China Affair

The fast-paced development of China\'s home film market in recent years has seen several directors, who initially made their name overseas with arty "festival films", turn more commercial, generally with positive results. This year\'s Shanghai Film Festival has two notable examples: cameraman-turned-director Liu Jie(with the utterly charming high-school movie From Summer to Summer , and also Zhang Ming  with China Affair.)

The elder of the two, Zhang, made his name on the international festival circuit with the misty psychological drama Storm Clouds over Wushan, set around the town of Wushan in the touristy area of the Yangtze River known as the Three Gorges. Stronger on atmosphere than actual drama, the film did reveal a distinct film-making voice at the time, though Zhang failed to follow up that promise with subsequent films like Weekend Plot, and Before Born, China Affair feels as if he\'s had a long, hard think and, while still retaining elements of a personal film-making style, has adjusted it to a more audience-friendly format that also takes account of the massive changes in  film-making of the past decade.

The movie starts on a passenger boat from Chongqing where an itinerant American, Lucas, who\'s been drifting round southeast China for 3-4 years, starts a conversation with a young woman, Wang Hong , who claims to be an air hostess visiting her family in Wushan. Lucas follows her there, tries to find her again, and finds that a foreigner\'s dream  is not necessarily the same as a local\'s, as he tries to open a coffee house in the town and hook up again with his "dream girl".

In between having some fun with Lucas\' American ingenuousness and his efforts to speak Chinese, the film is basically about the two faces of modern China - the official and the personal - and not to take either for granted. As he searches for Wang Hong, he\'s helped by a local government employee, Li Hong , and a friendly policeman, Wu  - but the agendas of both of them are not necessarily what Lucas believes. Lucas mistakes female friendliness for physical attraction and professional help for genuine friendship. As he waits and waits for the mysterious Wang Hong to contact him, he realises that life, is a process of waiting.

As the young American, Philip Burkart is a little too reserved to truly identify with, but the Chinese cast pitch their playing at just the right level, especially the very funny Zou Qiongdi  as the blank-faced, who may or may not like Lucas and would rather die than actually crack a smile. As the other "Hong"  in Lucas\' life, Dai Ruqian  is suitably friendly but bottom-line, and Liao Xi  as the policeman is a good buffer between the two.