Despite being a decade too old for the role, Fan Bingbing does an excellent job here. A lot of viewers in China did not buy into the premise that such a good looking girl would spend most of her time hanging out with two losers but if you are willing to overlook this and give this film a chance you will find it may not be perfect, but is embedded with a strange kind of poetry that creates a calming effect inside the viewer.
The inspiration for the trio of protagonists in Buddha Mountain is Wu Cheng'Er's Journey to the West with the girl as the monkey, the good looking boy as the monk, and fatty as the pig. Seasoned viewers of Asian films will realize that Buddha Mountain is a reworking of Fruit Chan's Made in Hong Kong with most of the radical elements removed by the Censorship Bureau of the Beijing Government and being replaced with a more positive message. Maybe Fan Bingbing was too much of a star for this kind of project yet at the same time she is one of the main reasons you want to keep on watching this film. There is an amazing title sequence-this scene alone is worth the price of admission.
Another much discussed scene-too crazy for Chinese audience-where Fan Bingbing breaks a bottle on her head, starts bleeding and kisses a girl on the mouth, may seem stupid to foreign viewers who don't know much about Chinese customs and way of thinking, therefore are unable to explain this sequence in terms of cause and effect. Well, it's all about giving face to others and others giving face to you. These things only make sense if you have lived for a while in China.
There is one more great performance in this film-that of Sylvia Chang as the mother figure who takes the trio of young delinquents under her protection. She doesn't treat them well at first but eventually she warms up. They climb together a mountain and help an old man restore the statue of the Guanyin Bodhisattva. She helps those kids who had been wandering aimlessly to find a purpose but unable to get over the death of her son she commits suicide.
When watching the film you get the feeling how better it would be without the censorship but still there are many good things here for those who are interested in Chinese film. The director does a good job in depicting the gritty reality of Shiquan province. If you like your noodles spicy, give this film a chance.
The inspiration for the trio of protagonists in Buddha Mountain is Wu Cheng'Er's Journey to the West with the girl as the monkey, the good looking boy as the monk, and fatty as the pig. Seasoned viewers of Asian films will realize that Buddha Mountain is a reworking of Fruit Chan's Made in Hong Kong with most of the radical elements removed by the Censorship Bureau of the Beijing Government and being replaced with a more positive message. Maybe Fan Bingbing was too much of a star for this kind of project yet at the same time she is one of the main reasons you want to keep on watching this film. There is an amazing title sequence-this scene alone is worth the price of admission.
Another much discussed scene-too crazy for Chinese audience-where Fan Bingbing breaks a bottle on her head, starts bleeding and kisses a girl on the mouth, may seem stupid to foreign viewers who don't know much about Chinese customs and way of thinking, therefore are unable to explain this sequence in terms of cause and effect. Well, it's all about giving face to others and others giving face to you. These things only make sense if you have lived for a while in China.
There is one more great performance in this film-that of Sylvia Chang as the mother figure who takes the trio of young delinquents under her protection. She doesn't treat them well at first but eventually she warms up. They climb together a mountain and help an old man restore the statue of the Guanyin Bodhisattva. She helps those kids who had been wandering aimlessly to find a purpose but unable to get over the death of her son she commits suicide.
When watching the film you get the feeling how better it would be without the censorship but still there are many good things here for those who are interested in Chinese film. The director does a good job in depicting the gritty reality of Shiquan province. If you like your noodles spicy, give this film a chance.