speechless ( 2012 film )
colombian film development production fund; festival premiers: miami international film festival, cartagena international film festival, atlanta international film festival, santiago international film festival, and others .
breaking glass pictures has annouced today' s november 27 dvd release of simon chung' s speechless (srp $ 24. 99). speechless is a love story encompassed in a mystery where the past is never left behind, and love can flourish even without words. the film was acquired during the 2012 cannes film market .
speechless is a 2012 hong kong drama about a mute frenchman who is found naked by the banks of a river in wuhan in mainland china. directed by simon chung, the film starred pierre - matthieu vital and qilun gao. urltoken
ibermedia coproduction fund; malaga international film festival official selection; santander international film festival official selection; gramado international film festival official selection .
how did abc’s speechless make life with disability funny? by hiring the right people .
ecuadorian film development fund (2013), ecuadorian film production fund (2015), consejo nacional de cinematografía del ecuador .
“speechless” will be shown at 3 pm sunday, june 3, during the 14th annual filmout san diego lgbt film festival. sdgln and sdpix are sponsoring the movie, which is being co - presented by the san diego asian film festival .
speechless speaks volumes long after it' s done ,
hailed black sheep reviews. the film screened this year at philadelphia qfest to a packed house, as well as filmout san diego, insideout toronto, and the london lgbt film festival .
simon chung, director of “speechless, ” talks about how he had to make his movie “underground” in china, where homosexuality remains largely taboo .
natalie martinez, best known for her role in the 2012 film end of watch, portrays jess murphy, the grieving mother of young tom murphy and the crawford family’s neighbor. no stranger to television, martinez has starred in shows, including under the dome and csi: ny .
( this won' t really affect the plot of the second film, but if you went into the film without reading the book, you probably missed this. )
cook made his television acting debut as casey, a cardiac asthmatic patient on abc' s hit drama grey' s anatomy, at the age of 9. in 2012, he landed the coveted lead role of eddie munster in the 2012 critically acclaimed re - imagining of cult television classic the munsters, called mockingbird lane. while promoting the special, mason made a hilarious appearance as a guest of ellen. and he played the role of sean bean' s son in the first season of the hit series legends .
the film suffers along with its characters insomuch as the difficulties of communication are not just verbal ones .
last night saw the international premiere of simon chung’s third feature, speechless, at the bfi 26th london lesbian and gay film festival. it’s notable for a chinese film with a gay theme that it was filmed (and is set on) the mainland, straying beyond the usually safe boundaries of hong kong island. it’s a film of two halves, beginning as a slow - burning mystery - cum - romance before turning into a love - triangle thriller, but it doesn’t really manage to pull off making those parts into a cohesive whole .
tickets are also being sold for opening night film, the opening night party and the combo pass. click here .
a wife' s discovery of her husband' s affairs yields some bloodily violent consequences in lou ye' s film .
the tomatometer score — based on the opinions of hundreds of film and television critics — is a trusted measurement of critical recommendation for millions of fans. it represents the percentage of professional critic reviews that are positive for a given film or television show .
sdgln: talk about the casting of pierre - matthieu vital as the “speechless” frenchman found naked along a riverbank in rural china, and where you found him? although he has no dialogue in the first half of the film, later he speaks in flashback scenes. is he fluent in mandarin or was that dubbed? and what about the casting of the other main characters ?
screened at film festivals, comic cons and art shows nationally and abroad, and has earned over 20, 000 views on vimeo .
the guy who plays jiang, the hospital aide, is from beijing. his name is gao qilun. i know him from another film he did for a hong kong director a couple of years back, but since then he had not done much acting. i flew to beijing to meet him, but he didn’t want to be in the film at first because was trying to develop another career. and then the job he was waiting for fell through, and he decided to become involved in
speechless .
a collection of queer characters, representations, and sensibilities on film. from queer masterpieces to camp classics, documentaries to romantic comedies, …
remington smith is a working filmmaker and assistant professor of film production at the university of louisville. in 2009 he earned his ma in film studies from the university of edinburgh in 2010 for his thesis ,
unsafe horrors: a critical analysis of horror cinema, torture porn and
, which spurred his eventual interest in pursuing an mfa in film and video production from the university of iowa, which he earned in 2014 .
