very weak, unfortunately

Great Film overall

Dreadfully Boring

The movie's not perfect, but it sticks the landing of its message. It was engaging - thrilling at times - and I personally thought it was a great time.

I won't pretend to understand everything or even half of what went on in this film. I gave up pretty quickly into the film, however, I wanted to keep on watching and the film kept me enticed mainly for that reason. Sometimes it feels good not to understand? Just to watch for the beauty? The Magic? The craziness? The unknowingness of it all. I really found this film like I was wandering through a modern art gallery but so much better. It was painted beautifully, the setting and the colours; my mouth watered and i felt like i was eating a six course meal.The words also seemed to be quite poetically abstract to fit in with it all. A dream like film.

Jiang Wen's "In the heat of the sun" is a master piece and arguably the best Chinese film ever made. His second work "Gui Zi Lai Le" is controversial in its achievement but certainly fun to watch. The Chinese film industry has so much to expect from him after those crappy 'big productions' such as "Huang jin jia", "Banquet" and alike in recent years. But Jian Wen has failed people's expectation with this one. I don't care how high the technical achievement performed in this film. If a story told can not be comprehended by its dedicated viewers, it's not worthwhile watching. I always have an interest in decoding but do not feel like listening to other people's murmur - Jiang Wen's or anyone else'. Unfortunately, it has thus become a two-hour waste of my life. On the acting part, the talented Anthony Wong wasted his talent entirely in the film. Joan Chen's good performance was ruined by the ridiculous plot. As for the competition with "Lust; Caution" in Venice........ oh, come on!

these 4 parts story-telling is popular lately, but Jiangwen's "sun also rise" is the most magic one. compare to the "still thing"by Jiazhangke, Jiangwen use a more passion color and rhythm to make a movie, based on the Chinese life style. maybe you will say there is none connection with these two.but let us focus on the "looking for husband" part in "still thing", is it familiar to the frantic mum story in "the sun also rise". i totally believe the theme is the same. maybe these whole stories are out of the country ,the race, the age or period, it is supposed to happen whenever and wherever, woman is crazy for the man , man is crazy for different women,but life still on.can live in the love ,can death for the love. even can't tell ,the fate was made by a glance or an occasional meeting long time before. which like the wife of the director, also the actress as the frantic mum, said:" when i was very little,the first movie i've seen in cinema,is Jiangwen's "the days under sunshine", i never can expect one day i'm his wife." but for Jiangwen, this is not his first woman. but we can find ,how the new love encourage him and change the way he express himself.in the movie, when the young guy finally say his own opinion about the woman belong to him, Jiangwen, also a character in that movie, put on his gun, and give a shot.He is mad on he is not young.

Seen in the Toronto International Film Festival First thing, the English translation of the title is inaccurate. The Chinese title says "The sun rises as usual". I don't know if the mistranslation is due to oversight, incompetence or, this is a long shot, a sneaky ploy to draw attention to the film by subliminally invoking a connection with Hemingway's novel of the same name.Top Chinese actor JIANG Wen's third try at the director's chair seems to have been inspired by works like "Amores Perros" (2000), "21 grams" (2003) and Babel (2006). Should that really be the case, what has been achieved is only form, not substance. Under the superficial structure of interlinked stories and non-linear time frames, the complexity of the plot is nowhere near that of the three mentioned. While there are red herrings abound, there is really no ingenuous cause-and-effect links as in these others.The individual stories are however worth watching. While there are three, plus an epilogue that purportedly links everything together (which it kind of does, but in a rather haphazard way), I'll only mention the middle one. At 46, Joan Chen can still do neurotic-erotic like nobody else can. Anthony Wong, strumming a few acoustic chords and crooning a popular Indonesian folk ballad, is irresistible, to young girls and middle-age women alike:Bengawan Solo River of love we know Where my heart was set aglow When we loved not long ago(he sang in Chinese) Overall, the movie is well shot, with all the once avant-garde elements of camera deployment, montages, mise-en-scene, extensive voice over, visual and audio motifs, occasional wandering into the surreal, you name it. The effort is commendable and the result is watchable. Add a pinch of ingenuity in the next one and director Jiang will certainly be heading in the right direction.