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The Love of the Hawthorn Tree - Zhou Dongyu; UPCOMING 9-11-2010 RELEASE
Topic Started: Apr 16 2010, 02:38 PM (1,676 Views)
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Zhang Yimou starts shooting Hawthorn Tree Forever
The screenplay is adapted from Chinese author Aimifs novel of the same name.

Chinese director Zhang Yimou is now shooting his new film project Hawthorn Tree Forever, a drama set in the 1970s during the Cultural Revolution period. Beijing-based Beijing New Picture Film Co and Hong Kongfs Edko Films will co-finance and co-produce the film. Edko Films will also handle international sales for the film.

Shooting started today in Yichang county of the Hubei Province in central China. The story is adapted from Chinese author Aimifs novel of the same title and is scripted by writer and filmmaker Yin Lichuan and two screenwriters Gu Xiaobai and Xiao Mei. The story follows an innocent but repressed romance between a city girl of condemned political background and a young man from a rural village. According to Beijing New Picture, the film will mark Zhangfs return to pure drama as well as a theme related to the Cultural Revolution. Zhangfs last film A Woman, a Gun, a Noodle Shop was a suspense comedy, and his recent films had been big-budgeted period drams such as Curse of the Golden Flower (2007). Zhang Yimoufs last drama about the Cultural Revolution period is his 1994 film To Live, starring Gong Li and Ge You.

Cast for the young couple in the film are not announced yet, but according to Beijing New Picture, both actors would be new, virtually unknown actors who are still drama school students. Confirmed cast are Li Xuejian, Sa Rina, Lu Liping and Sun Haiyin.

Shooting is expected to take three months, and the filmfs mainland China release date is scheduled for early October.

Meanwhile, Zhang is also preparing the shooting of a bigger-budgeted historical drama Thirteen Girls inJinling@City, which he plans to start shooting by the end of the year. Adapted by well-known author Yen Gelingfs novel, the story is about thirteen prostitutes who sacrificed their lives to save a group of convent girls in@Nanjing@during the massacre of Nanjing@in 1937.@Edko Films is also involved in this project and will handle international sales of the film.
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[YOUTUBE]http://you.video.sina.com.cn/api/sinawebApi/outplayrefer.php/vid=37361553_28/s.swf[/YOUTUBE]
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Under the Hawthorn Tree - OPENING FILM PIFF
Zhang Yimou returns to the humble style of his early films after many years of large-scale projects like Lovers, House of Flying Daggers, Hero, Curse of the Golden Flower, and the opening ceremony of the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing. Under the Hawthorn Tree is a love story set during China’s Cultural Revolution, adapted from Ai Mi’s original novel, “The Love of the Hawthorn Tree.” Following the political persecution of his father, Jing Qiu lives up to his mother’s expectations and becomes the rock of the family. He falls in love with Lao Shan, however, becoming conflicted between love and duty. It is his responsible and honorable character that leads Lao Shan to fall deeply in love with him.
Zhang Yimou conjures an age of innocence in the love between Jing Qiu and Lao Shan. He renders it as something now tainted under the weight of age and ever-changing worlds. In an unbelievably delicate observance for a male director, Zhang expresses his view of innocence in a soft, almost feminine, approach. Also known for cultivating young talents, he successfully draws enticing portrayals of innocence from Zhou Dongyu and Dou Xiao. Returning to intimate filmmaking after a series of mega-projects, Zhang Yimou appears to reclaim his own innocence as a youthful creator.
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Under the Hawthorn Tree
By Maggie Lee

"Under the Hawthorn Tree."
"Under the Hawthorn Tree," is without question Zhang Yimou's simplest work. The tale of pure young love set during the Cultural Revolution is laid back and lushly shot, with any sexual passion or political overtones exiled to the narrative margins.

Even though the storyline closely resembles '80s Korean love tragedies, the film is not unabashedly romantic. There's timorousness in the lovers' innocence and repression in their modesty, which signals a throwback to the more conservative characterization and film grammar of pre-5th-generation directors.

An older age group, especially if they like Zhang's "The Road Home," enjoy "Hawthorn"'s wholesomeness as much as visiting an organic farm. Japan would be the most receptive market. For a youth film, it is so stuck in Zhang's arrested nostalgia for his own salad days, that contemporary Chinese youngsters probably won't connect to it. Acceptable domestic box office is possibly on its way to reaching $14 million.

Adapted from a true story, novelized by Aimi, "Hawthorn" is typical of China in the '70s. Jingqiu (Zhou Dongyu), who is in her last year of high school, is "sent down" to Xiping Village to learn from the peasants, and to conduct research for the school curriculum. She gets to know another "zhiqing" (young city-born intellectual) Sun Jianxing, who's in the geological unit.

Sun takes an instant liking to Jingqiu and courts her with little gifts and frequent visits.

After Jingqiu returns to the city, she and Sun begin to date secretly. However, since her father is in a re-education camp for being a "Rightist," she is under tremendous pressure to be on best behavior during her probation as a teacher. The couple's pact to see the blossoming of a hawthorn tree (the landmark of Xiping Village) becomes a symbol of their longing and loyalty.

The film's promotion tagline is "the cleanest romance in history." Indeed, Zhang's touch is rarely so delicate in describing the pre-pubescent looking Jingqiu's perplexity and embarrassment toward Sun's advances, as well as her naivety (she thinks sharing a bed is enough to cause pregnancy). In fact, a deep sexual undercurrent rippling under their blushing complexions -- when she frolics with him in the pond, wearing the red swimsuit he gave her, when he bandages her feet, or when they lie down together in the hospital bed (his hand goes straight to where it counts). That is what lends the film its beauty.

Zhou, who is a 17-year-old high school student plucked from thousands of teenage hopefuls, personifies the film -- fresh as cut grass, untainted by professional training. She exudes serene calm even as the melodrama intensifies. The film unfolds mostly from a feminine perspective. As a result, Sun's character is rendered at a remove, and he is too perfect to be more than a cipher.

Almost religious devotion to objects prevails, with a light bulb or a foot basin acquiring symbolic significance as love tokens. The meticulous evocation of period detail reflects the film's elegiac attitude to ephemera. What it mourns most is not the transience of youth or of love, but the transience of happiness, especially when its harmless pursuit is systematically obstructed by collective ideology. Perhaps that is why it ends with such an aching sense of loss.

The narrative structure is strictly linear, organized by old fashioned intertitles of quotations from Aimi's novel, thus giving the film a fusty, literary feel. Production quality is top drawer, especially the lighting, which bestows radiance on every inch of Zhou's translucent young skin.

Pusan International Film Festival, Opening Film
Sales: Edko Films Ltd.
Production: Beijing New Pictures Film Co. Ltd., IDG China Creative Media Ltd., New Classical Entertainment Co. Ltd., Film Partner (2010) Intl. Inc.

Cast: Zhou Dongyu, Shawn Dou, Xi Meijuan, Jiang Ruijia.
Directors: Zhang Yimou
Screenwriters: Yin Lichuan, Gu XIaobai, A Mei.
Based on the novel ���Hawthorn Tree Forever��� by Aimi.
Producers: Zhang Weiping, Hugo Shong, Cao Huayi, Bill Kong.
Director of photography: Zhao Xiaoding.
Production designer: Wu Ming.
Costume designer: Ma Defan.
Music: Chen Qigang.
Editor: Meng Peicong.
No rating, 109 minutes.
http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/
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