Shower Review
by Gordon Bass (cnull AT mindspring DOT com)July 13th, 2000
filmcritic.com presents a review from staff member Gordon Bass.
You can find the review with full credits at
http://www.filmcritic.com/misc/emporium.nsf/2a460f93626cd4678625624c007f2b46/2ff1155b5ca0201988256916001bf2b4?OpenDocument
Shower
A film review by Gordon Bass
Copyright 2000 filmcritic.com
filmcritic.com
China's a funny place today. Old men in Mao suits perform morning
stretches in the shadow of dot-com billboards. Cell-phone toting kids
cruise on beat-up bikes. And the crowd at McDonald's is notably more
enthusiastic than the one protesting at the American embassy around the
corner.
But what's the price of progress? In Shower, Zhang Yang looks at the
widening chasm between old-school China and its Gen-Y offspring, while
playing a warm eastern riff on the return home of the prodigal son.
Businessman Da Ming represents the new generation; he's a wealthy, weary
frequent flier in a rumpled coat and tie. His father, Master Liu, is old
China; he happily runs a bathhouse in a fading Beijing neighborhood
where he lives with Da Ming's mentally handicapped younger brother Er
Ming.
Da Ming, who lives in a prosperous area of southern China, makes a
reluctant trip to Beijing under the mistaken impression that his father
is dead, only to find him alive and well. He'd love to turn right around
and head home, but agrees to spend a few days in his old family
home--which is nothing more than a room behind the deteriorating
bathhouse.
>From the start Da Ming fidgets with his cell phone, cringes at the
antiquated lifestyle of his father and brother, and itches to leave. Why
waste time in a bathhouse when you can take a five-minute shower, after
all? But after a few days in Beijing he begins to see the bathhouse for
what it is: A gathering place for the neighborhood men, a refuge from
work and wives and home life. The idiosyncratic bathhouse customers are
an extended family, and provide comic relief to the story. Retired
cronies pit fighting crickets against one another in battles that test
friendships. A young schemer hides when his get-rich-quick scheme fails
and the loan sharks are threatening. A meek husband escapes from his
domineering wife.
Sadly, the bathhouse is slated for demolition along with the rest of the
neighborhood since space is needed for anonymous hi-rise apartment
complexes. Da Ming sees Master Liu's health start to fail as the
neighborhood's days tick away; Liu's life is inextricably intertwined
with the fate of the neighborhood. It's the end of an era, and
modernity, as we've seen over and over, doesn't always equal progress
(imagine what a billion new cars and refrigerators and showers are going
to do to China's already rotten environment).
So this is Cinema 101. So the symbolism is as old as storytelling. The
bathhouse is an oasis in the midst of change, with water that renews
life and purifies. The wayward son returns home to redeem himself. And
the retarded brother is the only one who can see clearly what the
bathhouse means to the family and community. But Yang keeps the story
real, the actors (veterans of mainstream and experimental Chinese
theater) turn in restrained and moving performances, and in a summer of
tired action retreads, this heart-bendingly beautiful film is a cool
drink of grown-up pleasure.
RATING: ****1/2
|------------------------------|
\ ***** Perfection \
\ **** Good, memorable film \
\ *** Average, hits and misses \
\ ** Sub-par on many levels \
\ * Unquestionably awful \
|------------------------------|
MPAA Rating: PG-13
Director: Zhang Yang
Producer: Peter Loehr
Writer: Liu Fen Dou, Zhang Yang, Diao Yi Nan, Cai Xiang Jun
Starring: Zhu Lu, Pu Cun Xin, Jiang Wu, He Zheng, Hu Bei Bei, Lin Ding,
Feng Shun
---
Gordon Bass - gwbass@worldnet.att.net
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