Summer Palace

The first Chinese film to deal head on with the Tiananmen generation who came came of age in a period of rising living standards, changing sexual mores and heightened expectations for change. The film debuted at Cannes and the director was promptly banned from filmmaking in China for five years, ostensibly for not clearing the festival submission with government censors, but one can't help but think the full frontal nudity and depictions of demonstrations had something to do with it.

“Sex and politics are on full boil in Summer Palace, an engrossing … epic about the generation of Chinese students who came of age brutally in 1989…beautifully blends the political with the personal much as Flaubert does in Sentimental Education.”(Manohla Dargis, New York Times)

“Beautiful and passionate . . . succeeds in finding a cinematic language that does more than summarize the important events of a confusing decade. [The director] distills the inner confusion — the swirl of moods, whims and needs — that is the lived and living essence of history. ” (A.O. Scott, New York Times)

“Exceptional” (Mark Jenkins, Washington City Paper)

“One of the great female characters of recent years. I am stunned at the performance of Lei, who creates a vivid, knowable, yet mysterious human being. Unforgettable.” (Steven Hunter, Washington Post)

“A mesmerizing, wonderfully acted love story.” (Kirk Honeycutt, Hollywood Reporter)