FLAWLESS
I recently completed Teng Cong Cong's TO THE WONDER, a six hour movie pretending to be a TV series. It has two minor story flaws but is otherwise a masterpiece.SEND ME TO THE CLOUDS is flawless. Another masterwork. Some directors take 8 tries to achieve this fascinating yet simple take on love, life, and death. TCC nails it on her first try. WOW.
I'm not going to say much more because it will oversell it.
I will warn viewers this is Arthouse, and all that entails. Arthouse films sometimes have no budgets and so they up the shock value at certain moments to keep you awake. A classic Arthouse trick is to have one shocking 'sexy' scene, if you will, which China seems to avoid at all costs. The scene here isn't gratuitous but I do feel it was an arthose trope more than a story need.
I will say I've never seen our lead actress in anything but will now seek her out the way I did Zhou Xun. I'm also a nutjob for Yuan Hong. who looks bland in his MDL photo but was a DELIGHT in REBEL PRINCESS. He needs to be very popular yesterday.
That's it. It's only 98 minutes. Somber tones, tough subject matter, handled with genius.
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