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The Postmodern Life of My Aunt (Yi ma de hou xian dai sheng huo)

2006 List
Reviews 74% Audience Score 1,000+ Ratings
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Critics Reviews

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David Rooney Variety [The film is] better when it acquires a melancholy strain than in the early, more comic action Sep 12, 2006 Full Review Panos Kotzathanasis Asian Movie Pulse Has its issues, and the transition away from Gaowa does not work well for the end result. However, there are enough social comments here to carry the movie for a large part of its duration, while the shenanigans of the first part are bound to entertain Rated: 6/10 Dec 30, 2021 Full Review Read all reviews

Audience Reviews

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Audience Member Inconsistent & disjointed. Rated 2.5 out of 5 stars 02/04/23 Full Review Audience Member I like the beautiful combination of various colours in the film. As the story is tragic comedy, the ending makes me sad. But overall it is a really good movie. Rated 3.5 out of 5 stars 01/17/23 Full Review Audience Member I thought this is a Comedy but turns out there's not much gags in the plot. It's a funny pcs anyway. Gaowa Siqin is really a great actor, she fully demonstrated the mixed feelings of 'Aunt who was once a rebellious young woman and now turned to a middle-aged old-school, the world has changed and she is running behind. Rated 3 out of 5 stars 02/17/23 Full Review Audience Member Not a very successful one. The story is not touching and the complicated feeling of Gaowa Siqin was not potraited well. The stroy is simply too fake. And it is not a typical Ann Hui film. Rated 3 out of 5 stars 01/30/23 Full Review Audience Member Ann Hui is considered as one of the most important contemporary Hong Kong directors, but it's only in terms of her original viewpoint to a female and good sense of choosing topics, and her films are often quite boring, honestly. This film disappoints me more than usual since my expectation was high. She features even more first-class casts and crews than usual - Gaowa Siqin (a great actress of mainland China), Yun-Fat Chow, Wei Zhao, Lik-Wai Yu (cinematographer often works with Zhangke Jia), and Joe Hisaishi (the most popular film composer of Japan), etc. - and how can the film be this boring and pointless? All those elements definitely does not match to the content and the theme of the film, and it gives you sense of uneasy throughout the film. For example, Yun-Fat Chow and Wei Zhao are definitely miss-casting since it adds unnecessary and unwanted meanings to their characters (they are just attractions to more audiences), and Hisaishi's score (music itself is good) does not fit to the film at all. It sets in Shanghai, dealing with aging of a woman, but Hui does not use the big city to emphasize the isolation of the heroin well - in other words, her direction is pointless... Gaowa Siqin's performance is pretty much only highlight of the film. Rated 2 out of 5 stars 01/28/23 Full Review Audience Member Ann Hui shows some directing skills here as she gradually turns this light comedy into a tragedy. And as the mood changes into a more sombre tone, so does our perception of the pic's main character, the aunt of the movie's title, from unambiguously righteous to more complex and human. Of course, it wouldn't be Ann Hui without social issues, here represented by the pursuit of riches, that new Chinese virtue. By casting Chow Yun Fat as the scoundrel Pan Zhichang Ann Hui also paved the way for a great comeback for Babyface, an opportunity now sadly lost judging by his subsequent carreer choices. Hui works with a great colour palette and adds some arthouse cred and look to her movie by employing Jia Zhang Ke's DP Yu Lik Wai. Rated 3.5 out of 5 stars 01/29/23 Full Review Read all reviews
The Postmodern Life of My Aunt (Yi ma de hou xian dai sheng huo)

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Movie Info

Director
Ann Hui