Film
Movie theaters, reviews and showtimes in Chicago, plus articles, trailers and more
- Home
- Box Office
- Listings
- Trailers
- Features
Bookmark this page- Edition:
Keep Cool (1997)
Director: Zhang Yimou
Movie review
From Time Out Film Guide
Cut off from foreign financing by China's new Film Regulations, Zhang did the smart thing by making this low budget quickie primarily for domestic release. It's his first contemporary urban movie, his first comedy and his first without Gong Li. The great Jiang Wen plays a bookseller who won't accept that his hip young girlfriend has left him for someone richer. The first half details his attempts to confront her (he can't remember which of a thousand identical apartments she lives in); the second his wait with murderous intent in a restaurant, refusing to be pacified by a stranger whose new laptop he has broken. With ultra-mobile handheld camerawork and no pre-blocking of the scenes, Zhang achieves a spontaneity new in his work. But it's Jiang's performance which makes the film astonishing and funny.Author: TR
Cast & crew
Director: Zhang Yimou
Producer: Wang Qipeng
Cast: Jiang Wen, Li Baotian, Qu Ying, Ge You, Zhang Yimou full cast
Genre(s): Comedy
Duration: 95 mins
Most popular on this site
Features
Gray's anatomy
James Gray wants to push buttons—again.
The next big thing?
Gigantic Releasing tries to rethink indie distribution…without movie theaters.
Red Diva: Lyubov Orlova, First Lady of Soviet Cinema
So you think you can dance, comrade?
Puppet master
Coraline director Henry Selick takes stop-motion animation into 3-D.
Socratic method
Laurent Cantet's approach on the set matches the message of his film.
Wander woman
Kelly Reichardt's Wendy and Lucy puts a Bush-era spin on the road movie.
Oscars
Read our interviews with the nominees, our reviews of the nominated films and more.
What do you think?
Post your review now