diego f. bustamante - creative director diego studied filmmaking and cinematography in spain. after that he returned to colombia and founded proyección films. diego directed “speechless”, the first feature film produced by proyeccion films. this is the guy with the ideas; some of them are a bit crazy, that’s why he is lucky to have two producers who make sense of that wild creativity and transform it into solid entertainment products .
since the film contains homosexual content, the authorities would not have granted permission to shoot, and once it’s made, it would not be able to be shown there officially. hopefully when it comes out on dvd, the people in china could access the film on pirated copies and online .
( editor' s note: san diego gay & lesbian news will be previewing the 14th annual filmout san diego lgbt film festival, which runs may 30 through june 3 at the historical birch north park theatre. look for q & a interviews with celebrities and directors as well as film reviews. )
the film did a poor job of explaining this through some short video. district 13 comes into play in book 2 and full center in book 3 .
hopefully, those on the cusp of understanding their own sexuality or that of their partners, will see this film before the all too common consequences ruin lives forever. jwr
and the capitol during the film ,
the hunger games
sidestepped a few huge points important to the plot and setup for the subsequent sequel
catching fire .
for the past 8 years, tin has split his time between writing, directing and composing. he originally attended the queensland college of art, studying at the griffith film school in brisbane. in 2008, tin was accepted in the industry renowned usc / universal producing and directing program, completing a gruelling six weeks of intensive filmmaking and adding a impressive three short films to his reel within the period of time. this led to experience in film development with several different companies in los angeles including color force, dreamworks and vendome pictures. after working on two seasons of the cw’s smallville in vancouver, he returned to sydney as a freelance assistant director and production manager on television and feature films. taking a brief scenic tour into the world of animation, tin worked in script and development at australian animation studio flying bark productions, along with stints in voice direction and voice acting. in 2014, he completed the short film, the pale moonlight, a neo - noir sci - fi thriller that enjoyed a world premiere at the fantasia international film festival. the short also screened in los angeles at the hollyshorts film festival. ​ his latest project, the single take stroke awareness short film mother, child, premiered at the 2017 melbourne international film festival and won the 2017 atom award for best short fiction. it has since screened at flickerfest 2018 in sydney, as well as hollyshorts, mammoth film festival and the legacy film festival on aging in the united states. ​ in 2018, tin completed a director' s attachment placement under the guidance and mentorship of renowned director catherine millar on foxtel' s hit australian drama a place to call home. tin is currently writing his first feature film and developing a short narrative comedy series .
colombian film development production fund; ecuadorian film development coproduction fund - cncine 2014; mejor largometraje documental, sección screenings, bogotá audiovisual market (bam) 2015; mejor documental, sección nuestra américa, festival internacional de cine documental ciudad de méxico - docsdf en 2015, mejor documental. festival de cine colombiano de nueva york, estados unidos en 2016 .
that’s what ultimately drew lewin to speechless: its unexpected mix of humor and compassion. “i wouldn’t want to work on a show that made you cringe, but i like to work on a show that almost says the wrong thing on a fairly regular basis. it bangs into political incorrectness, ” lewin says, “and that tickles me. ”
it helps that his director understands him. lewin, 69, the writer - director of the 2012 critically acclaimed film the sessions, survived boyhood polio and uses crutches to walk. “it’s a real challenge to give the audience a sense of what’s in your mind and what’s developing in your mind when you can’t speak, ” lewin says of working with fowler on the scene. “what i was trying to get out of him was, he was seeing all this stuff laid out and as they see it laid out, he realizes this is all crap, how am i going to sell this? so i was just trying to get the sense of the idea brewing. ”
before speechless — the abc comedy starring minnie driver and bowie as maya and jimmy, the heads of the dimeo family, raising jj and their two other children in orange county — the australian indie filmmaker’s american tv résumé was limited to one episode each of ally mcbeal and touched by an angel. lewin’s approach to actors is simple: treat each one individually .
