AshUnow This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

Bea Swanson This film is so real. It treats its characters with so much care and sensitivity.

Kien Navarro Exactly the movie you think it is, but not the movie you want it to be.

Staci Frederick Blistering performances.

lnp3 Set in 1976 in some unidentified midsize city, "Peacock" tells the story of three young adult members of the Gao family trying to make their way in post-Cultural Revolution China. This is very much a fleeting moment in time when Chinese society is still marked by the austerity of the Maoist era and when foundational beliefs in communism have all but vanished--soon to be replaced by consumerism.Structured as a kind of trilogy that puts each child successively into the foreground, it begins with the tale of Weihong (Zhang Jingchu), the daughter and youngest child. Returning home one day on her bicycle, she experiences an almost mystical encounter with a group of male and female paratroopers parachuting into a nearby field. When the parachute strings of the squad leader, a handsome man with a Beijing accent (as the subtitle indicates), gets tangled in her handle-bars, she resolves at that moment to become a paratrooper herself. That decision has more to do with the romance of the uniform, an attraction to the squad leader and the esthetics of the blue silk parachute than it does with the legend of the Red Army. Furthermore, the Beijing accent has a certain cachet for Weihong, which for denizens of her city must have the same class connotations that an Oxbridge accent has for somebody living in the East End of London.After the Red Army rejects her application, she carries a torch both for the handsome squad leader and the numinous parachute. At home she sews together her own parachute, attaches it to the back of her bike like a kite and rides through the streets until unceremoniously crashing into another bike. While she lies semiconscious on the street, an admirer, whom she has rejected in the past, takes the parachute hostage. He will only release it after she has had sex with him in a nearby forest. In this film, love--like all other ideals--comes in short supply.full: http://louisproyect.wordpress.com/2006/06/16/peacock/

Jugu Abraham When accomplished cinematographers take to direction, they often make superb films (William Fraker's "Monte Walsh", Nicholas Roeg's "Don't Look Now" and Govind Nihalani's "Aakrosh") that are often accepted as great movies much later. In the case of cinematographer-turned-director Changwei Gu, to be awarded a Silver Bear for his debut as director must have been nothing short of a dream start into a new career.Interestingly director Gu, opted to entrust the camera to Shu Yang and not do the job the world knew him to be accomplished at. Director Gu, however, opts to act as a lonely, blind accordion player who commits suicide.I am not Chinese but this film had me enraptured from start to finish. The film had superb music by Peng Dou (courtesy Chinese National Symphony Orchestra), enchanting photography, incredible performances and a multi-layered story of a close-knit five member family with family values best appreciated in Asian communities. Though the film is set in the late Seventies in the years following the Cultural Revolution, the film is almost devoid of direct political comments.The film is a common man's epic. The film is a 144 minute film (originally 4 hours) that was easily the most rewarding film at the just concluded Dubai Film Festival. It is a tale of a 5 member family told in three segments by the three children: a daughter who causes trouble for the family but emerges from an ugly duckling into a mature and cynical swan; an elder son who is mentally challenged, physically bloated, but pure in heart; and a younger son, loving, sensitive and occasionally worldly wise. The three perspectives of the family are punctuated by a cardinal shot of the family eating a simple meal. Like Kurosawa's "Rashomon," the three versions offering different perspectives of the family provide cinematic entertainment that is demanding of the viewer.The first segment of the story from the view of the girl is richer than the other two, primarily due to the rich musical subplot of her interactions with the blind musician (played by the director). The segment offers fodder for the impressionable dreamer in all of us: the power and the glory associated with a parachutist soldier, the importance of getting married to a loving husband, and the importance of playing music very well as an escape route from the daily social drudgery of washing bottles.The second segment told from the perspective of the mentally challenged brother looks at society and predictable collective reactions to simple incidents that are not based on reason or analysis.The third segment told from the practical younger brother's view takes another perspective--the best way to survive in an evolving society that is neither one of a dreamer or one of submission to mass reaction.The film ends with three families of the sister and two brothers passing a peacock in a zoo. They state the peacock never dances in the winter. As they move on, the peacock does dance. The beauty of life is best perceived as you move away from the incidents and look at it from a distance, dispassionately. Melodrama takes a back seat. In the forefront, the director presents a philosophical, positive view of life--not in the least limited to the geographical boundaries of China.I wish more people get to see this gorgeous family epic from China. It is one of the finest films of the decade.

YNOTswim The story is set in the 1970s in a small town in China. A middle aged couple has three children. The eldest son is obese and mentally challenged, therefore he is teased and outcasted by others. The second child is an outgoing and energetic daughter, who is not afraid of doing anything to pursue her dreams or to survive. The youngest child is a shy and quiet boy who is ashamed by his older brother and tries to break away from the misery in his family. Breaking into three sections focusing on each of these siblings, the film allows us to look into the lives of ordinary Chinese people the 70s.With poetic cinematography, this film reveals fascinating stories and characters to the audience. After watching this film, I doubt that anybody would forget the image of an old lady slowly passing the dinning table in the hall way where the family has supper together everyday. We witness how the three siblings dreamed, how they fought to make their dreams come true, and how they succeeded or failed, and how powerless and hopeless they were to accept their fate.This is a must see, not to be missed.

shhyin This is actually an excellent work of art full of symbolism. The director doesn't force to impose his ideas into your mind, which is the very reason the pace is set slow. The movie was exposed with strong cinematic languages, such as stage drama-like long shots, great acting, and finally fabulous music. The music matches the theme so well that we are reminded of the music composed by Glass for "The Hours". It circumvents your usual expectation of a social environment of Mainland China in late 1970s' and early 1980s', during which the Chinese society was in the dawn of spectacular transformation, economically and culturally. It tells the story of the cruel reality of life. It looks like there is not bit happiness in the movie. No true love, no respect between people, all about humiliation and desperation, leaving alone realizing one's dreams. But the movie reveals tremendous subconsciousness of a lot of people who failed to express it by themselves and presents profound, twisted human nature in certain social circumstances. If you ever lived through that period in China (maybe even now, for some people, in some part of that country, although the situation has been greatly improved), it inspires enormous imagination and thoughts. Life, life, life, how many people didn't enjoy your beauty before you pass by without a trace? Surely the concepts of human dignity and meanings of life come upon surface again. The style is so "anti-Hollywood" and so efficient and once again proves that the language of films is universal. What a shame that only a very limited population have gotten the chance to watch it. Although it's pretty long (144 minutes), you just expect more from this great cameraman-turned-movie director. So what's his next? Could he recruit enough resource to make a movie about today's China with philosophical symbol? One can't help but holding his breath because this man is definitely talented enough to get out one some day.