Lost in Beijing (2007) User Reviews

Money and Moral - Review of "Lost in Beijing"

[kampolam-75813 · 6/10 · 23 January 2023]

In 2007, in addition to Lee Ang's "Lust, Caution", "Lost in Beijing" directed by Li Yu and starring Fan Bingbing is another Chinese film that has attracted attention due to its extreme lust scenes. The film was banned in Mainland China because of its subject matter and extreme sex scenes. Making "Lost in Beijing" attract the attention of the Western media may be a promotional strategy of the production company, and it may also create more topics for the film.

The original version was released in Hong Kong. Fan Bingbing's exposure has become the topic of most concern to everyone. Of course, Fan Bingbing's erotic drama with Tong Dawei, who plays her husband in the film, is comparable to the sex scenes of Tony Leung Chiu-wai and Tang Wei. The actor's passionate interpretations, and the trust in the director is admirable. Li Yu filmed the story of migrant workers in Beijing in such a realistic manner. The director did not criticize the deformed phenomenon of the Chinese society's focus on money and moral corruption, but tried to analyze the society through the psychological state of the four protagonists.

The foot bath shop owners Lin Dong and Wang Mei played by Tony Leung Ka-Fai and Elaine Jin are very typical of the nouveau riche mentality, as well as the relationship between the two of them, the entanglement of interests and emotions. As for the migrant couple Liu Pingguo and An-Kun played by Fan Bingbing and Tong Dawei, the husband An-Kun saw his wife being raped by the boss Lin Dong, the arrogance and anger that damages his self-esteem, and finally only looks at the money, and even betrays his own son. These episodes continue to occur in major cities in China, impacting the harmonious society advocated by government. In any case, the film does have that kind of social atmosphere, and it is an excellent work of Chinese Cinema. Special attention should be paid to the performance of Tony Leung Ka-Fai, who portrays a nouveau riche in a superb way.

By Kam Po LAM (original in Chinese)

What kind of world is this?

[g-89622 · 7/10 · 13 October 2021]

What kind of new era is this? Dickens wrote in the opening of A Tale of Two Cities that "this is the best of times, this is the worst of times; this is the age of wisdom, this is the age of folly; this is the season of light, this is the season of darkness; this is the spring of hope.". It's the winter of disappointment; people have everything in front of them, people have nothing in front of them; people are on their way to heaven, people are going to the gates of hell. " This may be the best answer.

This Apple is Fresh

[Anawrahta · 9 December 2007]

This is the first movie I've seen come out of Mainland China of respectable quality. I'll admit I haven't seen many, but from what I have seen, this is certainly above and beyond.

The story is about a poor migrant couple and a wealthy couple living in Beijing. Their lives become intertwined through a set of unfortunate and somewhat disturbing circumstances.

I'm not perfectly fluent in Mandarin, but the acting was good from all four main characters. The less experienced Bingbing Fang was especially good as Ping Guo, the lead character. The scenery is set amid the toxic haze of a sprawling Beijing with lots of greys and muted colours.

The best thing about the movie for me was the amazing contrast between the lives of the rich and the poor. Even though I'm surrounded by it daily, this movie gives a little bit more intimacy than what I'm normally exposed to. Other common themes were greed and face.

Ultimately, the production values of the movie were very good, from the cinematography to the acting, but the conclusion doesn't really leave you with a good taste in your mouth. I think this is good though, because it sticks closer to what reality might be like, instead of having clearly defined heroes and antagonists with a full circle ending.

Lost in Beijing

[mbear4 · 6/10 · 3 December 2012]

This movie came as a bit of a shock to someone who had lived in China as an exchange student in the 1980s, when only the most stifling, gov't approved propaganda films were allowed. I knew China had changed since I had been there, but this was an eye-opener. Some of the sex/rape scenes were more explicit than in many Western films.

The plot seemed to go from very serious to semi-absurd, as the rapist negotiates a detailed contract with the couple whose wife he raped--and, they agree to it.

