Film
What's on at the cinema plus reviews of the latest movie and DVD releases
Bookmark this pageSeventeen Years (1999)
Director: Zhang Yuan
Movie review
From Time Out Film Guide
Seventeen years after accidentally murdering her stepsister in a fight, Tao Xiaolan (Liu) is given a new year furlough from prison. Since no one shows up to collect her, young prison guard Chen (Li Bingbing) offers to escort her home. But the family house in Tianjin has been demolished. In the course of finding where Tao's parents now live (and steering the nervous woman into a reunion with them), Tao and Chen form an unexpected bond. Zhang's first fiction feature since his rapprochement with the Film Bureau is a solid art movie: sensitive, understated, psychologically acute and quietly emotive. In other words, less interesting than the risky, provocative and often revelatory work he did as an 'illegal' underground film-maker.Author: TR
Cast & crew
Director: Zhang Yuan
Producer: Zhang Yuan, Willy Tsao, Zhang Peimin
Cast: Liu Lin, Li Bingbing, Le Yeping, Liang Song, Li Jun full cast
Duration: 99 mins
Most popular on this site
Top Stories
Time Out's 50 greatest monster movies
As Joe Johnston’s long-awaited reinvention of Universal’s howl-at-the-moon classic ‘The Wolfman’ hits cinemas, Time Out lists our 50 favourite cinematic stalkers, growlers, slashers and biters.
Mark Kermode: A life in film
Dave Calhoun chats to Britain's most outspoken film critic and pundit ahead of the release of his memoirs
Has Ricky Gervais gone all serious?
The trailer to 'Cemetery Junction' suggests that its writer-director is suppressing his funny bone.
The genius of Roman Polanski
Ahead of his new film, 'The Ghost', we must forget the media circus and remember the artist pleads Wally Hammond
Oscars 2010: The nominees
Tom Huddleston offers his acute analysis on the list of nominees for the 2010 Academy Awards
Rotterdam 2010: Geoff Andrew's report
Geoff Andrew finds rich leftfield pickings at the 2010 Rotterdam Film Festival
Can Tom Ford cut it as a director?
After ten years as creative head of Gucci, Tom Ford has directed his first movie. Nina Caplan meets him
Time Out's 101 Films of the Decade
So here it is… Ten years, thousands of movies and millions of dollars in international box office, and it all boils down to this.
2009: The year in film
We look back at the best movies of 2009 and pick out some of our favourite lists, features and interviews.
What do you think?
Post your review now