Product Details

• Actors:  Zhou Lan, Sanming Han Tao Zhao
• Directors: Jia Zhang Ke
• Format: Color, DVD, NTSC, Widescreen
• Language: Mandarin Chinese
• Subtitles: English
• Region: Region 1 (U.S. and Canada only. Read more about DVD formats.)
  
• Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1
• Number of discs: 1
• Rated: Unrated
• Studio: New Yorker
• DVD Release Date: November 25, 2008
• Run Time: 108 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (12 customer reviews)
• ASIN: B001CD6GL6
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #89,708 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The New New Wave, November 21, 2008

By 

Thomas Caron (Shanghai) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Still Life (DVD)

Of all the great films coming out of China these days, none are more representative of "the real China" than the movies of Jia Zhang Ke. Combining a semi-documentary approach with an occasional touch of surrealism, his hi-def digital video renditions of the lives of ordinary Chinese adapting to the most vertiginous change in the history of the world are eye-popping and achingly beautiful. A must for anyone who cares about the cutting-edge of cinema.

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Digging Up the Past, Burying the Present, Building the Future., December 2, 2008

By 

mirasreviews (McLean, VA USA) - See all my reviews
(TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (VINE VOICE)    (COMMUNITY FORUM 04)    (HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)   

This review is from: Still Life (DVD)

"Still Life" was written and directed by Sixth Generation Chinese filmmaker Jia Zhang-Ke, who brings a documentarian's style to this fictional drama inspired by the upheaval that the incredible Three Gorges Dam project has created. Two people from the city of Shanxi travel south to what is left of Fengjie to look for people from their past. Han Sanming (Han Sanming) is trying to find his ex-wife who took their young daughter and left him 16 years ago. Shen Hong (Zhao Tao) hasn't heard from her husband in 2 years and journeys to Fengjie, where he is a manager for the Demolition Authority, to confront him. Fengjie is a 2000-year-old town in the process of being demolished in 2 years, as it is gradually flooded, with much of the Old City already submerged.

"Still Life" is shot and scripted in a "cinema verite" style with a conspicuously slow, contemplative pace. It doesn't ever speed up, but it did eventually lull me into its languid universe. It is a mediation on people's relationship to the past and to life's forward motion. Sanming and Hong have come to Fengjie to either reclaim their past or to let it go. There is an archeological dig across the river, ironically digging up relics from thousands of years ago, as the town of Fengjie is demolished and buried, while the great Three Gorges Dam is constructed. Director Jia Zhang-Ke has delicately highlighted the strange cultural and social implications of China's massive infrastructure project, where past, present, and future meet head-on. It is clear which is winning, but which should win is less certain. In Mandarin with optional English subtitles.

The DVD (New Yorker Films 2008): The documentary "Dong" (1 hour, 10 min) is included on the disc. This is a loosely structured film about the artist Liu Xiaodong which first introduced Jia Zhang-Ke to the Three Gorges region. There is an "Interview with Jia Zhang-Ke" (18 min) in which he speaks about the film's structure, themes, his documentary approach, visual style, and the Sixth Generation emphasis on the personal and individual. There is also a theatrical trailer (2 min) and a Press Kit and interview with the director in DVD-ROM form, which can be accessed on a Windows or Mac computer. The film and bonus features are in Mandarin with optional English subtitles. The white subtitles can be a little difficult to read at times and would have been better in yellow.

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Transcends Linear Plot Driven Films, January 31, 2009

By 

Mike Liddell (Massachusetts) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Still Life (DVD)

For American Audiences who don't like the unfamiliar feeling of a different language and location can feel at home with the political decisions that damned the homes, neighborhoods, and residents in the film who out of desperation work in unsafe working conditions. Director Zhang Ke Jia does however leave viewers with a positive feeling of the human bonds the workers find with each other on the battle field of life.