Anyway, overall, I think the film was well-made and shows how complex life in modern China can become--but, brace yourself for lots of sex. I can certainly understand why communist authorities in China banned the film. If I was a commie, I'd ban it too! ;-)

A nice movie about the true side of life in Beijing

[wormite · 10/10 · 11 August 2009]

Being an international student studying in U.S. I would probably have a very different point of view of this movie, that being said, I hope that I can give some insight of this movie with my past life of living 24 years in Beijing and additional 3 years of life living in U.S. First, let me make one thing clear, if anyone thinks this is a cheap movie with stupid plot such as a girl being raped and she actually enjoyed the process, please go back to watch the movie again, or just switch to some Hollywood movie which will give you a fantasy that ends up with happy after forever. This is a movie about the real life of people in Beijing, it is well founded, carefully thought about, and shot in a very skillful camera angles. Now I am going to give evidence and explanations why I think so.

The background scene: if you watched it closely, you probably have found that most of the scenes are so gray, suppressing, with typical cold colors, the movie is also shot in winter. That is the realistic view of winter Beijing, having the cold wind cutting into your bones. It is not an easy weather to live in, as someone raised in this kind of weather, you learn to endure it, suffer from it, and adapt to it. This kind of weather of course makes the life even harder for poor immigrant workers. This detail is just so true and so carefully expressed over the whole film. This rendering effect sets the baseline of the whole film, which is a sad, unfortunate, but realistic movie.

Characters and culture. I think one of the main things that the director/script writer wants to express here is, the mispositioned female status in the Chinese culture. I saw no one here actually commenting on this. This idea is hidden deep, but it is pretty obvious if you understands the life of Chinese people and have been in touch with some western culture. An kung and Lin Dong, one poor one rich, both regard the women as some kind of possessions in their lives. An kung asked for money when he found out that his wife has been raped. If you are a traditional Chinese, you may even find this reasonable, but if you look at this from a different view, he is regarding his wife as his belongings, he's asking for money as a compensation because, his belonging is damaged, and he believes that money can compensate all his sufferings (well, if you regard women as a commercial product, you can buy a different one with more money, right?). Lin Dong, regards his wife and ping guo as the tool for having offspring. This is revealed so nicely if you think about all the details, he wants a boy not a girl, prayed to God for it(probably to carry on his business since he's rich.) His own wife can not give birth, so he goes out all the time to hookers and he acts as if he has the right to do so. When ping guo was pregnant he just directly came to his wife and acted like: look, you can't do it, so it is reasonable for me to find someone else to do it. Ping guo and Wang mei, being the women in such a culture, regarded their inferior position as natural, accepted them and almost never disobeyed or tried to fight. Some details: Wang Mei said she could never object her husband's decision for 16 years. (But being a well educated rich woman, she eventually revenged by having sex with An kun. It is funny and interesting if you paid attention to what she said during the sex.) Ping guo, as a weak, uneducated woman, having no power in the society, no freedom, being so desperate to have someone to rely on and someone to love her, became the center of the whole tragedy. Raped, deserted by her husband, and raped by her husband, then slapped by the woman richer. She actually found a little love from Lin Dong, although she knows that it is purely on the sex basis, but even that is better than having nothing. And she even tried to accept such a disgusting relationship. The ending seems random, but actually giving all the information you need to understand what the movie wants to reveal, two women sitting together, both realizing that they are the victims of the culture, holding hands in tears. While both men, deserted by their women, pushing cars together on the high way.(Implying that the materialistic things, namely cars and money that they pursued after will eventually fail them. They are so stupid to lose love over trivial things as money, or power.) Xiao Mei is the character not so important, but also a crucial part of the whole story, being a hooker, she's a live description of how woman are forced by life itself to drop into the traps of death. It also gives a powerful impression on how limited the options are from which the poor Chinese people have to choose from, and how hard life is there. There are a lot more details, but I don't have space and time to explore them, it is a movie worth of watching, I have already gone through it for the 3rd time, and still find new things. I hope everyone reading this can understand a little more about the Chinese society and culture.

A brilliant characterization of life in contemporary Beijing

[barlenon · 9/10 · 26 October 2008]

The story itself seems unlikely, starting when An Kun, a city migrant working as window cleaner, by chance witnesses Liu Pingguo, his wife, being raped by her boss, Lin Dong, the sleazy owner of a massage parlor. Seeing an opportunity, An Kun goes to Lin Dong for hush money. When he refuses, An Kun reveals everything to Lin Dong's wife, Wang Mei. Wang Mei is upset but not surprised at her husband's actions and tells An Kun he will never get the money. However, as a form of compensation, she offers to have sex with An Kun and they start an affair. These two couples are brought closer together when Pingguo becomes pregnant and there is uncertainty about who the father is. Since Lin Dong desperately wants a son, he now willingly offers compensation. An Kun accepts the money but becomes increasingly uncertain of his decision to give up the child.

