Press
reviews of Railroad of Hope (Xi wang zhi lü)
Il Manifesto: Ning Ying… in her
cinematography has always preferred the progressive mixture between fiction and
documentary, telling stories in which the restless and ever changing soul of her
country is expressed... In this sense Ning Ying is somehow (maybe even
unconsciously) a reference point for the new generation of Chinese film
directors who aim at achieving an "emotional and documentaristic"
cinema.
The Jerusalem Times: …the content and the emotions are such that the spectator
is speechless at the end of the film. The filmmaker succeeded in extracting the
emotions of the people on the train.
Far Eastern Economic Review: The concept of Ning Ying film is brilliantly
simple….But the beauty of the documentary is in the subtext. What Ning
captured on video resonates more deeply than she perhaps ever intended.
THE NEW YORK TIMES: "Ning Ying's serious comedy".
LE MONDE: "Ning Ying fait une histoire dure et gaie, une fable a double
fond, sans folklore ni frontieres".
VARIETY: "Beneath the comedy, there's a deeper message about bureaucratic
mindsets in communist China".
THE ECONOMIST: "a film paying unashamed tribute to the lighter side of
life, For Fun".
SOUTH CHINA MORNING POST: "A gem of a film and, even more significant, a
landmark for Chinese cinema".
Press reviews of On the Beat (Ming jing gu shi)
VARIETY: "a sly commentary on the Chinese obsession with
bureaucracy and procedure; an allegory of the growing impotence of the once
feared police force as the country moves towards individual, market-based
freedoms".
THE TIMES: "delights and disturbs with its wickedly cool portrait of daily
life in a Peking police station".
VILLAGE VOICE: "Ning's Looking For Fun suggested her filmmaking promise; On
the Beat elevates her into the first rank of international art film
directors".
THE NEW YORK TIMES: "These bicycle-riding policemen look like gentle souls,
and Miss Ying observes them with bemused curiosity".
Press
reviews of I Love Beijing (Xiari nuan yangyang)
Assiduous portraitist, at the same time fascinated and horrified by
the way Beijing is changed or untouched by modernity.
(Jean-Michel Frodon / LE MONDE)
The toll of the unprecedented pace of growth and change in Beijingers’ lives
is observed through the prism of a Lao Bai Xing (ordinary, common person) in a
fun movie, who’s cinematic vision of Beijing may set the standard around the
world. This is a beautifully shot, funny and delightful film by China’s
premiere woman director. The theme comes from director Ning Ying’s deep
feelings for her native city. She has brought Beijing to the screen in a
way that it’s never been portrayed before.
A modern-day taxi driver has a second life as a would-be Casanova. The camera
follows his clueless and sometimes bewildered responses to the changing
landscape swirling around him. He regularly picks-up passengers whose lives come
and go far beyond his mental horizon. But when it comes to women his
horizon has no limits. Sometimes he enters their lives for a few hours or
days; only to be thrust out, back to where he was before these chance meetings
occurred. Along the way, he’s scammed, confused, used and even loved a
little.
(Michael Primont / CHERRY LANE MOVIES)
The familiar and the unfamiliar mingle effortlessly in Ning Ying’s new film (I
LOVE BEIJING). Taking as its subject both the life of an everyday Beijing taxi
driver named Dezi and the life of the city itself, the film weaves through
Beijing with a critical and illuminating eye. It magnifies small, ordinary
moments into symbols of contemporary Beijing. At times these moments bring
the city closer to the viewer. Other times they push the city far away from the
ordinary, alienating it from its inhabitants. In the end the combination of the
familiar with the unfamiliar create the impression that Beijing is a city
in limbo, a place increasingly without a past, with a bustling present and with
an ambitious looming future. (…) The familiar history of the city is largely
absent from the film. It passes by quickly, through brief shots of Tiananmen or
a poignant moment with a kite. (…) Dezi is the perfect medium through which to
view a changing place. He is always on the go, people and places flow quickly in
and out of his life, allowing the film to capture today’s multiple realities.
Furthermore, the story of his own life – a search for love that leaves him in
limbo between destinations and women, is much like Beijing’s own search
for its future, which has created a city in limbo between a disappearing past
and an unknown future. In the ever changing Beijing, today everything seems
possible.
(Stacie Kent / Metro-Zine, Beijing)