The peach orchard

This movie kind of goes along with the saying "you never know the worth of water until the well has run dry". It takes place on a day that celebrates the peach blossom. The boys family cut down the orchard, so the spirits left. Eventually the boy caught up with the spirits and they told him that they would never come back. The sixth girl that he sees appears to be the princess of the peach blossom so to speak because she has on the same colors as the orchard in blossom, and when she runs into the open hills the spirits of the orchards come in a way that seems to guard her. The boy cries because he will never see the blossom again. The dolls dance in a way that seems to classify the blossom. It gives the blossom a sense of art, beauty, proportion, and equality. The colors white, orange, and green signify art and beauty. They are very bright, and bring the scenery to life. They blend in and also help the background to stand out. The way that the spirits are placed on top of the stages on the hill gives the whole scene proportion and equality because it looks like you could fold the screen and it would be the same on both sides. The tree that the "princess" runs behind stays alive after all of the others die. It seems as if her spirit resides there.

Sunshine through the rain

This clip depicts the certain events in a childs everyday life. The child is told not to do something by its elder but disobeys them. There is then a serious consequense that is to be paid for disobedience. in this case the consequense is death. He can beg for forgiveness but most likely he will not be forgiven. I believe that the child symbolizes ignorance and curosity. The foxes symbolizes pain and suffering in the world. The mother symbolizes warning, advice, and protection. The child does not listen to the warning and is then exposed to all of the pain and suffering in the world he or she dies.

The road home

This movie was directed by Zhang Yimou.I did not like it. In the bright scenes the light reflected off of the scenery a lot. This gave the movie an unprofesional tone. The girl didn't talk a lot and her running looked like it was fake. Who REALLY runs like that?

Chinese cinema vs. American cinema

All of chinese cinema is based on their traditions. They mostly make fighing type movies. These kinds may have a little love and romance but they won't drown you with that subject. You can find martial arts in almost every chinese movie. The chinese used to film every scene once and then improvise on how they can make it better. Now they may film a scene once at three different angles and try to collaborate all of them. Most of their special effects are not done on computer. When a man is shown jumping extremely high they did the exact opposite. What they did was film him jumping down and then reversed the strip to make it look like he was jumping very high. Their movies are very artistic composing of a lot of color and rythm.
On the other hand American cinema is very different. They tend to make films about science fiction or life.When I say life I mean that they write about how a person's life can go bad and different scenarios that can happen. These movies can range from love to war. Fiction has a very large range. We use computers to generate our special effects and some stunts that are too dangerous to be done physically. This is where we are different from the chinese they hardly use computers to generate special effects. We write more about different life scenarios than about traditions.Our range of topics vary a lot their's is very limited.

Family matters

Family matters was about children who were tryimg to get their mother back. Their mother was a drunk who was forced to take rehab in order to get them back. The only problem was that she kept slipping up. It was shot like a home made video so the lighting was realistic. I don't remember anything being filmed at night. The sound wasn't too impressive either for a movie. But for a documentary it was good because it was shot live. When they were on the phone with their mother you could barely hear her. There were no costumes they were kids and they were wearing up to date clothes. The grandma wasup to date on grandma clothes also. I belive that the only special effect was when they sped up cars in between scenes to cut to another environment.

Throne of Blood

He melded drama and japanese culture as we think of them. The drama came in when the soon to be king denied that he wanted to be king in the bottom of his heart. Then all of the actions up until his death consisted of drama. Starting from when his wife told him that his only chance of killing the king to become king was at the time that the king came to his house. It does seem that he retold hamlet in his own vision of it. I only say this because the main characters sort of did the same thing in killing the king. But they both killed the kings for different reasons. In hamlet the king was kiled for revenge, in Throne of Blood the king was killed so that another could take his pace. In both movies however the previous king was killed so another could take his place. Noh theatre comes in from the very start of the movie. Just the fact that the background of the movie is basically japanese culture gives it away, especially the uniforms that the soldiers had on. The storyline is the only thing that intertwines with shakespare, everything else is Noh theatre. He himself, I believe, had very little thinking to do. All he did was take the drama and a little of the stotyline from shakespare, and mix it with the old japanese traditions in Noh theatre. The singing in the beginning of the movie sounded like it came from shakespeare. I only say this bacause shakespeare is english and the singing reminded me of the very early english church, and how they used to sing in deep and high tones at a very slowpace. The fact that the movie was in black and white adds to the feel of the movie deeply. It gives an eerie feel to the movie and this adds to the effect that the evil spirits and the quiet foggy, windy places give off. It gives off a constant sense of murder and conspiracy in the air. There were two special effect sthat i noticed in the movie. The first was when the spirit first appeared and then dissappeared in a gust of wind. The second was when the last king looked out of the window a saw that the trees were attacking. You could see the trees but not the people pushing them. Their feet were totally concealed by the fog, it seemed that wind had stopped blowing indicating that someone was about to die.

Mojave mirage

The mojave Mirage was directted by Dereck Roberto and Kaarina Cleverley Roberto. It was about a phonebooth in the middle of the desert. People came from all over the world to see it and answer calls. They kept a record of every call made and received.
The whole movie was very bright because they were in the desert. When nightfall hit it was dark but not too dark. It also seemed that it got very cold at night because everyone either had a blancet or a sweater.
The sound seemed that it was centered around one point, and that was the phonebooth. When people moved away from it you could not hear them. Even the gunshot in the background was not as loud as it would really have sounded. It looks like a doctored up home made movie.
I don't believe that there were any costumes because everyone came in casual clothes. It did not seem as anything was planned. It looked like they just filmed people as they came and went.
There were no sets either because they just filmed things as they were. The phone booth itself was the only thing that you could count, but it was already there.
Iliked the special effect where it seemed like they went through the whole day in just a few seconds. The clouds started to move extremely fast as if you were fastfowarding a clip on the sky.

The Accidental Spy

The movie accidental spy stars jackie chan. It was directed by Teddy Chen. It is about an orphan who is reunited with his father just before he dies. The orphan then finds out that he came from a long line of spies. Now he is forced to play a game that only he can win.
The overall lighting was good. The transition from day to night looked like it was done on a day to day standard.
Everything sounded realistic. If you have surround sound it soundslike you are really in his place in the movie, from car chases to gunfights.
The costumes looked like everyday casualware. The only exception was the businessmen. They would have obviously worn suits.
The part of the movie with the most sets was the rooftop getaway scene. They had lawn chairs, umbrellas, and even boxes.
I loved the explosions scene in the end of the movie. But I would have to say that the best special effect was when he jumped off of the roof holding an umbrella. It looked as if he was really going down on his own.

Hero

The movie hero was directed by yimou zhang. The story was about a man who was trying to kill someone he thought was a tyrant. But what goes around comes around.
The lighting was pretty good. I loved the way he changed the amount of light to go with the different colors in the movie. Also the effect that the sun had in the bak of the arrows was nice.
I believe that the sound was the most detailed part of the movie. You can hear every move of the sword. It sorts of paints a picture of how fast the sword is moving for it to make a sound seeing as how sharp it is.
Their costumes were how we Americans would view their culture without having ever seen them. The soldiers wore suitable clothing for a dynasty.
I liked the set with the candles in front of the king. Also how they gave it the quality to be able to sense feelings. Everything else I don't believe was a set especially not the buildings.
In my opinion the best special effect was when the two girls were fighting in the forset. As the girl got stabbed the color of everything changed from yellow to red. It shows the transition from life and happiness to death and bliss.