As farcical as this plot may seem, everything is handled in a realistic way. Even the story in some way represents the common dilemmas faced by immigrants to the big city. Personalities are nuanced. Characters are neither wholly abusive and evil nor passive and innocent. Every detail in the environment is authentic, modern China. The acting, and cinematography are brilliant. Beijing is remorseless, cold and bleak. The city provides opportunity and wealth but not without cost. Broadly speaking, this film is a social commentary about greed and desire and elusive satisfaction of modern life.

Beijing Baby Blues

[crossbow0106 · 5/10 · 27 January 2008]

This is a story about Liu, who works in a massage parlor (mostly just foot massages) for boss Lin Dong. After getting drunk with a friend from work who was fired, she gets raped by Lin Dong. It turns out, Lin's husband An Kun, a window cleaner just happening to be cleaning the windows at the time and witnessing this, tries to extort money from the boss. Liu becomes pregnant and there is a question of the unborn baby's paternity. Since the boss's wife Wang Mei is unable to bear children, Lin Dong wants badly to be a father, and makes a deal with the girl and her husband, that if its his baby, he'll keep it and give the couple $100,000 yuan. The film is at first farcical due to its unusual premise. It then becomes a strange morality play, that telling lies turns to pain. Beijing is pictured in every outdoor frame of the film as bustling, with constant high rise construction going on. However, I don't see specifically what relevance it has to the story, except to highlight haves and have nots (and want a lot mores). No joke here, it could have been "lost" in any decent sized city in the world. The real problem here is that there are no characters to like, except, to an extent, the wife of the boss, Wang Mei. This film, by the end, filled me with more indifference than pity or hope. I get it, money probably is everything. Everyone in this film made their bed and is now lying in it (the pun is completely intentional). If you have seen the actors in other films and like them, by all means go see this film. However, if you're not a giant fan of films made in mainland China, I'd skip it.

Lost in greed and apathy

[ruhi-yaman · 9/10 · 9 March 2008]

What happens to a collectivist, traditional society after it is traumatized by two extreme social experiments within a period of half a century – dehumanizing communism and equally alienating rampant materialism? Perhaps the best film to come out of mainland China in a decade, Yu Li's Ping Guo is both a scathing social commentary on the state of present day China and a moving human drama. The film, as well as its characters, looks like Beijing: Grey, polluted, crowded and confused. Acting is uniformly excellent. Bingbing Fan, the stunning young actress with morning-after eyes, is superb in the title role as the all-too-human Ping Guo. As the story unfolds and the humanity of the other three leads begin to rise above their greed and apathy, Ping finds her inner strength. The ending, which should be predictable, comes as a touching surprise.

Others have commented enough on the story. It is best to walk into this film without knowing too much about it. If you are a frequent visitor to China or an observer of its mind-blowing ascent, the film will have more to say to you. However, both the story and the characters are universal. Even a passing knowledge of that fascinating society is sufficient to enjoy this minor masterpiece, although you might miss its many subtle ironies.

Chinese authorities banned the film from being shown in China. They also banned its producers from working in the industry for two years. The decision, which is almost an unofficial award, won't stop those who want to watch it.

Beijing bothering, festival favouring film breaks few taboos

[sccoverton · 5/10 · 23 July 2009]

Peng Guo is the story of a young provincial Chinese woman in Beijing, Liu Pengguo, caught between the sexual and financial desires and demands of her husband, An Kun, and her boss, Lin Dong.

It is said that all cultures pass through certain distinctive stages before reaching decadence and decline. I would like to think that one of these stages, one that comes somewhere towards the end of industrialisation, relates to the need to make rather miserable social realist films with wobbly camera work, jump cuts, shallow focus, piano scores in minor keys, and long takes of (non-professional) actors "acting", which win Golden Somethings at European film festivals. China, it appears, is no exception.

