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LOST IN BEIJING Send This Review to a Friend
Director Li Yu’s “Lost in Beijing” is more interesting for the candor with which sex and corruption is portrayed in contemporary China than for its story, which is glorified soap opera. In China it was doing good business, but was withdrawn during its run, which earned temporary filmmaking bans for its producer and director. No wonder. Not only does the film show more sex than one expects in films from China, but it reflects a lack of moral values and reveals how some will do anything for money.
Well-made, “Lost In Beijing” also depicts what today’s Beijing looks like, with its bustling life and distinctly modern look and atmosphere against which the corrupt doings unfold. But the story leaves much to be desired.
Fan Bingbing plays Ping-guo, who works as a masseuse and is married to Tong Da Wei as Akun, a window washer. One day when Ping-guo gets looped after drinking too much with her co-workers, her boss, Mr. Lin (Tony Leung), rapes her. Lo and behold, watching from outside while washing the windows is the husband. A brawl ensues and we are off and running into the complicated plot.
The wife becomes pregnant, there is jockeying to see who the father is and there is a resolution that evolves with money and vanity at the core. Let’s just say that a key character is Elaine Jin as Mrs. Lin, who can’t have children.
The immorality entwined in the story must have given Chinese censors as much of a problem as the explicitness of some of the sex. We aren’t accustomed to seeing this sort of film from China, so that aspect is interesting. But the story falls strictly into sappy, soppy soap opera territory. A Red Envelope Entertainment and New Yorker Films release.
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