Word: filming
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...cinemas, free tickets are distributed for Baise Uprising, a new film extolling Deng's early military career, but even those who attend -- and most of the theaters are half empty -- talk through the movie or read. At work, employees protest by increasing their sick leave and slowing their production. At school, the results of an essay competition glorifying the army's role in Tiananmen are supposed to have been made public weeks ago. Perhaps too many entries reflect the view of an eleven-year-old girl whose grandparents I meet. Her short, three-page paper, reflecting the unpopularity of China...
...point again in Shanghai, the city called the "Paris of the East" during the Roaring Twenties; a place made famous forever when, in the 1932 film Shanghai Express, Marlene Dietrich drawled, "It too-oo-k more than one man to change my name to Shanghai Lily." Shanghai is no longer trendy, modern or even cosmopolitan, but its streets are still tops for infant watching. Sadly, though, the toddlers I see seldom cry or laugh or even suck their thumbs. Most seem sullen. And in the beautiful Jing an Park, which used to be a cemetery before the bodies were exhumed...
Another jewel comes in the performance of Zakes Mokae, who plays Stanley Sutherland's partner in the fight to prosecute Stolz. Unfortunately, some of the film's more insipid lines are dumped on Mokae, lines such as "hope is a white word" and "the best way to remember a man is to keep fighting." But Mokae managers a convincing mix of spite and tenderness, nonetheless...
...film's score supports its weighty subject matter. Most viewers will recognize the distinctive sound of Hugh Maskela and Ladysmith Black Mambazo, who provide a stirring aural backdrop to the colorful panoramas of township protest...
...weak ending should not deter moviegoers. Most of the movie is excellent. So what if the film covers some of the same issues already treated in Cry Freedom...