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Yang Ban Xi: The 8 Model Works
Mixed or average reviews
Based on 10 critic reviews
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Movie Info
Genre(s): Comedy | Documentary | Foreign
Written by: Yan-Ting Yuen
Directed by: Yan-Ting Yuen
Release Date:
Theatrical: March 29, 2006
DVD: April 10, 2007
Running Time: 90 minutes, Color
Origin: Netherlands
Summary
RATING: Not Rated
This documentary examines the rise and fall of the revolutionary model opera, or Yang Ban Xi, in China.
Also On The Web: Internet Movie Database View The Trailer Official Studio Site Film Forum Profile
What The Critics Said
All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...
San Francisco Chronicle G. Allen Johnson
A proper labor of love profiling many of the principles involved in the making of the films, peppered with a generous helping of wonderful clips.
Read Full Review >The New York Times Manohla Dargis
The director Yan-Ting Yuen revisits the country's recent past to explore the history and legacy of one of the strangest byproducts of totalitarian madness: the revolutionary spectacular.
Read Full Review >New York Post V.A. Musetto
Entertaining and informative, but it suffers from distracting voice-overs of what are supposed to be Madame Mao's thoughts. Too bad.
Read Full Review >TV Guide Ken Fox
Yuen would have been better off exposing more of that reality and celebrating less of the joyful silliness of the model works, let alone staging pointless hip-hop-inflected dance numbers set to Yang Ban Xi musical themes.
Read Full Review >Village Voice J. Hoberman
Both frustrating and fascinating, Yuen's documentary is something of a stray footnote. It requires not only the context of the yang ban xi but the perspective of other movies on the subject of entertainment and utopia.
Read Full Review >The Hollywood Reporter Richard James Havis
Will intrigue art house audiences unfamiliar with modern Chinese history. But sinophiles and followers of Chinese cinema will be shocked by the lack of historical detail and context.
Read Full Review >Los Angeles Times Kevin Crust
Overall, the film lacks cohesion and a true point of view. Further muddling the film's meaning is a voice-over attributed to Jiang Qing, which we learn at the end is fictionalized.
Read Full Review >Chicago Reader J.R. Jones
Despite the fascinating topic, director Yan-ting Yuen offers relatively little history or criticism of the works themselves, squandering screen time on such gimmicks as mock voice-over and scenes of young people performing hard-rock and hip-hop versions of vintage songs. It's enough to make you pine for the good old days when irony was illegal.
Read Full Review >Salon.com Andrew O'Hehir
Perhaps understandably, these artifacts of a vastly different ideological and economic era -- have become kitsch objects, the focus of a half-horrified nostalgia, in the midst of the feverish Chinese boom.
Read Full Review >What Our Users Said
The average user rating for this movie is 0.0 (out of 10) based on 0 User Votes
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