Bayview Entertainment announced this past week that four arthouse films from China will be making their domestic DVD debuts on Aug. 24. All four films will be available for just $14.99 each and all had domestic arthouse theatrical runs and were also showcased in film festivals globally.
We begin with writer/director Er Cheng’s 2016 dramatic tale, The Wasted Times, which was released in numerous film festivals in China, picking up the Best Picture award at the Beijing Student Film Festival and the Best Director award at the China Film Director's Guild Awards. The film then opened domestically in December of 2016 and pulled in an impressive $586,540 … the ARR, for the record, is 1,712 days.
The Wasted Times is a look back at the fall of Shanghai during World War II and the workings of crime lord “Mister Lu” (You Ge — If You are the One, Sacrifice) and his tangled web of dealing, both in business and his various sexual encounters. Despite being on the inside with the Japanese — a very lucrative offer — he makes a fatal mistake that costs him everything.
Next up is writer/director Qing Yang’s 2016 crime thriller, Chongqing Hot Pot. The film had its debut at the Hong Kong International Film Festival in March of 2016 and then was quickly released domestically the following month and pulled in a solid $779,818 at the box office. The ARR is also a long-in-the-tooth 1,971 days.
The story here runs the gamut from comedy — a comedy-of-errors, if you will — to crime thriller. It seems that close friends Liu Bao (Chen Kun), “Four Eyes” (Yu Entai) and Xu Dong (Qin Hao) have gone into the restaurant business with money borrowed from the mob. The problem, as they see it, is that their grotto-like eatery is simply too small, so the solution is to dig out more space and in the process of pounding through a wall they strike gold!!
The trio, it seems, have accidently dug their way into the neighboring bank vault. Should they cover up their accident … or rob the bank!! And what happens if “Seven” (Chen Nuo), their mob benefactor, finds out? He’s going to want more that “a cut” of the proceeds.
Rounding out this four-film promotion from Bayview Entertainment on Aug. 24 are writer/director Han Han’s 2017 award-winning time-travel tale, Duckweed (domestic box office receipts were a nice $469,706 … ARR works out to 1,656 days) and writer/director Jianbin Chen’s 2014 film adaptation of Xuewen Hu’s novel, Fool: Director's Cut.
All four films are in Mandarin with English subtitles.
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