...

were also cut, as was the murder of Xiao Mei, one of Pingguo's friends and fellow masseuse. Some of the changes seemed minor, but were meant to further align the film with the government's conceptions of justice and fairness. Pingguo, for example, does not accept money at the end of the Chinese version, so that she would leave without having had her character compromised.

The very last scene in the New Yorker Films DVD release ends simply with Pingguo leaving Lin Dong's apartment, presumedly to start a life on her own. There is no reference to Lin Dong and An Kun following her.

External links

Lost in Beijing from US distributor, New Yorker Films
New Yorker Films
New Yorker Films is an independent film distribution company founded by Daniel Talbot in 1965. It started as an extension of his Manhattan movie house, the New Yorker Theater, after he discovered he was unable to obtain certain foreign titles for exhibition....
Lost in Beijing from distributor, Films Distribution
Lost in Beijing at the Chinese Movie Database

SARFT Pronouncements

Official statement from the State Administration of Radio, Film, and Television