Unusual film combines real-life drama with fictional recreations.

amazing combination of reality and theatre. to have the actual actor and parents play is amazing and how it comes in and out of theatrical sets is fantastic.

Às vezes parece mais fácil desistir do que lutar por um objetivo...

Wonderfully inventive format for a documentary. It had the potential to turn into some sort of a sappy biopic, but the director doesn't force it and neither do the people involved. It's just the story it is. I don't really have any words for this right now... but I liked it.

Kinas bästa regissör gör en av 2000-talets mest intressanta filmer.

One of the most original and amazing films I've seen in a long time. Based on the true story of Hongshen's addiction and quitting of drugs. All the actors play themselves making the film a quasi documentary. Originally being a stage play many elements from the play are transformed to the film very well. The story is a train wreck of despair done so superbly its beautiful.

good movie, helped by the various crossovers to 'reality', using the actual people in the film, the stageplay-within-the-movie, etc. A timeless story done in a fresh way. The parents are brilliant.

Having watched it without knowing that the actors played themselves, I can comment only on the fact that the story itself isn't as engaging as one would like. I think the novelty of real-life participation is the innovative part of this film, and you don't need to watch it to appreciate that.

It's been a while since I've seen it, but it's good! A bunch of weird Beatles references and just weird shit in general, but it works really well.

I've mentioned to many people that any time I see the "Sony Pictures Classics" label I treat it akin to a Criterion label, at least in terms of the quality of the film chosen to fall under this label. I have not really been disappointed yet by this policy and as such am planning to continue it, and wholeheartedly recommend it to others--but with the understanding that it may or may not be the best transfer and may or may not have any special features--at all. The concept of this film was irresistible from the start--Zhang Yang asks Chinese actor Hongshen Jia to film his own life, especially his experience with heroin addiction, but without any actors--done purely with the help of his actual friends and family (as the back of the DVD release says, "down to the mental asylum inmates!"). This sounds like a cheap shot, like something that will end up looking amateurish, ridiculous and exploitative, but perhaps it was deliberate that Yang chose an actor who had some recognition in his home country rather than a random "nobody" to do this, so that it would be an intrusion that is expected anyway. Additionally, Hongshen's addiction is not shown in gory detail to make this a "message" movie about how bad drugs are, or to shock, disturb or horrify the audience about drug use. In point of fact, beyond a few joints, no drug use is even shown. It's not even spoken of in explicit terms by and large. We just see the effects on Hongshen himself, and on his parents and sister. Hongshen is a fresh-faced young actor in Chinese cinema, making his way through a handful of fairly high-profile (apparently) films before disappearing completely from the public radar--leaving behind perceptions of lost talent, an empty and talentless face that has disappeared, and questions as to who the unseen interviewer (assumed and alluded to be Yang) is even asking about when we're first introduced to Hongshen's position in his own society at large. Soon, though, it becomes a fairly frank and honest (insofar as one can really tell) recollection of Hongshen's life, abusive, introverted, troubled, depressed, filled with a desperate search for meaning, art and use in his own life, twisted and contorted by drug use that makes him seek and crave something more than he feels he is genetically or socially capable of, and pushed into arenas he is not naturally adept at. It's touching the way his family attempts to intervene, but we can see Hongshen's frustration with their "country" ways (Chinese film is rapidly teaching me this classism is, or was, a very large issue there) as being not totally unfair--they really don't understand the world he has brought himself into, but we can see how hard they are trying, and how easy it is for them to make mistakes with Hongshen when he has been made this volatile by his dissatisfaction and the chemical intrusion that enhances it. Sometimes we can see him trying and even succeeding at attempts to appreciate his family's efforts, and sometimes we can see why he perhaps even should be annoyed with they way they're handling things, but no one is ever portrayed as faultless victim or victimizer to blame for the woes of all. It's a shock when Yang begins to show us the stage set-ups of the film (which began as a stageplay) but makes sense, breaking that fourth wall (which we can of course see was never present when we pull back through it on the set to see the cross section of the apartment we previously accepted as "real" in the film context. We see that this is only a portrayal of events, thankfully something shown to us most explicitly when Hongshen finally crosses the line from troublesome, aggravating and difficult into abusive. An absolutely fascinating film that manages to take what appears to be a gimmick and makes it into something important, fascinating and artful.

This a layer cake of a film. Just when you're ready to shrug it off the director does something that pulls you back into the story. The tension and timing are tuned perfectly and acting is selfless despite the actors all being the real-life participants in the story's events. This film would be next to impossible to make using Americans as their media hyper-saturation would stifle the story telling with self-consciousness.

recently revisited this flick. very powerful. highly recommend it.

In a class of its own

amazing combination of reality and theatre. to have the actual actor and parents play is amazing and how it comes in and out of theatrical sets is fantastic.

My dad picked up this film on vcd when we were in beijing. Amazing film based on an actor's ins and outs of drug abuse, starring the actor himself and his family. It's mindblowing how such a sensitive topic is handled by the real characters, who seemingly dramatise it reflexively. It really drives into the protagonist's psychological state, hinting at a perfectionist trait being the root of his projected rage.

Very interesiny but sad at the same time. I was sort of confused on why they used the actors real names. But anyways Jia was good. He truly is the son of John lennon

I really liked it. Nice work from the director. Where everyone played their own character. Interesting moments when Yang shows that the action is taking place on a stage, with no spectators. The director is saying a lot of things through his movie. It's refreshing to see how things are in other parts of the world.

A movie about addiction and rehab setting in Beijing, with almost all of the actors playing themselves. The movie is powerful and you can really see how the main character struggled. I love how the director jumps in and out of stage once a while.

I only saw half of this movie, but the half I saw was wonderful. The photography was phenominal. Yay China!

Excellently directed, this true story acted by the real life people moves seamlessly from documentary, narrative film, and stage play.