2010 Mar 04 A Film Master on the Big Screen: Xie Jin Retrospective at MOMA BC
Beijing’s one and only arthouse cinema, MOMA Broadway Cinematheque, is proving a godsend for film fans who love the big-screen experience, but want something more challenging than multiplex spectacles. This Friday MOMA BC kick off their first “Great Masters Retrospective” with a season of eight works by Xie Jin, the exemplary representative of China’s “third generation” of filmmakers. Although not well known in the English-speaking film world, here in China Xie Jin is revered as one of the nation’s great directors.
The early days of Xie Jin’s career coincided with the birth of the People’s Republic, and in 1953 he became the director of the Shanghai Film Studio. His directorial debut came in 1957 with Woman Basketball Player No 5, featuring the Shanghai greats Liu Qiong and Qin Yi as athletes in China’s first generation of female basketball players.
Over the next 50 years Xie Jin directed over 30 features, through some of the most turbulent years of China’s recent history. The opening film of the MOMA BC retrospective, Two Stage Sisters (1964), follows 15 years in the lives of two performers, juxtaposing their onstage productions with the drama unfolding upon the greater stage of Chinese society. The film was banned almost immediately when it was released in the mid-1960s.
Other highlights from Xie’s long career appearing in the retrospective include the original film version of The Red Detachment of Women (1961) – not to be confused with the film of the ballet from 1970 – and his trilogy of the 1980s reflecting on the harsh years of the Cultural Revolution: The Legend of Tianyun Mountain (1980), The Herdsmen (1981), and Hibiscus Town (1986).
This is a great chance to see the key works of one of China’s lesser known masters. See below for the full screening schedule.
See here for The Guardian’s in-depth obituary of Xie Jin from 2008.
Xie Jin Retrospective, March 5-18, MOMA BC, RMB 20 per film. All films in Mandarin Chinese with English subtitles.
MOMA BC Xie Jin Retrospective Screening Schedule
Two Stage Sisters (1964)
Friday, March 5, 7.30pm (opening night film)
Sunday, March 14, 5pm.
Synopsis above.
Hibiscus Town (1986)
Saturday, March 6, 2pm
Sunday, March 14, 2pm
Widely recognized as Xie Jin’s masterpiece, Hibiscus Town revolves around a handful of figures from a fictional town and the various personal upheavals they endure during and following the Cultural Revolution.
The Legend of Tianyun Mountain (1980)
Sunday, March 7, 2pm
Saturday, March 13, 2pm
Depicts a turbulent period in China before the fall of the Gang of Four.
The Bell of Purity Temple (1990)
Monday, March 8, 7.30pm
Tuesday, March 16, 7.30pm
Follows a Japanese orphan in Shanghai after the Sino-Japanese war.
The Red Detachment of Women (1961)
Tuesday, March 9, 7.30pm
Saturday, March 13, 4.30
Not to be confused with the 1970 film of the revolutionary ballet of the same name. The Red Detachment of Women unfolds during the second revolutionary civil war in Hainan Province, where villager Wu Qionghua is held as a slave woman by a cruel landlord portrayed by Chen Qiang.
Woman Basketball Player No. 5 (1957)
Wednesday, March 10, 7.30pm
Thursday, March 18, 7.30pm (closing night film)
Two Shanghai screen greats, Liu Qiong and Qin Yi star in this story of a pair of women who headlined China’s first generation of female basketball players. China’s first sports film shot in color and Xie Jin’s directorial debut.
Behind the Wall of Shame (1995)
Thursday, March 11, 7.30pm
Monday, March 15, 7.30pm
Follows seven inmates in Jiangnan Women’s Prison, through their past and present struggles and ongoing search for identity and selfhood.
The Herdsman (1981)
Friday, March 12, 7.30pm
Wednesday, March 17, 7.30pm
Zhu Shimiao portrays Xu Lingjun, a herdsman reunited with his father after 30 years of separation. The elder Xu left China to pursue wealth in the United States, leaving his family to endure the trials of the Cultural Revolution.
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