समाचार

Did you already see The Old Donkey (Lao lutou, 2010; Li Riujun)?, folks asked us day in, day out all through Rotterdam, and for most of the festival, the answer was a grumpy, No., thinking, Can't be as good as 13 kleine Esel und der Sonnenhof (1958, d.:Hans Deppe)—production title: 13 alte Esel—and that's already not really good. It wasn't, as we finally found out: Whenever the quietly cheerful donkey was out of the picture and we were forced to deal with the film as such, boredom ruled—another one of dem PRChinese Indies straight from the arthouse-for-Do-Gooders assembly line.

A donkey was also the unannounced star of Huangjiang nüxia (The Swordswoman of Huangjiang, 1930; Chen Kengran), although we're not too supportive about the way he's treated: The eponymous heroine uses it as her means of transport. Harrumph. Yet, in this case we're willing to make an exception, as the swordswoman...