however, after leaving the theaters, despite the cheers and praise, we noticed there were five huge plot details missing from the film that need to be addressed in the follow - up .
most of my films have received funding from the hong kong arts development council, but it’s not enough for a feature film. i had to get additional sources of funding, such as dvd rights .
screwed (orig. pihalla) is a finnish drama film, where seventeen year olds miku and elias find themselves, and each other, during a summer in the finnish countryside. love is not as easy as it seems .
i didn’t have official permission to film in china, so i just shot it the “underground” way. i shot it in a small city called shantau, and in the northern part of guangdong province in the south of china .
simón beltrán - producer. you’ve probably seen him in a party in cannes, berlin, afm or any other film festival or market. but don’t be fooled, beware because that’s his favourite place to close business deals. simón studied filmmaking in argentina and later joined diego to start proyección films. he holds an mba obtained in madrid and is in charge of the film, production services and commercial projects in the company, a task he shares with juan pablo .
in
catching fire ,
katniss uses her government aid as a scapegoat (we won' t say why). the film can easily write this point out, but we find it interesting that the main character went deaf at all .
, about a woman who must choose between her job as a bounty hunter or saving a young boy whose parents have been killed by the vampire landlord. this will be his first feature narrative film and is currently raising funds for the project .
it' s okay. the movie did start off very slow, and by the time you get to the actual point of the plot - that very much drags you in - it' s been over a hour of you watching this film .
at just 16 years old, mason cook has made quite an impact on film and television, most recently receiving a daytime emmy nomination for outstanding performer in a children' s series for his guest starring role on the emmy award - winning show the haunting hour .
you wouldn' t have guessed it from the way the film made it appear; however, peeta' s injury was much worse than you thought. it was so bad, the capitol deemed his leg unsaleable, hacked it off and replaced it with an artificial one .
this factor isn' t as important to the plot line. (we imagine showing mutilated humans wouldn' t go over well for a tween film .) however, if there was ever any doubt of the capitol' s unyielding power and mercilessness, this certainly provides confirmation .
los angeles — speechless actors john ross bowie and micah fowler are working through a scene for a january episode of the abc comedy on the fox lot. in it, we see jj’s (fowler) mischievous side for the first time: during a stop at a crafts fair during a family road trip, somebody mistakenly assumes the dimeos are selling water from their car, which gives jj an idea to peddle off the family’s junk — yoga pants, a curling iron, among other items — out of their truck. impressed by his son’s initiative, the father (bowie) and son start conspiring .
as a screenwriter, i was trying out different things with narrative structure, such as how the film shifts gear when luke leaves the hospital, and again when ning appears. also i was playing with different narrative perspectives, such as when ning tells her version of the story, and later on you see things from luke’s perspective .
as i said, we had no permission to shoot. however, for some of the locations, we sought the permission of the relevant authorities, like in the university and the church. for the church we did not tell them about the content of the film, and the love - making segment was added on in post - production .
the guy who plays han, jiang jian, is from guangzhou. aside from acting he also models and is a magician! the actress who plays ning is yu yung yung. she was born in indonesia, studied in australia, and now lives in hong kong. i saw her in another independent film called
26 happiness road .
speechless opens with a young caucasian man (pierre - matthieu vital) found naked by a river in rural china. though seemingly lucid, the man refuses to speak and the police, frustrated in their attempts to ascertain his identity, eventually move him to the local hospital for examination. as the young man settles into the ward, he begins to grow close to jiang (gao qilun), one of the hospital nurses and when the authorities signal their intentions to move their still - silent prisoner to a mental institution, jiang busts him out. together they attempt to unravel the truth about the young man' s identity and the events that led up to his arrest .
the two chinese characters in my film are both from small towns, and for such people, homosexuality is mostly underground. some may not even be aware of their own sexual desires. of course nowadays with the internet people can read about such things, but it’d be difficult for them to find someone to have sex with, much less a sustained relationship. (mind you, grindr and facebook are both banned in china .) perhaps some will have furtive encounters in public baths or toilets, and that’s it. most gay men and women in china have heterosexual marriages, even in big cities. so for han and jiang in my film, they would probably not have acted out their sexuality until they had met luke .
