Lunar Eclipse
(Yue shi)

Screening on Film
Directed by Wang Quan’an.
With Yu Nan, Wu Chao, Hu Xiaoguang.
China, 1999, 35mm, color, 100 min.
Chinese with English subtitles.

Told in a cinematic language rarely seen in Chinese films, Lunar Eclipse marked the debut of Wang Quanan, a 1991 graduate of the Beijing Film Academy and member of the “Urban Generation,” young directors working post-1989 "outside" China’s state-owned studio system—an unprecedented phenomenon in the history of cinema in the People’s Republic of China. A young newlywed has a chance encounter with an enigmatic minivan driver with a passion for photography in this elegant film about love, desire, and betrayal. Dai Jinghua, one of China’s leading film critics, has described Lunar Eclipse as one of the most uncompromising Chinese films ever made, and a landmark in Chinese cinema.

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