Wo bu shi Pan Jin Lian

Every man is a good actor. But the director is not good enough, especially this kind of novel garbage picture. The story of the whole film is to develop in the direction of black satire, but because of commercial considerations, dare not say very thoroughly. Only Mayor Ma said something about the substance.

... this is *way* too long for the slight storyline. From about half-way through I was just hoping for it to end.

To be fair, I'm not a fan of courtroom drama so - even though none of this plays out in an actual courtroom - I belatedly realised that the same "individual versus the system" tropes would be at play and I would (did) lose patience. It was a nice touch though to see some of the officials blaming themselves rather than the victim, for a change.

Individual scenes I'm sure would have had Christopher Doyle and Peter Greenaway swooning with the setup and colour balance but for me, these (and the presence of the wonderful Fan Bing Bing) were nowhere near enough to maintain interest.

I'm sure - as a foreigner - I missed or didn't appreciate many of the subtle cultural nuances, but neither do I feel that I learned anything. Never mind.

It is no secret that I enjoy Asian cinema tremendously, and when I got the chance to watch "I Am Not Madame Bovary", I naturally jumped at it. I had no idea what this movie was about, nor did I know who was starring in it.

I managed to sit through 31 minutes into this ordeal before I just gave up out of sheer and utter boredom. The storyline never really kicked up into any gear that had any kind of appeal to it.

And furthermore, the movie is presented in an unfathomably horrible round frame presentation. And it was a major nuisance to watch that on the screen. And it was definitely a big part of why I just gave up on the movie. Why director Xiaogang Feng opted for this round frame presentation is something that just eludes me.

The acting in the movie was adequate from what I managed to witness throughout the 31 minutes I managed to sit through.

I have no intention of returning to watch the rest of "I Am Not Madame Bovary" (aka "Wo bu shi Pan Jin Lian") solely because of the boredom that it instilled in me and because of the annoying round frame presentation.

This film has so much potential. It's got good timing sequences, the cinematography is unique and the style is reminiscent of Wes Anderson.

However, the details is just not quite there. Considering the director's bold move to choose such a small focus frame many aspects lack care.

Raining scenes on the river shows clearly it's not raining in the distance. Many side characters clearly has no acting background with exaggerated body language and tone which was off putting. Some of the actors were not able to mimic the local accent consistently.

Overall a very beautifully filmed movie with some great composition and interesting comedic elements. But if you have the knowledge of the language and quality of media in China, you might have also felt the lack of care because these are very basic cinema mistakes in TV dramas and B-grade movies.

Cinematography is absolutely stunning in this, justly lengthy, portrayal of a woman's quest to gain justice for a wrong, multiplied several times, by uncaring bureaucracy. It is not until the end that we discover exactly why this woman is determined to revoke and repeat a divorce that everyone else insists is valid. She is cast as the indecent woman, a Madam Bovary, but she most definitely is not. She's not mad either, which is what you and all the other characters in the film are lead to believe. It takes patience to uncover the small piece of missing information that makes sense of all. Patience is richly rewarded in this thoughtful and closely observed film - almost to the extent of forensic examination through a microscope.