the inspiration for the film came from the “piano man, ” a guy who washed up off the eastern coast of england a few years ago. there was no id on him and he refused to speak, so they took him to a mental hospital. he was given a piano and started playing, and stories became circulating of him being a musical genius who went mad, like the guy in
shine .
in reality he was a gay student from germany who had a mental breakdown. i transplanted the story to china because i wanted to see what would happen to such a character there. the film goes both ways: it is about homosexuality in china from a western perspective, and also about chinese perception of westerners .
juan pablo solano - producer. if you talk with him, i bet you wouldn’t crack his nationality, so just call him citizen of the world. juan pablo, the unique accent man, studied filmmaking in argentina and holds a masters in creative and media enterprises from the university of warwick, england. he manages film, production services and commercial projects in the company .
yes, the two
star - crossed
lovers share a few flames; however, while peeta honestly is head - over - heels for katniss, she' s simply along for the ride. for katniss, their romance is purely a survival tactic contrived to keep them both alive. haymitch briefly mentions this after peeta' s interview in the film; however, the topic never returns .
while i may regret saying this at some future point in my life, i saw a lot of myself in swanson, the protagonist of this film who, day by day, is trudging through a malaise. not so much the naked debauchery, but definitely the desire to withdraw oneself from feeling. many people see this film as a critique of hipster culture. exposing the popular fallacy of believing that it is better to be above it all. to make a life of understanding the way the game is played, but just choosing not to play. there is definitely some of that peppered in this film, but what i really latched on to was the character study; one of a man who is obviously capable of empathy and understanding, but seldom exercises either mental process. at first it appears he feels nothing. sitting beside the bed, concerned little with the cancer that is languidly eating away bit by bit at the man who he calls father, he probes the doctor about prolapsed anuses. watching his sister - in - law frantically pace before his eyes, he assumes the role of a southern plantation owner, cracking wise about the good crop of slaves he now has in his possession. yet, aided by a surprisingly subtle but strong performance by absurdist comedian tim heidecker, one can see that he isn' t incapable of feeling. he simply prefers disaffection. after all, the world can some easily overwhelm you with emotion, so i understand the desire to want to control the sentiment of the room by creating one yourself. there are a lot of parallels to the television show louie. it has the capacity to make you laugh at the absurdity of it all one second, while leaving you speechless with grief the next. it is a recipe that doesn' t sit well with many. but for those who were looking for this particular dish, even if as a whole it isn' t perfect, the ingredients are a pleasure to take in .
in the forest near the end of the film? in the book, katniss makes mention of how the eyes of the mutts look awfully familiar, until she realizes they' re those of the fallen tributes. yes, the capitol actually made rue, glimmer, thresh and the rest of the bunch into mutated wolves. each ones shares the eyes of its tribute combined with a distinct fur that matches their hair .
fresh from its world premiere at the london film festival, this superior british crime thriller takes place in a shabby english seaside town that has seen better days, but with a plot that addresses much bigger questions of crime and punishment, masculinity and family loyalty. it is faithfully based on conviction, an acclaimed six - part bbc miniseries first broadcast in 2004, with an all - new cast stepping into the same character roles .
the ending of the film is deliberately ambiguous and raises more questions than it answers about both the characters’ relationships and the relationship between china and the west. luke’s attitude to his relationship with han is different because he’s more relaxed about being gay and it’s as if the fact of luke’s nationality is a deliberate strategy to contrast those attitudes, but also to examine what can happen when cultures with varying degrees of acceptance try to come together .
cook has made a name for himself in feature films as well, having made his theatrical film debut in spy kids 4: all the time in the world, with jessica alba, joel mchale and jeremy piven. in addition, cook had large supporting roles in two summer feature films of 2013, including the lone ranger, starring johnny depp, and the incredible burt wonderstone, starring steve carell, jim carrey and olivia wilde .
