Shadow Magic
Genre: Comedy, Indie, World cinema, Buddy film, Comedy-drama, Coming of age, Drama, Chinese Movies
Year: 2000
Country: China
Language: Mandarin Chinese, English Language, Standard Mandarin
Starring: Yu Xia, Jared Harris, Lu Liping, Liu Peiqi, Xing Xufei, Wang Jingming
Shadow Magic (simplified Chinese: 西洋镜; traditional Chinese: 西洋鏡; pinyin: Xīyángjìng) is a 2000 film directed and co-written by Ann Hu. The film was a US-China co-production starring Xia Yu, Jared Harris and Xing Yufei. The movie was Ann Hu's directorial debut.
The film is set in Beijing, 1902, in the last years of the Qing Dynasty. A young portrait photographer, Liu Jinglun (Xia Yu), chances on a newly-arrived Englishman, Raymond Wallace (Jared Harris) in the capital. Liu, a self-learner of rudimentary English, is keen on new technology and gadgets, while Raymond has brought along the latest motion picture camera and projector with some silent film shorts from the West. Liu is fascinated by the "shadow magic" and offers to help Raymond bring in audiences for his theatre. Hence Liu and Raymond become partners. However, while the innovation thrills many, the more conservative Chinese in the capital frown upon the creation as a Western "pollutant".
Liu falls in love with Ling (Xing Yufei), the daughter of a well-respected Beijing Opera star, Lord Tan Xinpei (Li Yusheng). However, as he is poor and only an apprentice at the photography shop, Liu has no chance of marrying Ling. Instead,
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Internet Movie Database