maidservant Archives - Jeremy C. Processing

Director – Zhang Yimou – 1991 – China – Cert. 12a – 125m

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After her father dies, a 19-year-old girl without means accepts an offer of marriage from a wealthy suitor, becoming his fourth wife – back out in UK cinemas on Friday, November 6th

Northern China, the 1920s. The father of 19-year-old Songlian (Gong Li) dies, leaving her without the means to pay for college. She therefore accepts an offer of marriage to the wealthy Chen (Ma Jingwu). He’s fifty, and she’s his fourth wife. The first wife, Yuru (Jin Suyuan), has lost the master’s interest having aged. The second, Zhuoyun (Cao Cuifeng), is a constant schemer. The third, Meishan (He Saifei), is a former Opera star.

Each bride has her own house within the compound. Whichever house the master wishes to stay at at night is marked by the hanging of lit, red lanterns in the courtyard outside. The wife of the house where the red lantern is raised enjoys other privileges such as being allowed to choose her own menu at meal times. In this small world of these four women, intrigues develop as they attempt to win from their rivals the master’s favour by whatever means they can think of, fair or foul.… Read the rest

Timestalker

Director – Alice Lowe – 2024 – UK – Cert. 15 – 90m

*****

A reincarnated woman falls for the same man in different, historical time periods – hilarious romantic comedy of errors is out in UK cinemas on Friday, October 11th

Agnes (Alice Lowe) is a woman falling madly in love. Sadly, the object of her affection Alex (Aneurin Barnard from Dunkirk, Christopher Nolan, 2017) isn’t really interested. And her attempts at forming relationships seem to always end badly. Although not in the way you might expect – for instance, with her head being lopped off. Yet all is not lost: in the world of the Karmic cycle: you die one day only to be reborn in another time the next. However, Agnes seems destined to make the same mistakes over and over again, consistently falling for Alex the wrong man in each of her different lives at different times in history.

The whole thing plays out like a series of repeated cycles by the same characters in different generations. In that sense, it’s not entirely unlike The Beast (Bertrand Bonello, 2023), a serious art house science fiction costume drama mashup. Timestalker isn’t necessarily in the same league as that film, but then again, The Beast isn’t a comedy and Timestalker is really, really funny.… Read the rest