it didn’t matter. levinson knew reiser would be his rogue element—“a sensibility, a motor, that i knew how to play with. ” he encouraged him to explore off - script riffs like “nuance: it’s not a real word … ” or “you don’t chew your food; that’s why you get so irritable. you get lumps … you have roast beef in your heart that just stays there. ” by the end, reiser had so hijacked the patter that levinson had him serve as the movie’s literal final word, layering reiser - dominated banter over the closing credits—another nuanced touch that hollywood had yet to employ—and closing the story with his unscripted wedding speech. and as reiser spiels on, the camera follows in slow motion the bouquet tossed by eddie’s unseen bride until it drops onto the guys’ table. they freeze, staring, so stunned by the idea of marriage that it leaves them speechless .
bowie, who also has a recurring role on the big bang theory, remembers hearing about speechless during pilot season from actors who thought the subject matter was too risky. “this is either going to be really, really sentimental or it’s going to be really tasteless, ” bowie recalled of the chatter about the show. “i thought to myself, okay, what if it’s neither, or what if it’s a decent balance of both? wouldn’t that be a show i’d want to watch? ” then he read the script and caught onto the show’s dark sense of humor. “really early on in the script there’s a moment where ray calls jj a bully, ” he recalls. “i’ve never seen a kid who uses a wheelchair called a bully. i really wanted in. ” when bowie met fowler and realized playing with nonverbal cues would become a cornerstone of the comedy, he readily welcomed the challenge .
the movie makes it out to seem like katniss drops the act and slowly warms up to peeta. this is partially true; however, in the book the reader is constantly aware of katniss' true feelings toward peeta. she believes the entire romance an elaborate scheme that even peeta knows about. the film fails to show peeta discover katniss faked every hug, kiss and smile—for the most part—and that the idea of a relationship outside of the games is nothing more than a pipedream .
visually, the film looks as moody and gloomy as the plot, with a stylishly washed - out color palette of grainy browns and rainy - day grays. most interior scenes take place inside large wood - panelled offices and ancient, rambling, cluttered houses. this calculated aesthetic feels oddly retro and anachronistic for a contemporary drama, with a faintly 1970s sense of moral decline mirrored in urban decay. if this noir - ish family saga were a us remake, it might resemble one of james gray’s brooding manhattan melodramas about battling brothers, or clint eastwood ’s morally murky mystic river .
juliette lewis, best known for her oscar - nominated performance as danielle bowden in cape fear, was most recently seen in the academy award - nominated film, august: osage county. hailed as one of the most talented actors in the industry, the versatile actress has entertained audiences with her countless roles, including what' s eating gilbert grape, the basketball diaries, from dusk till dawn, the other sister, old school, and whip it. in secrets and lies, lewis plays detective andrea cornell, the county’s top homicide detective determined to catch 5 - year - old tom murphy’s killer .
but, at heart, diner is, as i love you, man director john hamburg says, “the cadillac of male - bonding movies, ” and no one has tapped that vein better in recent years than director judd apatow. with the 40 - year - old virgin and knocked up, apatow was credited with creating the “bromance, ” one of the few genres capable of luring the increasingly elusive male audience into theaters. when apatow was asked in the spring of 2009 to speak at the u. s. c. film school and screen his favorite movie, the choice couldn’t have been easier .
