?? Fourty years have come and gone since “A Touch of Zen” was China’s first production to gain recognition at the 28th Cannes Film Festival in 1975. At the 68th Cannes International Film Festival, director Hou Hsiao-Hsian’s film “The Assassin” won the award for best director. Here we present to you the 17 Chinese films awarded in Cannes from 1975 to 2015. ??? “The Asassin” by Hou Hsiao-Hsien won the award for best director in Cannes in 2015. Set in ninth-century China, at the end of the Tang Dynasty, a highly trained female assassin is sent back to her home province to kill its governor after failing in one very important mission. “A Touch of Sin” by Jia Zhangke won the award for best screenplay in Cannes in 2013. The film revolves around four threads set in vastly different geographical and social milieus across modern-day China, ranging from the bustling southern metropolis of Guangzhou to the more rural townships in Shanxi Province. “Spring Fever” by Lou Ye won the award for best screenplay in Cannes in 2009. The protagonist is a private investigator hired to spy on a man who is having an affair with another man. However, the investigator becomes entangled in a love triangle with the boyfriend of the man he’s investigating and his own girlfriend. “Luxury Car” by Wang Chao won the side competition for the Prix Un Certain Regard in Cannes in 2006. The film follows an old man from the countryside who goes to Wuhan to search for his missing son, who his dying wife has requested to see one last time. In Wuhan, he meets his daughter, a karaoke bar escort who introduces him to an old police officer who offers to help. It soon becomes apparent to both the father and the policeman that the mobsters running the daughter’s karaoke bar and the son’s disappearance are linked. “Shanghai Dreams” by Wang Xiaoshuai won the jury prize in Cannes in 2005. The main character Qinghong is a 19-year-old student living with her overly protective father, mother and younger brother in a typical small apartment. Her “boyfriend” is Honggen, a working local boy who plays only a minor role in the film and develops an obsession with Qinghong, to her father’s contempt. Confiding in her best friend Xiao Zhen, Qinghong strives for love and independence. “Millennium Mambo” by Hou Hsiao-hsien won the technical grand prize in Cannes in 2001. The main character, Vicky, portrayed by actress Shu Qi, narrates her life starting in 2011, 10 years earlier. She describes her youth and the story of her changing life at the beginning of the new millennium. Vicky is torn between two men, Hao Hao and Jack, and her journey displays the parallel journey of the psyche and how one girl deals with her fleeting youth. “A One and A Two” by Edward Yang won the Best Director Prize in Cannes in 2000. The film is an epic story about the Jian family in Taipei from three different perspectives: the middle-aged father NJ, the young son Yang-Yang, and the teenage daughter, Ting-Ting. The three-hour film starts with a wedding, concludes with a funeral, and contemplates areas of human life in between. “Devils on the Door Step” by Jiang Wen won the grand jury prize in Cannes in 2000. During the Japanese occupation of China, two prisoners are dumped at a peasant’s home in a small town. The owner is bullied into keeping the prisoners until the next New Year, when they are due to be collected. The village leaders convene to interrogate the prisoners, then the townspeople struggle to accommodate them. One is a bellicose Japanese nationalist, the other a nervous translator. “In the Mood for Love” by Wong Kar-wai won the technical grand prize and best actor prize in Cannes in 2000. The film takes place in Hong Kong, in 1962. Chow Mo-wan, a journalist, rents a room in an apartment of a building on the same day as Su Li-zhen, a secretary from a shipping company. They become next-door neighbors. One day, they come to the conclusion that their spouses have been seeing each other. “Shanghai Triad” by Zhang Yimou won the technical grand prize in Cannes in 1995. The film is set in the criminal underworld of 1930s Shanghai and spans seven days. Tang Shuisheng has arrived in Shanghai to work for a Triad boss, also named Tang. He is taken to a warehouse where two rival groups of Triads carry out an opium deal that goes wrong, leaving one of the rival members dead. Tang is then taken by his uncle to Tang’s palatial home, where he is assigned to serve Xiao Jinbao, a cabaret singer and mistress of the boss. It soon becomes apparent that Xiao is also having an affair with the boss’s number two man, Song. “A Touch of Zen” by King Hu won the technical grand prize in Cannes in 1975. The story is largely seen through the eyes of Ku, who is a well-meaning but unambitious scholar and painter, who tends to be clumsy. A stranger arrives in the town wanting Ku to paint his portrait, but his real objective is to bring a female fugitive back to the city for execution on behalf of the East Chamber guards. “The Emperor and the Assassin” by Chen Kaige won the technical prize in Cannes in 1999. The film covers a great deal of Ying Zheng’s life, from his early life as a hostage to his dominance over China, and depicts him essentially as an idealist seeking to impose a peace or unity on the world but is defeated by various betrayals and losses. “Happy Together” by Wong Kar-wai won the best director prize in Cannes in 1997. “Happy Together” is a 1997 Hong Kong film that depicts a turbulent romance between two men. Ho Po-wing and Lai Yiu-fai, a couple from pre-handover Hong Kong, visit Argentina hoping to renew their ailing relationship. The two have a pattern of abuse, followed by breakups and reconciliations. “To Live” by Zhang Yimou won the grand jury prize and best actor prize in Cannes in 1994. In the 1940s, Xu Fugui is a rich man’s son and compulsive gambler who loses his family property to a man named Long’er. His behavior also causes his long-suffering wife Jiazhen to leave him, along with their daughter, Fengxia, and their unborn son, Youqing. “The Puppet Master” by Hou Hsiao-hsien won the jury prize in Cannes in 1993. Based on the memoirs of Li Tian-lu, Taiwan’s most celebrated puppeteer, this story covers the years from Li’s birth in 1909 to the end of Japan’s 50-year occupation of Taiwan in 1945. “Farewell to My Concubine” by Chen Kaige won the Palme d’Or Prize in Cannes in 1993. “Farewell My Concubine” spans 53 years, presenting the lives of two men against the historical backdrop of a country in upheaval. “Ju Dou” by Zhang Yimou and Yang Fengliang won the Luis Bunuel Special Award in Cannes in 1990. “Ju Dou” takes place in the early 20th century in rural China. The film is a tragedy, focusing on the characters of Ju Dou, a beautiful young woman who has been sold as a wife to Jinshan, an old cloth dyer. (SD-Agencies) ? | 