Luxury Car

Like UNIFORM, this visually-beautiful film demonstrates the struggles of modern-day Chinese people. The protagonist, an attractive so-called bar girl, has left her rural roots to find big city success. She hides her less-than-noble occupation from her father, who searches for her brother, also a city newcomer. Most of the film dwells on their cat-and-mouse game of secrets, but there is an amazing connective scene after the one-hour mark. It takes place in a luxury car, and its four passengers each harbor unspoken individual turmoil. Thereafter, the film races to an ending fitting of 3 luxury AfroPixFlix detanglers. Luxury Car (Jiang cheng xia ri) 2006; Director/Writer: Chao Wang

As his wife is dying from cancer, an old school teacher from the provinces journeys to Wuhan hoping to find the son they haven't seen for years. He stays with his daughter, unaware that she is a call-girl working in a karaoke club, but enlisting the help of a policeman approaching retirement, he soon becomes aware of the character of the big city, the dangers it poses and the compromises it forces from people.

Luxury Car gives a rounded perspective on the circumstances of people in present day China, presenting it as a well-placed drama without obvious political or social commentary, but it there if you want to look for it – in the changing values, in the striving for power and influence, in criminality, and of course in the dangerous dream of the lengths one will go to in order to own a luxury car. It even makes reference to the past through the father's background and his expulsion from the city during the Cultural Revolution.

Beautifully made, the dark tones and colour of the film all play a part in conveying the image of cheap superficial glamour, which – like the spray-painted stolen luxury car – hides the reality underneath.