Chinese ties

Forty years of diplomatic ties and increasingly cosier relations are celebrated in Thailand-China Film Culture Week, organised by the Guangxi Film Group Company Limited, SF cinemas and the Thai-Chinese Culture Union.
Running until Sunday at SF World Cinema at CentralWorld, the event has five contemporary Chinese films playing alongside two critically acclaimed independent Thai films. Here is the line-up:
“The Nightingale” – An eight-year-old girl and her grandfather walk from Beijing to his rural hometown in Guilin in order to fulfill promise to his dead wife – to deliver a caged nightingale bird. From 2013, “The Nightingale” made the rounds of film festivals in 2014 and last year, and won several awards.
“Liu San Jie” – From 1978, here’s a classic from the Guangxi library. Touted as “China’s first musical movie”, it’s the story of a travelling folksinger, Third Sister Liu, who inspires villagers wherever she goes.
“The Dancing Young” – High-school students who are crazy about dancing look for their big break as they try to balance fancy footwork with their studies and social lives.
“Monkey King: Hero Is Back” – The hero of Chinese literature and legend gets another outing, this time in animated form. It’s the story of a special child who unknowingly releases the Monkey King from a 500-year curse. He pays back the kid by fighting the evil monsters who have taken over his village.
“Saving Mr Wu” – Andy Lau toplines this taut, fact-based thriller about a Hong Kong actor who is kidnapped in China by four criminals posing as police. The real cops have 24 hours to come up with a ransom to save the star. Sheng Deng , who previously worked with Jackie Chan on “Police Story: Lockdown” and “Little Big Soldier”, directs. It was nominated for two awards at last year’s Golden Horse Film Festival and has scored positive reviews.
“Eternity” (“Tee Rak”) – Award-winning Thai indie writer-director Sivaroj Kongsakul recounts a rural Thai-Chinese upbringing in this haunting, heartfelt drama that was inspired by the romance of his parents and the death of his father. It won the Tiger Award at the 2010 International Film Festival Rotterdam and also took prizes in Deauville and Hong Kong.
“W” – Chonlasit Upanigkit, a young filmmaker who is noted for his editing work on the recent award-winning films “Mary Is Happy, Mary Is Happy” and “Freelance”, made his directorial debut with the enigmatic “W”, which was his student film. Originally three hours long, it was trimmed down to its two-hour bare essence and won critical acclaim in 2014. It’s the story of a disoriented young woman who is thrown into the deep end of college life when she’s forced into a faculty that was not her first choice.

Tickets are free and will be handed out 30 minutes before the shows. For more details, check SFCinemaCity.com.