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Springtime in a Small Town
Metascore
84 out of 100

Universal acclaim - based on 12 Critics

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 12 out of 12
  2. Mixed: 0 out of 12
  3. Negative: 0 out of 12
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  1. Village Voice
    Reviewed by: J. Hoberman
    100
    Tian's movie seems to be among the finest expressions of the Chinese new wave.
  2. Los Angeles Times
    Reviewed by: Manohla Dargis
    100
    For Tian, who was banned from directing by Chinese authorities for a decade, it marks a triumphant return; for those who have loved the filmmaker's work in the past, few resurrections have seemed as welcome.
  3. L.A. Weekly
    Reviewed by: Scott Foundas
    90
    Simply put, it represents the work of a filmmaker so exhilaratingly in command of his craft that he can, among other things, turn a single image of two people standing next to each other -- fully clothed, their bodies not quite touching -- into one of the most sublimely erotic moments we have ever beheld on the screen.
  4. Variety
    Reviewed by: David Stratton
    90
    Exquisitely made love story.
  5. New York Post
    Reviewed by: V.A. Musetto
    88
    Can be summed up in one word: style.
  6. Entertainment Weekly
    Reviewed by: Lisa Schwarzbaum
    83
    There's a painterly translucence to this ''Springtime,'' and a mystery, too; each frame is as delicately poised and lit as a Vermeer portrait of a woman, beckoning but unknowable.
  7. The New York Times
    Reviewed by: Stephen Holden
    80
    As Mark Li Ping-bing's beautiful cinematography observes the change of season, the movie becomes a broader meditation on rebirth, and how, in the language of T. S. Eliot, April, the month that stirs such hopes for the future, is also "the cruellest month" for awakening such keen desire.
  8. San Francisco Chronicle
    Reviewed by: G. Allen Johnson
    75
    Only a director who truly knows repression could have made a movie so subtle and so understanding.
  9. The Hollywood Reporter
    Reviewed by: Richard James Havis
    70
    Should please art house buffs across the board. Connoisseurs of Chinese film will be pleased to discover that Tian's meticulous talent has not withered during his enforced hiatus. Moviegoers who like their visions of China rarefied and past tense will delight in the careful period setting.
  10. TV Guide
    Reviewed by: Ken Fox
    70
    A beautiful, slow-motion melodrama.
  11. The A.V. Club
    Reviewed by: Scott Tobias
    70
    Has the suffocating intensity of great chamber drama.
  12. Chicago Reader
    Reviewed by: Jonathan Rosenbaum
    70
    This erotically charged drama may not be quite as great as the original, but it's an amazing and beautiful work just the same.
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