In the last couple of month, or maybe the last year I have seen maybe 10 movies about famous directors love for the cinema...of course one of China's best will do the same. Love for the cinema with a bit of family dynamic sprinkled in.
It is not as visually spectacular as other films from Zhang Yimou but it's still beautifully shot and the cinema scenes really have impact. To involve the entire village to clean up an entire reel that was dragged on the road, it was just not only very powerful chinese propaganda but also a very direct way for Yimou to show us how much he respects the film..and to present it all on the "silver" screen via back-light. Such a great couple of scenes.
Yeah, a lot of it also reminded me of communist Romania and they way they all gathered at the films to mindlessly watch anything, even newsreels, all too familiar. Not for me, but from the stories I heard.