that kind of freedom isn’t always welcome. barkin, daly, and bacon didn’t have that kind of chops—nearly all their lines come straight from the page—and rourke, * diner’ * s breakout star, never connected with the process that became its great legacy. “the whole movie for me was an effort, because it wasn’t a film that i particularly wanted to be in, ” he says. “i didn’t get that middle - class sort of humor. i never hung out or rolled with guys, like what this movie was about. all this shtick and the bantering back and forth: man, i didn’t get it at all. ”
after watching the comedy, i' m sort of perplexed at the idea that i liked the movie. to be honest, i couldn' t give you a real reason why either. as a character study, it works to a degree, but it is sort of aimless. as far as plot, none. the whole production is done in the quietest and most depressing manner possible. i' d even go as far as to classify it as a dull movie. yet, i still liked it. a 35 year old hipster, who is on the verge of inheriting his dying father' s estate spends his days on his boat or galavanting through downtown acting like he works at places he doesn' t. his nights are mostly spent with his equally depressing and boring hipster friends who share in weird conversations with each other and drink. that' s the basis of the story to the film, and most of the time a lot less than that is going on. the comedy is offbeat and weird to be sure, but that is a big reason why i like it, i think. i love movies that desire to be something completely different and don' t care how it' s going to play to a large audience. this is completely different and it will never appeal to a large crowd, but there is an audience for it. by the way, the comedy isn' t really a comedy. you' d be hard pressed to throw this into any genre other than the broad independent film genre. as far as a recommendation goes for this film; i would never give anyone the idea that they would certainly enjoy it. odds are most won' t be able to sit through it and those that do will wonder why they did. for those out there like me though that have a taste for these type of movies, it' s worth a look .
made for $ 5 million and first released in march 1982, diner earned less than $ 15 million and lost out on the only academy award—best original screenplay—for which it was nominated. critics did love it; indeed, a gang of new york writers, led by pauline kael, saved the movie from oblivion. but diner has suffered the fate of the small - bore sleeper, its relevance these days hinging more on eyebrow - raising news like barry levinson’s plan to stage a musical version—with songwriter sheryl crow—on broadway next fall, or reports romantically linking star ellen barkin with levinson’s son sam, also a director. the film itself, though, is rarely accorded its actual due .
levinson dug in. without the director knowing, mgm had other actresses tested, but czech cinematographer peter sova—working on only his third feature film—took it upon himself “to make ellen look really good and the other girls look really bad, ” he says. “the other girls, i used these obscure angles and wide lenses and it wasn’t fair, maybe, but it was fair in one way. ellen was way above the other girls. ” weintraub backed down and has since become one of barkin’s great champions. when told, last spring, about sova’s piece of counter - sabotage, he said, “that’s not very nice. if i was him, i’d keep that quiet. ”
diner soon set house records in new york. a string of high - profile studio disasters such as cannery row and pennies from heaven had set up kwit for a fall, but diner may have been, as one mgm exec put it to the new york times, “the mallet that hit the camel on the head. ” on april 13 the studio fired kwit and replaced him with one of the movie’s champions, jerry esbin, who had good reason to declare a month later: “ diner is lazarus. ” though the film never received a wide release, moviegoers nationally were still paying to see it seven months later. soon, nearly everyone involved would be rich and famous .
but, while seinfeld mass - marketed levinson’s focus on minutiae, the ultimate film geek made it cool. in 1994, quentin tarantino’s pulp fiction won praise for its ultra - stylized, ultra - violent take on the l. a. underworld. but what made the movie click were the jazzy back - and - forths between hit men john travolta and samuel l. jackson about big macs, foot massages, and the virtues of eating pork like “that arnold on green acres. ” tarantino’s genius, first demonstrated in 1990’s reservoir dogs, sprang from the decision to make his reprehensible characters sympathetic—to make the audience laugh in recognition while wincing at the blood—through dialogue that any truckdriver would recognize. guy talk. diner talk .
meanwhile, two production crises serendipitously played into levinson’s hands, allowing his ambition to “do the ordinary” to take flight. the first occurred when johnson learned just how expensive it would be to rent a stadium and film a crowd scene, with the actors hanging from a goalpost in celebration. so the idea was dropped. oddly, levinson didn’t mind. “for a first - time director? that was really ballsy, ” stern says. “take your own script and mush it around and just have a vision of a movie that’s about nothing? i mean, we took out the one plot thing: it was about a football game, we were going to the game, we were at the game—and they cut it. ”
simon chung’s latest offering demonstrates a maturity for delving into issues and extraordinary sense of matching pace with events that will reward all who see it. boy - boy - girl love triangles are nothing new whether gay or straight (e. g. , the dreamers); opening a film with a completely naked lost soul who will need considerable healing is also not a new narrative device (e. g. , saved by the belles) and revenge more heinous than the crime has stimulated filmmakers’ imaginations since the dawn of cinema (unforgettably in confessions). here, chung has successfully combined all of those elements into a marvellous concoction of just what can happen when “there is nothing covered that will not be revealed” rears its deadly head .
