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Distant Thunder
Lost City / Secrets of the Past

China 2010
produced by
Zhang Yutao, Zhang Jiarui
directed by Zhang Jiarui
starring Huo Siyan, Guo Xiaoran, Ge Si-Ran, Zhao Zhigang, Tang Yinuo
story by Zhang Jiarui, screenplay by Qiu Daianping, Zhang Jiarui, music by Zhou Jiaojiao

review by
Mike Haberfelner

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Zhao Po (Guo Xiaoran) is a working class kid who starts studying at a rich kids' college on a special grant. However, he soon realizes he doesn't totally fit in, and the fact that Yin-Qi (Ge Si-Ran), a girl to whom he has taken an instant liking, doesn't respond to his advances in kind doesn't really help too much either. Eventually though, Zhao Po falls for Gang Xiu (Huo Siyan), a hairsalon girl, and the two of them soon become a couple.

Zhao Po's best friends (Zhao Zhigang, Tang Yinou), day labourers from his village, don't really approve of Gang Xiu though, mainly because with him being a college student, they consider her below him, and furthermore Zhao Po's mum was a hairsalon girl as well who crossed over into prostitution before her tragic death. When Zhao Po brings Gan Xiu along on a trip with these friends, they eventually rape her in an abandoned house and Zhao Po is unable to help her because the whole thing takes him back to the day his father killed his mother by throwing her into a river, and then knocked little Zhao Po out via a blow on the head before he could do anything to help her. After the rape, Gan Xiu runs away, and all of Zhao Po's attempts to find her are futile.

It's only days later that Gan Xiu shows up again, has sex with Zhao Po and persuades him to report his friends to the police for the rape. However, the cops can't follow his route of arguing because Gan Xiu has been found dead - probably a suicide - a week ago (when all of this has been happening), and her body shows no signs of rape whatsoever.

Zhao Po is diagnosed as delusional, caused by the blow on his head the father has administered after he had murdered Zhao Po's mum. Later, Zhao Po's two friends from his hometown show up and beat him up because he has reported them for rape, and it's only after that that Zhao Po starts to remember what has really been going on: When he thought his two friends were raping Gang Xiu, that was only part of a prank gone wrong, and she was quick to forgive the guys - but when Zhao Po confronted her with the situation and got angry, she ran away. He came after her, and by some freak accident, she fell into a river in the process, and instead of saving her, Zhao Po had a flashback to his mother's death and sat in arm's reach of drowning Gang Xiu, traumatized ...

 

An interesting but by no means perfect movie: It all starts out like one of Eric Rohmer's subtle and light-footed romances, where nothing much is happening but you feel compelled to watch nevertheless. Only an early flashback to Zhao Po's mother's death suggests that there is something wrong here. And this "something wrong" finally comes to a climax when Zhao Po's friends rape his girlfriend and she disappears afterwards. Up to here the film is pretty good, but then it goes downhill: When Zhao Po and Gang Xiu meet again, it is a tad too apparent that there is something wrong, that she isn't real and either a ghost or a figment of his imagination, and when later on her rape is identified as not having been a rape at all, that somehow derives the story of its dramatic impact, especially since the alternative explanation seems rather unconvincing.

All that said though, Distant Thunder is by no means a bad movie, it's just too bad that it falls apart in the end.

 

review © by Mike Haberfelner

 

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In times of uncertainty of a possible zombie outbreak, a woman has to decide between two men - only one of them's one of the undead.

 

There's No Such Thing as Zombies
starring
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special appearances by
Debra Lamb and Lynn Lowry

 

directed by
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written by
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produced by
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now streaming at

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Robots and rats,
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Tales to Chill
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Tales to Chill
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a collection of short stories and mini-plays
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Tales to Chill
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the new anthology by
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Out now from
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