Shower

I had the privilege to see this movie at the Intenational Film Festival of Rotterdam.

'Xizhao' or 'Shower' is a $200.000 lowbudget movie about a father and his 2 sons. The father has a traditional bathhouse somewhere in a traditional Chinese village where local, mostly aged men, come to relax and to go bathing. The father has to sons: a 'retarded' son who lives with him and a son who lives in a big modern city and who comes to visit him. To this son the traditional village, the bathhouse and his 'retarded' brother seem strange and annoying, but this changes along the movie.

Though the story may sound cheesy or cliche, it's not. With really great performances, especially of the father and the 'retarded' son (sorry, I don't know their names) and a great story the movie was touching and funny at the same time.

If you got a chance to see this movie do it. It's a great alternative to mainstream Hollywood cinema.

This film is moving without being sentimental - meaningful without being pretentious. It tells a simple story of a family in danger of falling apart as the encroachments of technology and an advancing society make the family-run business increasingly untenable.

The acting is wonderful - though none of us in the west are likely to have heard of these actors, we should have long ago - they play their characters with honesty and reverence - these are flawed characters, each with major weaknesses, but with such utter humanity and kindness that it's impossible not to become engaged in the story.

We need more films like this - we need more western filmmakers creating films such as this.

I LOVE this movie! Beautifully funny and utterly believable characters. Each scene richer and more wonderful than the last. Every aspect of this movie is filled with wit and humour and love and depth. A complex and engrossing story, too. This movie is filled with love, humour, and intelligence. Totally great!

What a refreshing film. Da Ming, the eldest brother returns to his fathers bath-house business because he thinks his father is ill. When he finds out the contrary, he wants to go back to the big city, but soon realizes that his family is more important than making money.

Millions of people are flocking to see "Hannibal" disembowel and eat people. How nice to see a film about people who love each other and are NICE to each other.

A funny, touching, heartbreaking, wonderful movie that will make you feel better about the human race, rather than want to retch.

This beautiful story of an elder son coming home, and learning to love and be a part of all those things that he left home to get away from, is poignant and moving. It shows a society that is perhaps strange to us in the Western world, with a sense of family that we have lost. The story is beautiful, sad, and at times funny and comic. It has a feeling of realism that we don't seem to see any longer in our western movies.

The acting is unusual, in that as the movie progresses, it almost gives the impression that it is not acting, but a documentary of ordinary people. This is brilliant directing and movie making.

Would love to see more movies by this director.