After a long hiatus, China’s largest film festival is back and, with it, some of the best Chinese films of the year so far
For cinephiles in China, Shanghai is arguably the place to be in summer. For more than a week every June, Shanghai International Film Festival (SIFF), China’s largest film festival by number of films screened, brings the city a taste of both international cinema rarely shown in domestic theaters, and high-profile Chinese films before their world premiere.
From June 9 and 18 this year, the festival returned with its highly anticipated 25th edition after being cancelled in 2022 due to the pandemic. Some 450 titles from around the world screened in over 40 cinemas across the city—an incredibly diverse offering ranging from the superhero blockbuster The Suicide Squad (2021) to the seven-hour political saga A Tale of Filipino Violence (2022), the 4K restoration of A City of Sadness (1989), newer titles like Everything Everywhere All at Once (2022), and a fresh slate of domestic films.
Here are five new Chinese films from SIFF 2023 that are worth a watch:
Amarsanaa Battulga is a Shanghai-based film critic, researcher, and associate editor of ChinaNauts, an online magazine on contemporary China. When he is not watching, researching, or writing about films, he enjoys playing board games, practicing classical Mongolian, and thinking about going to the gym. He cannot ride a horse.