OK, I'll admit to being cynical. It is clearly a well-funded, well-produced, and well-observed drama. And I suppose that social realist films don't generally have happy endings, so I shouldn't be smug about that either. Yet, if I had to distil my criticism down to one thing it would be the director's wilful conformity to the "genre". I find myself yearning for Zhang Yimou's films of the late eighties and early nineties, when Chinese film had a real sense of identity. Now it seems to be a mish-mash of various Western influences and little substance, a bit like Mando-pop (just with less smiling). This "conformity" takes on an ironic edge, not just because it was made under a communist government, but because the government banned it. In addition, the producers have been banned from making another film in China for two years, which strikes me as being just enough time to promote this film in Europe, write another one and get some European funding for it! OK, OK, still being cynical. It is a good film. The script is engaging and occasionally quite surprising (especially as we all know it's going to end in tears). The acting is good all round, especially thanks to two Asian cinema stalwarts Tony Leung Ka Fai and Elaine Jin (think Robert De Niro and... um... Juliette Binoche?) playing the boss and his wife, Wang Mei. Elaine Jin steals the show really, creating a character who is both impetuous and enigmatic at the same time. There are some nice insights into Beijing life, which are welcome post-Olympics razzmatazz. The direction is a bit contrived as I have noted, but when director Yu Li finally shakes off film school and gets the camera on a tripod it makes for a nice last few scenes.

That said, the film struggles to find its focus. While it's clearly a film about Fan Bingbing's physically and emotionally abused heroine, the POV shifts to that of her husband for large swathes of the narrative and we are left feeling rather sympathetic for him despite his (rather unsubtle) faults. The second act lightens in tone so much that it seems to be heading towards black comedy. The one and only sub-plot involves a prostitute who seems to be there to remind us that the four central characters are not the only ones having a crappy time – and she drops out of the story just as conveniently.

And then there's the controversy. Yes, it's got sex in it and no, Beijing wasn't happy with that. Would the film be any different without the sex scenes? Not really - decide for yourself. Two swallows don't make a summer, just as two arses don't make a controversial film necessarily polemical. Mind you, 2007 was quite a year for Hong Kong film royalty showing their posteriors - the other Tony Leung (Chiu Wai) bared his for 'Lust, Caution'... But I digress.

If you have watched a lot of these films from emerging economies, you will recognise the format all too well and, given the necessarily downbeat subject matter, the only pleasure might be guessing exactly how everyone is going to plunge into the misery for which they were all destined. Oh well. As films of this genre go it's not bad, so give it a go and make your own mind up.

The best movie I saw at Berlin International Film Festival

[Alma-Bach · 10/10 · 18 February 2007]

I just saw Ping Guo at the Berlin International Film Festival, Germany. It was really the best movie i saw there. In 2002 Li Yu was at the Berlin International Film Festival with her first feature Elephant And Fish and now I'm more than happy to see that she came back with her third movie. Ping Guo has such an amazing attitude towards its figures. The acting is amazing and thanks to the great script you follow all the twists trustfully because they just come along authentically. The cinematography is amazing. It's never just aesthetic but follows the action organically. I really hope we will see Ping Guo in the cinemas soon! China is lucky to have such a talented female director - I hope I will see a lot more by her!!!!

Greed brings out the worst in people....

[clerk123321 · 10/10 · 13 January 2008]

Ping Guo is a gem of a movie! I've been watching a lot of Chinese movies recently, but Ping Guo is one of the best of the bunch.

The story is about two couples intertwined due to unlucky circumstances, but most of them in their hands. During the movie, a very harsh and very real light is shed on the difference between poor and rich in modern Beijing and it will leave your mind thinking about it long after the movie is over. This is a very good thing - in my opinion movies are supposed to make you think, supposed to move you. Ping Guo did just that and is worthy of watching for everyone who isn't afraid of foreign movies and who is willing to look at something else than popcorn Hollywood.

This movie will keep you entertained for nearly two hours and will make you want for more movies of this director. And that's a very good thing!

Filthy, Boring Tripe With Good Camera-work and Acting

[ebossert · 4/10 · 29 June 2008]

I normally wouldn't waste my time criticizing a useless movie such as this. However, I'm off of work this week, so I have plenty of time to wallow in meaningless trivialities. To start, let me say that I frequently enjoy non-commercial, non-mainstream, non-American cinema. (Feel free to click on my user profile for a supporting filmography.) That said, there are plenty of bad movies that are released in countries outside of the U.S. Trust me, I've been tortured by hundreds of them. "Lost In Beijing" is one particularly bad film.

The opening half hour is an impressive, non-stop exhibition of moral degeneracy. This film provides some classic morals that belong on the same level as Kim Ki-duk's "Bad Guy" (2001).

