There's no doubt that this movie cannot compete with most of the usual standards a western moviegoer is accustomed to. The light in the movie is irritating, actors sometimes all-too theatrical in their gestures and one can observe a lack of finesse and professionalism in camera work and directing too. In short, one can easily say that the movie is a total low budget production and in many ways a bad one as well. Today, when I watched it in the cinema, a bunch of lads left well before the end. I can't blame them.
But still, I stood there in my seat, somewhere in the middle of the room. There was something that kept me from leaving. Kept me from fleeing that intermittent boring experience. I suppose it had something to do with what I mentioned at the beginning. I'd like to call it western decadence. What I mean by that is our high expectations, our greedy demand of perfection, all our cinematic standards. And many, by the way, many western movie makers nowadays try , at various success of course, to somehow get back to the roots of film. Trying to find again the essence what constitutes moving pictures. That's very very hard and I would definitely not go so far to say that Ling yi ban has achieved what others are trying to reach in vain. No, I'm simply trying to communicate the importance of giving different and alien movies a chance.
I still don't blame the folks who left one after the other and probably would laugh at what I'm writing here. But I guess it's significant to underscore the possible advantages of staying. For example, I've never seen such brutal and disillusioned images of Chinese industrial life. Though the medium wasn't very sophisticated, the essence somehow was. And that's what might be even more important from time to time. Still, the movie gets a 3 rating from me. I couldn't give it more but it's not a total waste. It has potential and I invite everybody to watch the full two hours and maybe one can understand why on my mind it is actually recommendable to rethink our standards and to engage in a different and embarrassing world of movies.