secrets and lies features a cast of seasoned veteran actors and up - and - coming talent that deliver emotion - evoking performances as the show unfolds its central murder mystery. ryan phillippe stars as ben crawford, the main suspect in the murder on secrets and lies. the veteran actor has an extensive body of work on television and in movies since bursting onto the scene in the 1990s on the soap opera one life to live. phillippe has since starred in a number of hit movies, including white squall, 54, cruel intentions, i know what you did last summer, crash, stop - loss, and clint eastwood’s flags of our fathers. most recently, he was seen in the film lincoln lawyer and fx' s damages .
quickly, the cast’s offscreen dynamic began to unfold in an uncanny shadowing of levinson’s script. daly, so green that he didn’t know how to hit his mark, and reiser were both film novices playing men unsure of their place. rourke, 28 and just married, trafficked in a world - weary patter, much like his character, the gambling hairdresser boogie. earnest eddie was played by the wide - eyed guttenberg, who found himself startled by barkin’s swearing and was soon under mickey’s spell. “ [ guttenberg ] kept coming up to me, ” daly recalls, “and saying things like ‘mickey says that if i don’t have sex or beat off the whole time, my acting will get a lot better: i’ll have this endless tension. ’ i’m like, ‘you listen to this shit? ’ ”
“i wanted the piece to be without any flourish, without anything other than basically saying, ‘this is all it was, ’ ” levinson says. “these conversations that can go on endlessly through the night—bets over the stupid fucking things that you can bet on—is it. without gimmicks: nothing. without gimmicks. this is it. period. ” john wells, the executive producer of the kaleidoscopic 90s hospital series, er —nominated for a record 122 emmys during its 15 - year run—and former president of the writers guild of america, west, was a graduate student at the u. s. c. film school when diner came out. mesmerized by levinson’s “tremendous empathy for those characters even when they were being idiots, ” wells estimates he saw it 30 times in 1982 alone. he still makes a point of watching diner once a year .
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a guy is found by the police swimming naked. he can' t, or refuses to, speak and is sent to a hospital. since no diagnosis can be made, he will be transferred to a mental hospital, when his male nurse decides to take another route. slowly the reason for his speechlessness becomes clear. together with the nurse' s girlfriend and a female friend of the silent stranger, their history is explained .
really, this movie is just dumb! here' s what happens - this european dude goes to china to further his mandrin language studies. a native male chinese student becomes emotionally involved with the european dude. the chinese guy comes to an unfortunate end because it' s discovered he' s having an affair with the european guy. european guy goes bonkers and won' t talk to anyone and is found' nekkid' passed out on some river bank. he' s taken to a mental hospital where yet another chinese guy becomes attracted to him and puts his job on the line because he' s so taken with european guy. we eventually find out why european guy goes bonkers, and the ending of the story is just stupid. the whole movie is stupid and not one character comes across as believable. and the only thought i had is why these guys thought the european guy was a catch - he was just bad news !
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in a remote part of southern china, a mysterious westerner appears on a riverbank, completely naked. taken to the local police station and afterwards to the hospital, he refuses to speak. while the doctors soon move on, the hospital' s orderly, jiang, befriends the stranger. when jiang learns that the westerner is about to be transferred to a mental asylum, he decides to rescue him and takes him to his uncle' s village. there, he accidentally discovers a secret that provides a key to the mysterious stranger' s past ...