1. women actually enjoy being raped; 2. rape should be glorified, praised, and respected; 3. feel free to rape any woman you like, because while your "doing" her she'll eventually start to like it and reach orgasm; 4. if you're wife gets raped, make sure you blackmail her rapist for lots of money, but if he doesn't pay, just repeatedly bang his slut of a wife as compensation; 5. if you're wife gets raped, be sure to screw and degrade her the next day while playing the role of the rapist, taunting her with lines like, "Did he fu*k you like this?"; 6. if you're husband is a rapist, just accept it; 7. after you personally get raped, befriend your rapist and hang out with him whenever possible.

How can anyone in their right mind care about any of these characters? They're nothing more than a bunch of degenerates who not only live their lives in careless ways, but actually revel in their meaninglessness and support each other. Don't misunderstand me though. I'm very capable of enjoying films that depict lifestyles and morals that are contradictory to my own. "Ichi the Killer" (2001) and "Moonlight Whispers" (1999) are very interesting portrayals of sado-masochism. "Strange Circus" (2005) is an exceedingly perverted play on child sexual abuse. "Marriage Is A Crazy Thing" (2002) is a scathing indictment on traditional marriage. Even religiously-based movies like "Running On Karma" (2003) and "Samsara" (2001) have entertained me on occasion. The difference is that those films actually have some interesting psychological content and character development to them, whereas "Lost In Beijing" has virtually none.

It's known that people with unorthodox mindsets exist on this planet, but without some kind of character development or psychology behind the acts themselves, you end up with a superficial exposition of despicable behavior. Why, exactly, does Bing Bing eventually befriend and care for her rapist? Why does the wife of a rapist accept his behavior unconditionally? The filmmakers never bothered to tell us. Even the obvious juxtaposition of rich and poor classes was ineptly conceived and in the end served as a mere situational ploy. It all feels too bland and forgettable after the filthy opening half hour subsides.

Other reviewers here seem to have confused moral ambiguity with complex characterization. The reason you can't choose which person to root for is because they weren't developed properly. Don't think that this movie has complex characters just because they're not clearly defined. On the contrary, the reason they're not clearly defined is because we know nothing about them or what they're thinking. This is hardly a positive attribute of this movie.

On the positive side, the camera-work and acting are quite good, but everything else just gets duller and duller as the film progresses. You can place this alongside trash like "Turning Gate" (2002), "What Time Is It There" (2001), "Irreversible" (2002), and the aforementioned "Bad Guy."

Take the time to watch this

[mark-4145 · 10/10 · 13 June 2008]

A truly wonderful movie.

It is rare (incredibly so, given the number of mindless and/or self-pitying movies that spew out from Hollywood) to find a movie that portrays the strengths, weaknesses, goods and ills of its protagonists so well.

The people (note: not characters) in this flick are so well portrayed that, by the end, you don't know whom to hate and whom to side with (with one obvious exception -- but are even that person's decisions the right ones?) Given that it has been banned in China, I perhaps foolishly succumbed to the current US government's anti-China propaganda, and expected there to be political reasons for the ban, but that is quite obviously not the case.

If anything, the ban was more from the fear that people "down on the farm" would come to think that living in a major Chinese city carries with it the same fears and worries as living in a major US city -- which, let's be absolutely honest, is nowhere near the truth.

It's beautifully written and beautifully realised. Far and away better than any Western movie I've had to sit through, lately -- the words "sex" and "city" come to mind. In some ways, it's the same basic idea as that movie , but there's just no comparison.

The only possible bug-bear for Western viewers is that Chinese emotions may be "inscrutable" to them, because they're not used to the East/West differences in facial characteristics. I'm British, with a Royal Navy background, so I can perhaps see such things more easily than someone from "down on the farm" in the US -- but it can't be that hard to see what the characters are feeling, when the actors are playing the parts so well.

Be ready to laugh, to "maintain a stiff upper lip", to hate people for what they do, and to love those same people for other things they do.

It's a blinder, this one. Watch it.

Addendum: Could the IMDb spellchecker be made to take note that the Websters is not a real dictionary?

