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The Wasted Times

Play trailer 1:13 Poster for The Wasted Times 2016 2h 3m Mystery & Thriller Crime Drama Play Trailer Watchlist
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20% Tomatometer 5 Reviews 75% Popcornmeter 250+ Ratings
The Japanese army attempts to form a dubious alliance with a local crime boss in war-torn Shanghai.
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The Wasted Times

Critics Reviews

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Ben Kenigsberg New York Times 12/15/2016
"The Wasted Times" plays like a movie carved out of a much larger mini-series, whose segments are then shown out of order. Go to Full Review
Ren Jender Village Voice 12/13/2016
The majority of the characters murder or are murdered in short order, so finding someone to root for or a storyline to follow in this strangely empty Shanghai (even the train station looks abandoned) is difficult. Go to Full Review
James Marsh South China Morning Post 03/28/2017
2/5
While The Wasted Times is not quite the ordeal its title may suggest, it nevertheless makes for convoluted, impenetrable viewing. Go to Full Review
Boon Chan The Straits Times (Singapore) 01/05/2017
3.5/5
Perhaps an English-language film in this style would have seemed overly derivative. In a Chinese work, it still feels fresh and intriguing. Go to Full Review
Daniel Eagan Film Journal International 12/16/2016
Shanghai gangsters and lovers struggle through the Japanese occupation during World War II in an art-house misfire. Go to Full Review
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Audience Reviews

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09/15/2018 It does tell the story clearly, although not necessarily in a coherent and chronicle way, See more 12/14/2017 I love the structure of this movie, but the emotion and feeling behind the structure is even more charming . This is the old time of Shanghai in my imagination . See more 10/16/2017 Incredible film and adventurous filmmaking - every frame of cinematography is well considered as is the outstanding score. What a joy to experience. See more 06/28/2017 An obvious arthouse try-hard with strangely sparse depth, employing some of the best names in Chinese cinema but with actually very little to SHOW - it's one thing to linger the camera on a famous actor's face to capture subtle changes, but if there ARE NO changes at all, it just feels needlessly, obtusely panned out. Chaotic time-jumps are employed for multiple "gotcha" Shyamalan-esque "twists", obviously supposed to encourage second viewings of past scenes with an elightened viewpoint in mind, but this old horse has been put on show for so many times it's very existence allows seasoned viewers to easily predict the ending. Others have compared the copious blood pools as Tarantino-esque, perhaps if Tarantino didn't exist, this would be refreshing, perhaps if we didn't watch Game of Thrones, we'd be shocked by the sudden picking-off of most of the cast, but since GoT does exist, this again, becomes another tired troupe whose very existence prepares viewers for every subsequent kill. The keyword is predictiable - predictable slow arthouse shots with nothing much to focus or explore, predictable time jumps and twists, and predictable gore that long lost the power to shock. BTW most of the ensemble cast for the first third simply vanishes with no explanation, while the female lead was only introduced in the second third, dominating the rest of the film. It felt like two separate stories clumsily stitched together without much common focus to bind the whole film together, feels like two separate short stories than one coherent film. Stunning cast, smooth cinematography, but without a cohesive focus there's very little point for the film to exist, especially when the themes it tries to tap in are explored much better in other, separate films. See more 03/25/2017 Apparently inspired by Quentin Tarantino's ?Pulp Fiction?. Art direction, cinematography, sets, costumes are all good. The narrative itself looks fragmented & broken however. See more 03/11/2017 the best chinese film i've seen recent years See more Read all reviews
The Wasted Times

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Movie Info

Synopsis The Japanese army attempts to form a dubious alliance with a local crime boss in war-torn Shanghai.
Director
Er Cheng
Producer
Xiaofeng Hu, Dajun Zhang
Screenwriter
Er Cheng
Distributor
China Lion Film Distribution
Production Co
Huayi Brothers Media Group
Genre
Mystery & Thriller, Crime, Drama
Original Language
Chinese
Release Date (Theaters)
Dec 16, 2016, Limited
Release Date (Streaming)
Sep 1, 2017
Box Office (Gross USA)
$348.9K
Runtime
2h 3m
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