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Oxide Pang has come a long way since he was directing horror films with his brother (The Eye). Currently, his prowess lies on crime movies, and “The Big Call” is another testament to the fact, as it deals with the phone scams that still torture China and the neighboring countries.

The Big Call is screening at the 17th New York Asian Film Festival

Ding Xiaotian is a young policeman whose sole goal is to catch Lin Ahai, the leader of a ring that deals in phone scams, and have caused his high-school teacher to commit suicide after being bankrupted by them. Eventually, Ding finds himself a temporary member of the Anti-Telecommunication Fraud Centre in Donghai city, under the leadership of Tan Sirong, who explains to him the actual size of Lin Ahai and his girlfriend’s, Liu Lifang’s ring, which has spread to Hong Kong and Thailand, “succeeding” in hundreds of frauds,...

“Crazy Stone” and “Crazy Racer” director Ning Hao returns with “Guns and Roses”, his biggest-budgeted and most ambitious film to date. Unsurprisingly, the film sees the Chinese sixth generation helmer sticking to the kind of comedy caper that he made his name with, though this time casting his net a little wider by including explosive action set pieces, along with a little romance and wartime intrigue. The film also sees him working again with his usual players, including Guo Tao, Liu Hua, and Huang Bo, who are joined by Fan Wei (“Beginning of the Great Revival”), Tao Hong (“You Deserve to be Single”) and Cheng Yuanyuan, with newcomer Lei Jiayin in the lead role. The film proved even more popular than Ning’s previous outings, emerging as one of the highest grossing hits during the 2012 Labour Day holiday season in China. The film is set in the 1930s in north-eastern Manchurian China,...

VENICE, Italy -- Gianni Amelio's absorbing film The Missing Star (La stella che non c'e) has an intriguing quest and a gentle love story, but its greatest value lies in its insights into a modern China most Westerners have never seen. Screened in competition at the Venice Film Festival, the picture should travel widely on the festival circuit and merits attention from art houses, too.

The quest simply a good man's desire to see that a piece of equipment sold by his company works properly. Maintenance engineer Vincenzo Buonovolonta (Sergio Castellitto) is alarmed when his firm in Genoa, Italy, sells a blast furnace with a faulty valve to a Chinese buyer. Knowing the machinery is dangerous and having devised the means to correct the fault, the doggedly independent Vincenzo travels to Shanghai to deliver a new valve.

The machinery, however, has changed hands and has been sold to a steel mill deep in the Chinese industrial heartland. Determined to do what he thinks is right, the Italian seeks out the young translator, Liu Hua (Tai Ling), who had been with the visiting Chinese delegation. She becomes his guide as they travel in search of the factory that bought the equipment.

With impressive cinematography by Luca Bigazzi, the film follows the unlikely pair as they journey along the Yangtze River, visiting cities including Wuhan, Chongquing and Baotou on their way to southern Mongolia.

Tai Ling is appealing as the young Chinese girl who, as she says, was "born crooked into this world." Castellitto brings sensitivity to the sometimes brash and impulsive but resourceful engineer who discovers a China he never expected.