A truly abysmal film. This review may contain spoilers but it sure as Hell doesn't contain compliments

[GusF · 2/10 · 29 April 2016]

Unleashed on the unsuspecting English speaking world under the title "Lost in Beijing", this is a truly abysmal film. I really hated it. No, I didn't just hate. I utterly despised it. This is the first film that I have seen in Mandarin and the first entirely in a non-European language so that was interesting, which is certainly a great deal more than can be said for the film itself. The film's co-writer and director Li Yu is one of the few women to perform either function in the Chinese film industry. That's quite impressive. However, I would have been significantly more impressed with that accomplishment if she had any talent. I'm a big believer in assigning blame where blame is due so I should say that Fang Li was the other person responsible - and I use that word deliberately - for this blight on cinema. The "script" is absolutely appalling and not one moment of it comes close to resembling reality.

The numerous sex scenes and its pronounced anti-government tone ran afoul of the Chinese censors which led to the film being banned in its native country, albeit after it had already been released in a heavily edited fashion. I'm very much against banning films or any other work in principle but I could have lived with having never seen this film. I found parts of it very offensive, not the aforementioned sex scenes but the often incredibly tasteless treatment of the subject matter. Other parts of it seemed like they had been written by a 15-year-old boy who had seen one too many pornos. If cinema were food, this film would be food poisoning. I assume that the Mandarin dialogue was translated accurately, even if it wasn't transcribed accurately since the person who wrote the English subtitles had clearly never heard of a full stop. The dialogue was pathetic but I would not be surprised if it gained something in translation. I would certainly not be averse to watching another film in Mandarin. This film showed me that making absolutely dreadful films is not the soul purview of the English speaking world. That's something, I suppose.

The film stars Fan Bingbing in a mediocre but...well, no mediocre performance as Liu Pingguo, a young woman from a poor province who has migrated to Beijing with her idiot husband An Kun, played badly by Tong Dawei. She works as a foot masseuse at the massage parlour Golden Basin. One night after a party, she is raped by her boss Lin Dong, played in a rather good performance by Tony Leung Ka-fai. By an astonishing coincidence, at that exact moment, An Kun just so happens to be washing that exact window and witnesses the rape. That night, he has sex with Pingguo while saying, "Did he ¤¤¤¤ you like this?" Irrespective of how it was intended, it came across as marital rape. An Kun then decides to blackmail Lin Dong for 20,000 yuan. He later visits the rapist's wife Wang Lei, played by Elaine Jin in the film's best performance, and she suggests that they have sex to even the score. She takes the fact that her husband is a rapist in her stride, expressing no shock or sympathy for his victim. The plot, such as it is, is a powerful repellent against logic, common sense and common decency.

This unconvincing and sordid melodrama gets even more complicated when Pingguo learns that she is pregnant and that either Lin Dong or An Kun could be the father. Given that Wang Lei is infertile, the two couples come to an arrangement: Lin Dong will give Pingguo and An Kun 100,000 yuan if the baby is his whereas they will receive nothing if the baby is An Kun's. This part of the film devolves into what I assume was intended to be funny. This part of the film was basically a black comedy involving a rapist, his victim and their respective spouses who are having an affair to make up for the rape. Classy. As it turns out, An Kun is the father but he bribes the doctor into falsifying the blood test results so that Lin Dong thinks that the child is his. Pingguo and An Kun move in with Lin Dong and An Kun with Pingguo pretending to be her son's nanny. In an entirely unbelievable development, Pingguo becomes quite fond of Lin Dong. Eventually, he discovers that he is not the child's father and he breaks down crying while sad music plays in the background. Boo bloody hoo. It boggles the mind that this scene, the worst of a very bad bunch, was included. I was infuriated, disgusted and offended that I or anyone else was expected to feel sympathy for a rapist because the woman that he raped had a child that wasn't his. It's contemptible. Even thinking about the scene makes my skin crawl.

Overall, I was not a fan of this film. If this does not turn out to be my least favourite film of 2016, I may give up on films altogether. Actually, I may give up on humanity altogether, move into the mountains and spend the rest of my hopefully very long life communing with nature. I only finished watching it because I made myself a promise that I would finish each and every film no matter what and there was certainly a lot of "what" on this occasion. Or maybe it was because I practiced self- flagellation in a previous life. As I was loaned a copy of the film on DVD, I didn't have to pay a cent for it but I still feel like asking for my money back. I would rather have dysentery than watch this again.

