MUST-SEE MOVIES

HI, MOM

Now the second-highest grossing film in Chinese box office history,Hi, Momwas this Spring Festival’s unexpected hit.Written and directed Jia Ling, this emotional time-traveling comedy stars Jia as a fictionalized version of herself,transported back to 1981 after a car crash puts her mother in the hospital.There,Jia befriends her mother Li Huanying (Zhang Xiaofei) as a young woman, and witnesses Li’s life before marriage and motherhood.A tribute to the director’s own mother, who passed away in an accident when Jia was in college, this film will make audiences laugh and then cry.

A WRITER’S ODYSSEY

In this dark fantasy based on a short story by Shuang Xuetao, novels can rewrite reality, and writers are in danger of being killed.In search of his abducted daughter, Guan Ning (Lei Jiayin,The Wandering Earth) accepts the mission to assassinate young writer Lu Kongwen (Dong Zijian,Mountains May Depart).However, Guan realizes that his fate is also tied to the writer’s story.A highlyanticipated follow-up to director Lu Yang’s previouswuxiaaction seriesBrotherhood of Blades, this big-budget spectacle uses special effects that took two years and a large team of technicians to complete.

THE REUNIONS

Director Da Peng mixes reality and fiction in this film about difficult family reunions, shot when he returned to his hometown in Jilin province for the Lunar New Year of 2017 with a camera crew in order to make a film about his grandmother.When the grandmother passed away unexpectedly during this visit, the footage they got instead was a portrait of a family in conflict over who will care for Da Peng’s uncle, who is suffering from a mental illness.The film is a chaotic mix of actors and real family members, scripted drama and documentary, and behind-the-scenes footage and interviews with the director.The result is a portrait of small-town family life in turmoil that resonated with many during its release before this year’s Spring Festival season.

SUBURBAN BIRDS

Xiahao (Mason Lee) is a land surveyor investigating mysterious sinkholes opening up around an abandoned suburb of Hangzhou.In an elementary school,he finds the diary of a student, also named Xiahao (Gong Zihan), who chronicles his group of friends and their wanderings in the countryside, until his friends start disappearing one by one.Xiahao the surveyor starts to find uncanny parallels between the diary and his own life.A coming-of-age story told through the bittersweet half-life of memory,Suburban Birdsis an arthouse hit based on debut director Qiu Sheng’s own childhood.The film was named Best Feature Film at China’s FIRST International Film Festival.