A Beautiful New World (1999)
Director: Shi Runjiu
Producer: Peter Loehr
Writers: Liu Fen Dou, Zhang Yang, Hou Xin, Diao Yi Nan, Cai Xiang Jun
Editor: Yang Hong Yu
Cast: Jiang Wu, Tao Hong, Wu Bai, Ren Xian Qi
Language: Cantonese, Mandarin
Mandarin: Meili xin shijie
Running Time: 98 min
Festivals:
Udine Far East Film Festival 1999
This good-natured comedy takes a fresh look at the clash between materialism, capitalism, traditional values, and human desire in modern China. A naive peasant wins a luxury apartment in Shanghai through a lottery but is soon disillusioned by its elusiveness. Instead of taking instant ownership, he is forced to move in with a distant relative, a younger woman he calls “auntie.” The film’s Brechtian touches include meta-narrative commentary on the adventures of the main character in the form of a street ballad singer and Suzhou-style storytelling in a teahouse. These touches are balanced by elements that hark back to Chinese cinema of the thirties and forties, in which the crassly materialistic metropolis is critiqued. The unlikely romance between the country bumpkin and his aggressively modern “auntie” likewise evokes comedies of an earlier era.
—Film notes by University of Iowa Cultural Center
“This good-natured comedy takes a fresh look at the clash between materialism, capitalism, traditional values, and human desire in modern China. A naive peasant wins a luxury apartment in Shanghai through a lottery but is soon disillusioned by its elusiveness. Instead of taking instant ownership, he is forced to move in with a distant relative, a younger woman he calls “auntie.” The film’s Brechtian touches include meta-narrative commentary on the adventures of the main character in the form of a street ballad singer and Suzhou-style storytelling in a teahouse. These touches are balanced by elements that hark back to Chinese cinema of the thirties and forties, in which the crassly materialistic metropolis is critiqued. The unlikely romance between the country bumpkin and his aggressively modern “auntie” likewise evokes comedies of an earlier era.”
—Film notes by Harvard Film Archive
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