Lost in Beijing is not as sordid as it seems at first

[mothnm · 9/10 · 21 May 2011]

A lower class, working, married woman gets pregnant with lots of plot twists, money, moral dilemmas and human intrigue. If a travelogue/vocabulary brush up is your motive for watching there are some shots of Beijing looking bleak in winter, Tienamen Square, and the Forbidden City in the background during a conversation. My food-traveler mother wanted to know if there was food. With the key character being a pregnant female, she's eating all the time. If low-grade, sordid, masseuse/hooker scenes are what you seek, quit watching after the early drunken rape by boss scene. Otherwise that cutoff point is where you will quit watching, disgusted, wondering why the film wasn't cataloged as porn, but it is also exactly when the film gets interesting and stays interesting to the end. I started cleaning the kitchen at that point but checked in on the film running in the background just in case it redeemed itself. It did redeem itself, and turned out to be captivating.

So different from other mainland films, thank gosh

[sitenoise · 9/10 · 28 August 2008]

China's weird. Didn't we just learn from the Olympic Committee that there's billions of people living there? I think we did. Why then is this one of only a few films I can think of, off the top of my head, coming from there that has any semblance of lived-life-now? Lived life now under peculiar circumstances, sure, because it is a movie after all, but still. Everything else seems to be costumed drama kung fu palace historical Mao-sanctioned fantasy crap. I'm talking mainland China here. Taiwan and Hong Kong don't count. Ang Lee doesn't count. All the Chinese filmmakers making films in other parts of the world, and getting them financed and released in other parts of the world, don't count—and there's the rub.

Lost in Beijing is banned in China and its filmmakers are banned for two years from making films in China. What kind of nonsensical time-out is that? I mean no disrespect to the Chinese, I just want more of them to fall through the cracks and make films like Lost in Beijing—which is nothing like Farewell My Hero's Kingdom of Flying Yellow Flowers.

Fan Bingbing, known in the west as Bingbing Fan, stars in this film as Liu Ping Guo (Ping Guo, the Chinese title, translates literally as "Apple"), a foot massage girl who is raped by her boss (played out-of-this-worldly great by Tony Leung Ka Fai who's been in enough movies that every Chinese citizen could pick a film of his to see without any two people seeing the same film—western audiences may know him as the guy who has sex with Marguerite Duras in The Lover), and the rape is witnessed by her husband, a window washer who just happens to be hanging from a scaffolding washing the windows of the room at the massage parlor where the rape takes place. Foot massage is big business in China so I guess that's why this massage parlor is some kind of skyscraper that needs these scaffolded window washers, but I digress. The husband sees this as an opportunity to milk a little money from the well to do parlor owner. Lost in Beijing turns a critical eye toward the new moneyed urban class set against the rural, immigrant-in-their-own-country, if you will, working class.

Bingbing's husband confronts Tony's wife with the rape news and demands money for his pain and suffering, yes, you read that right, his pain and suffering. Tony's wife laughs at him and suggests a better revenge would be for him to have sex with her, and then in a moment of barely noticed brilliance while she's riding him cowgirl puts sunglasses on him so she can't see him looking at her.

It turns out Bingbing is pregnant and things get a little more complicated. If you complain when a film uses overly convenient plot devices to move forward you probably won't like this film as much as I do. I'm more concerned with the caliber of the characters. All four of the main performances in Lost in Beijing are magnificent. (Tony's relationship with, and handling of, his over sized wallet/day-planner is hilarious, as is his response of randomly checking the top of his head for bald spots when he's busted for trying to use a mirror to peek at Bingbing in the shower.) The direction is good and the camera-work creative, sometimes a little too creative to the point where I got dizzy a couple times so I'm deducting a point for that. Beijing is the backdrop here, captured in all its beautiful gray and desolate self.

New Morality

[lawyg · 22 February 2015]

I see this movie as a commentary on the new morality in Beijing brought on by modernization. This modernization could not have happened unless there was a mobile work force so the government made a conscious effort to diminish the familial bonds. How else could a worker travel thousands of miles to Beijing or Shenzen to find work? Money had to become of greater importance. The other modernization was that men could only legally marry one woman. In previous times, men would take another wife. In previous times, families would buy children.

With these two changes to Chinese society, this movie could ensue. An Kun and Liu can now be in Beijing. Lin Dong and Wang Mei would be childless. The lust, heartbreak, the anguish, the loathing, all results. The viewer is left with the question whether the new morality is better than the old. I think the writers preferred the old.