Melanie H's Page

At first I did not know anything about this movie until some guys told me they were familiar with the phrase, Lolita. For some inappropriate reasons. Anyways, the scene that I would like to talk about in Lolita is where Charlotte's daughter is sitting on the floor next to an open refrigerator in the middle of the night. Her body is positioned facing the camera but her head is facing her right (our left). She is eating yogurt and reading the newspaper using the light of the fridge. Although this… Continue

A) Zhang Yi Mou was born in Xi’an, Shaanxi Province, China. During the Cultural Revolution he was forced to work as a labourer in a cotton textile mill. It was at that time he started to fall in love with painting and photography. He actually had to sell his blood for five months in order for him to be able to afford his first camera.

He was admitted to the Department of Cinematography at the age of 27 after submitting his personal photographic works to the Ministry of Culture. In 1982 he gradu… Continue

8 choices Directors Made

This is the third movie I chose directed by Zhang Yi Mou with one of the main characters Gong Li. I am very glad that I made the decision to keep on watching the same director and the same actress and how big of a spectrum they can work. This movie, Shanghai Triad, is a dramatically different one compared to the two previous ones where Gong Li plays a roll of poor, lower class communist. Gong Li in Shanghai Triad depicts a beautiful, spoiled and rich singer at a club ow… Continue

I watched another Chinese film by Zhang Yi Mou, also starring Gong Li. The reasons are that I want to compare and contrast the two films, watch Gong Li’s talented acting skills, and be a source of Asian film analyses when probably everyone else picked Western films.

The storyline is as follows:
Qiu Ju (Gong Li), a seventh month pregnant woman, is angry at the village chief/head for kicking her husband in the groin area (down there). She goes to the small town chief for some justice, the chief o… Continue

Camera Shots:
Throughout the movie To Live, most of the camera shots were from natural angles. The natural angles help illustrate how ordinary the story is during the Cultural Revolution in China. During the beginning and every time there is a change of setting, long shot will be used to set the scene, letting the audience know where the plot is situated. The main characters, Fu Gui and Gong Li have many close up shots during dramatic moments for example when Fu Gui realizes he lost all his fort… Continue