Rijndri Load of rubbish!!

Spidersecu Don't Believe the Hype

ThedevilChoose When a movie has you begging for it to end not even half way through it's pure crap. We've all seen this movie and this characters millions of times, nothing new in it. Don't waste your time.

Invaderbank The film creates a perfect balance between action and depth of basic needs, in the midst of an infertile atmosphere.

MartinHafer "Bian Lian" ("King of Masks") is a Chinese film set in what would appear to be the Republic period in China (about 1912-1930). Bianlian Wang (Xu Zou) is a street performer who can almost magically make various masks appear on his face and disappear....and he's apparently the only one who knows the trick. The problem is that it's been passed down from one generation to the next and Bianlian is an older man whose son died long, long ago. So, following the advice of a famous actor, he goes to buy a boy! To modern audiences, such a practice must seem barbaric....but this was something that did occur in China...especially during times of famine a family might sell off some of their children! The problem is that the little boy he buys and grows to love has a secret...she's really a girl. But she doesn't want him to know, as girls have little importance in society and she's worried he'll send her back or cast her into the streets...which does occur. But there's far, far more to the story after this....and it's a sad but ultimately enjoyable and fulfilling story.This film is a great one for folks interested in feminist cinema. While it's definitely true girls were without much value at the time, it shows that these stereotypes are wrong and does it in a sweet way. Terrific acting by all and one of the better Chinese films I've seen.

elis_jones This is a superb movie, suitable for all but the very youngest, though accessibility for younger people was marred (at least in the print which I saw) by the use of some unfortunate choice of English sub-titling! For much of the film it is almost impossible to guess in which time-period it is set - there is no modern technology shown, not even the ubiquitous Chinese bicycle, just a drab, almost monochrome, everyday life, against which is contrasted the dazzling display of the Sezuan Opera and of celebratory fireworks. Even when a group of soldiers refer to their imminent departure for a theatre of war, this could still be any time in the past 150 years.But then we briefly see a motor car - late 30s, early 40s style - and we realise that we are watching a China on the verge of huge upheavals, and that much of the world we are seeing is about to be swept away in the cataclysm of World War 2 and the Communist revolution.Which makes the central character's desire to adhere to old customs and traditions all the more poignant.But the film also raises issues which are of vital importance even today, both within China and in other parts of the world: the inequality between boys and girls, men and women; the trade, for various purposes, in young children; corruption in society; injustice; the importance of friendship.Maybe I'm reading too much into this film; but I don't think so! I also think that it is a scandal that films of this calibre are often not shown in the United Kingdom, whilst dross is passed off as quality material.But don't get me started on that...

Cipher-J The theme of this film is tradition, which can be a good thing when it preserves continuity across generational lines, but harsh and restrictive when it allows no room for growth. Ironically, the skill of the "grandpa" is in surprising his audience with masks that are ever changing, yet change is the one thing he finds hardest to do. Tradition requires that his skills can only be passed down to a male heir, and hence he would sooner allow his skills to be lost than to break with that tradition. The message he ultimately has to learn is that tradition can sometimes be wrong, and that even he can be surprised by the unexpected mask.This is a Chinese film, in which we are given the Chinese perspective, but the message is universal. On another level, consider the Christian perspective. Metaphorically speaking, what if Jesus came back wearing the mask of a little girl? Would that representation be rejected on the grounds that it wasn't what they were expecting? Would they reject the mask, and thus miss the message? Or consider the Aztecs of Mexico, who fell victim to the Conquistadors, because Cortez resembled what they thought was the return of their god Quetzalcoatl? Beliefs about traditions can not only be wrong, but potentially enslaving. When we become so blinded by tradition that we can see no room for change, change may have no room for us!This is a marvelous film, which begs to be compared with "Whale Rider" (2002), having a similar theme but presented from the perspective of a New Zealand Maori tribe. They, too, had a tradition in which the mask of the leader could only be worn by a male, and when a male could not be found, would sooner the tradition die than change. The point of these stories, of course, is not the girl, but the change. There is more to value than gender. When tradition can only accept the one, it might be surprised by the other.

zzmale In the rapid economic development of 1990's in China, there is a resurgence of traditional Chinese culture, partially due to the rise of nationalism accompanied by the increase in wealth, and more importantly, due to the sense of spiritual belonging after the collapse of the old socialist ideology in the post Cultural-Revolutionary era.However, the resurgence of Chinese traditional culture, namely, the Confucianism, was not without disasters, because Chinese are adopted the entire tradition without eliminating the bad part, and the discrimination against girls demonstrated in this film is an excellent example.Moreover, not only the part that should be discarded were inherited, the good part that was supposed to be inherited, such as the traditional opera, and its technique, such as changing face, was ignored in the resurgence, and facing extinction.The director used this film to criticize the problem of re-embracing tradition by contemporary China and this is the deeper meaning behind the movie.