Award-winning director Jia Zhangke’s documentary Useless weaves a three-part tale about the Chinese clothing industry. The documentary opens in the textile factories of Guangdong, where workers hunch over massive machines day in day out for low pay, before moving to Paris where fashion designer Ma Ke is unveiling her new collection of organic, avant-garde, haute couture designs. Running counter to the clothing industry’s culture of mass production and reproduction, her new line “Wu Yong”, meaning “Useless”, lends the film its title, and forms the heart of the documentary. The third act of the film travels to a tailor shop in a dusty mining town in Shanxi. Using a down-to-earth montage of people and places, Useless brings out the significance of clothing, and the different faces and sectors of modern China.
Tag: HONG KONG
A “cyclo” is a bicycle-drawn taxi similar to a rickshaw, and, in this story, the nickname of an 18-year-old boy trying to scrape together a living in the desperate poverty of Ho Chi Mihn City. Cyclo lives with his grandfather and two sisters, and drives his taxi for a bitter woman who devotes most of her time to her mentally unstable son. When the pedal-cab is stolen, Cyclo is forced into a life of crime to repay the debt and falls in with a group of petty thugs led by a self-styled poet. What Cyclo doesn’t know at first is that the poet is also a pimp, and he’s been using his romantic wiles to lure Cyclo’s older sister into a career as a prostitute.
Jun arrives in Hong Kong from mainland China, hoping to be able to earn enough money to marry his girlfriend back home. He meets the streetwise Qiao and they become friends. As friendship turns into love, problems develop, and although they seem meant for each other they somehow keep missing out.
A spurned lover seeks a rich man for revenge. A random onlooker — who witnessed the public assault committed by the rich man against the lover — seeks for monetary compensation for his smashed computer. The lover’s and the onlooker’s lives intertwine as two people collaborate. The onlooker’s fate faces an unpredictable turn and mirrors the lover’s life.
Sequel to Thou Shalt Not Swear. Chow reteams with Lau to investigate a murder. Chow’s wife is the suspect! The victims are those who cheats on their wives.
When Aggie’s grandmother, her last living relative, dies, she is taken in by hairdresser acquaintance Louie, and Emma his transsexual ‘mother’. With warmth and affection the two slowly arouse Aggie from her listless state and nurture her back to life. Kitchen uses food as a constant metaphor throughout the film to explore emotional states and to symbolise the depth of unexplored feelings. When tragedy strikes again with sickly premonition, both Louie and Aggie are forced to revisit their grief, triggering unresolved issues.
Two undercover cops are forced to be a team to find a serial killer. Chow is straight-laced and Lau has ESP. The victims were all childhood friends. The killer is a ghost!
In ancient China, on the edge of a vast desert, swordsman Ou-yang Feng lives the life of a vagabond, controlling a network of deadly assassins. Pitiless and cynical, his heart has long been wounded by a love he neglected then lost. But as seasons, friends and enemies come and go, he begins to reflect back upon the origin of his solitude.