Ji quan bu ning

A rather engaging film about small town China, it weaves a tale about the up's and down's of the members of a Chinese opera troupe - a classical one at that. Suffice it to say opera is as popular in China as it is in the West. So, without a major sponsor the company sits idle - but life goes on, and each member must make do. Rather like the life of an actor between gigs.

It's charming and funny with a real feeling that this "is" a slice of life. The characters are developed and we get to know them. They are our friends, neighbors and the people with whom we grew up. I thought the story might develop into a typical soap opera becoming a Chinese "Terms of Endearment", but it rose above that.

I didn't really know what to make of One Foot Off the Ground. As it twists and turns in and around its dizzying myriad of characters and the lives, it's easy to get lost, and those without patience would find themselves tempted to walk out of the cinema hall. The payload only gets delivered from the midway mark, as writer-director Chen Daming takes his time to set up each subplot, before developing them richly into satisfying conclusions.

The tale opens with an opera troupe performing its last act, because its director had lost their funding in an accident. As such, the troupe temporarily disbands, and we fast forward three months later, to be introduced to individual characters, their current lives and the little episodes that happen to them in order to spice the movie to feature length duration. And very early on, you start to wonder just where these stories are heading toward.

You have Ma San (Li Yixiang) and his participation in underground cock fights, whose wife is contemplating going to France to set up a Chinese restaurant. There's Sihai (Jin Hong) who doctors the dogs he sells to pass them off as another pedigree, and there's Liu Bing (Yao Lu) who runs a photo studio and develops the hots for a young model. These are just some of the lead characters, and there are plenty more supporting ones like the old master of the opera training school who's looking for a companion, and a sleazy film scout who calls himself F4.

And for a film without any recognizable big names, it relied heavily on the delivery of the cast to engage the audience with its earnest scenes, some which are comedic, and some others heavy on the drama. But for the most parts, it was the little moments that bring out little joys while sitting through it. There aren't any large scenes or sudden great leap forward plot development, and I was quite tickled with the plot element of a money bag making its rounds and adding confusion and suspicion on the characters that happen to stumble upon it.

If I could summarize this movie in a line, then it would be "nothing fancy, but it works".

At last, a movie from Mainland China without the blatant propaganda or the artsy highs of cultural overkill!

Not that there are only a few. It's just that we usually get either overly boring ones or excessively commercial ones in this Southeast region. The cleverly titled "One Foot Off The Ground" is in many ways a celebration of performance, whether off or on the stage. With an allegory to spiritual balance, the movie chronicles the unsteady lives of some quirky opera troupe members, all out of a job due to changing times. Tipping the scales further is the unfortunate accident to their director, which results in the loss of their sponsorship money.

That sets the ball rolling. Consisting largely of non-professional actors, the cast commanded an exquisite composition of chemistry. The merry lot have to put on braver faces than the ones they do onstage, as they resort to various ways to make ends meet. One would paint pariah dogs with watercolour to pass them off as expensive breeds for sale. Another rears fighter cocks for competition and gambles off his wife's Visa application money.

However it's not all about the provincial poverty, which would have otherwise placed this movie neatly into the despairing Oriental films that never fall far from the theme. There is a quiet window of redundancy and nostalgia, as one troupe member keeps afloat due to his in-laws' money, yet finds no meaning to his existence and another, who prospered into a big name by leaving for the city, yet returns because of a lover colleague and other old time sentiments within the troupe.

Quaint as it is, the story is tight, going for mileage in every scene. It isn't a sweet, coming- of-age tale that kicks up all that together-forever stuff we are used to in sports dramas. Instead, "One Foot" stays well grounded to the basic bothers of living a performer's life, yet gives a realistic outlook on how things can be better without it getting worse again.

The final scene, reminiscent of Truffaut's "The 400 Blows", freezes the continuity of life as poignantly as possible for a movie with such modest ambitions. "One Foot" gets its deserved two thumbs up. It's the kind of show that you need to walk away from and never look back, but without ever forgetting.

I haven't seen any work of this director before, yet I find this film rather great.

The story was about a traditional Yu Opera troupe found itself difficult to live in a modern world, and tried hard to find its way out in all the materialised lures.

The issue in this film is quite common in contemporary China. The Yu Opera is also commonly sung in my hometown, yet only people from the old generations are found to sing it. The twenty somethings are hardy drawn any interests by it, the younger kids don't even know its existence.

It's such a sweet film. The people are facing difficulties and struggle to make a better living. However, their strength and stamina made me deeply touched. Mixing humour with bitterness is such a effective way of expressing the mood of both nostalgia and longing.

It's a perfect Hollywood happy ending (since the director gained his film study degree in the US), but the storytelling made me feel more engaged with it than Hollywood blockbusters. China need more filmmakers like this: Small Budget, Big Story.