Qing hong

The conflict between authoritarian fathers, expecting respect, and their children is a common theme of contemporary Chinese movies; so are the political changes of the recent past (although don't expect to see a film about the Tiannanmen Square massacre). 'Shanghai Dreams' fits this pattern, and there are some highly effective scenes in it: one, a showdown in a factory, with the sound of the machines providing a hideous underscore to the threat of violence; another, where an attempted escape is followed entirely from within the back of a vehicle. But I'm not quite sure it deserved its Cannes prize; Goa Yuanyuan appears a little too old for her character, some of the dialogue is a little expository (at least in translation), and the sense of claustrophobia supposedly felt by its characters (exiles from Shanghai, stuck in a remote industrial town) is not entirely conveyed: I didn't feel that I was pining for Shanghai when watching this movie, and perhaps I should have done. And I didn't quite know what to make of the ending, which though shocking, has a slightly incidental feeling to it. This does not make this a bad movie; but I've seen other films (for example, 'The World'), which have offered more original insights into the fast-changing face of modern China