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found without a stitch and clearly traumatized into wordless silence, french foreigner luke (pierre - matthieu vital) is kept out of the insane asylum by jiang (gao qilun), an instantly smitten nursing assistant whose brand of tlc may well be headed for very personal international relations as the ever - attentive chinese rescuer ferries his unexpected companion back to his past .
lan (si tu yu ting) jiang’s date—one of the local police who helped fish luke out of the river—is none too amused when it appears the exotic, mute stranger has captured her prospective partner’s attention. (the screen positively radiates on several occasions when gao’s smile says more about the feelings between the two men than any line of dialogue could. )
filling out the principal characters are a pair of luke’s university chums who are both headed for careers in biology. ning (yu yung yung) seems to have spurned the amorous advances of the exchange student but can’t abide losing him to her current beau, han (jiang jian). the nervous young man—like so many others of any race or nationality—wants to know just how his “gayness” was so readily sensed by his sudden caucasian lover. no reply is given or needed as chung silently answers another of his theme’s questions .
the drama is lovingly unfolded, employing many deliberately stagnant shots (beautifully rendered by chan chi lap) that let the characters and audience reflect each step of the way, truly savouring or slinking away from those moments of truth. completely at one with that thoughtful atmosphere is sebastien seidel’s original score where percussionist karina yau is note perfect—particularly her marimba artistry for the “road” sequences .
as the miserable climax takes shape, chung’s ability to have his images speak louder than words fires on all cylinders. ning exacts her pound of steamy flesh during a christian church service where she is the steadfast, stoic accompanist even as the object of her scorn sings innocently in the choir. the shattering effect on all lives in the house of forgiveness, tolerance and love of all creatures is a cinematic knockout punch for the ages .
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a naked westerner walks into a river and is washed up on the banks of a nearby town. the police take him in but he refuses to speak, or is incapable of speech. eventually they transfer him to the local hospital where he is befriended by jiang, a handsome young nursing assistant, who brings him home - made steamed buns, and a tentative friendship develops .
before the silent foreigner can be transported to a mental institution jiang helps him escape and takes him into the countryside where they visit the places jiang spent his childhood. they begin to unlock things in each other, and this leads them back into how luke, as we discover the foreigner is called, came to the decision to drown himself .
a french exchange student, luke started an affair with han who, along with his girlfriend yun, is a member of a local chinese christian church. when yun discovers what luke and han are up to she takes it upon herself to expose han publicly and humiliates him to the point of suicide. the director cleverly tells this back - story from yun’s point of view first before revealing the whole picture. unfortunately this requires an overlong flashback that disrupts the narrative drive, already dislocated by the change of pace and tone once the more melodramatic thriller elements are brought in. the plot becomes somewhat overwrought and the young actors are just not strong enough to carry it .
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chung talks with san diego gay & lesbian news about how challenging it is to be an indie filmmaker and how he wanted his movie to explore both a western perspective of china as well as a chinese perspective of the west.
speechless ( chinese : 無言 ; pinyin : wu yan ) is a 2012 hong kong — mainland china film , directed by simon chung , about a mute frenchman who is found naked by the banks of a river in wuhan in mainland china . he is rescued and sent to a local hospital where he is treated by a male nurse who cares for him and later discovers the secrets of his past . speechless is the third feature film by director simon chung . his previous films were innocent , released in 2005 , and end of love , in 2009 . the film premiered at the bfi 26th london lesbian and gay film festival , on 28 march 2012 , and contains brief full-frontal male nudity . 
speechless (chinese: 無言; pinyin: wu yan) is a 2012 hong kong — mainland china film, directed by simon chung, about a mute frenchman who is found naked by the banks of a river in wuhan in mainland china. he is rescued and sent to a local hospital where he is treated by a male nurse who cares for him and later discovers the secrets of his past. speechless is the third feature film by director simon chung. his previous films were innocent, released in 2005, and end of love, in 2009. the film premiered at the bfi 26th london lesbian and gay film festival, on 28 march 2012, and contains brief full-frontal male nudity.
speechless (chinese: 無言; pinyin: wu yan) is a 2012 hong kong — mainland china film, directed by simon chung, about a mute frenchman who is found naked by the banks of a river in wuhan in mainland china. he is rescued and sent to a local hospital where he is treated by a male nurse who cares for him and later discovers the secrets of his past. speechless is the third feature film by director simon chung. his previous films were innocent, released in 2005, and end of love, in 2009. the film premiered at the bfi 26th london lesbian and gay film festival, on 28 march 2012, and contains brief full-frontal male nudity.