原文: Movie Review:《Cry Woman》Les Larmes de Madame Wang

We saw this movie in the theater, in Paris, which it seems is one of the only places where this movie could be seen on the big screen other than at film festivals. The film is actually from a few years back, but was never shown in China, and while we think there are probably DVDs floating around, we can’t say that we’ve seen any of them.
The film is about a down and out Guizhou woman living in Beijing who ekes out a living for herself and deadbeat husband by selling DVDs. When her husband gets in trouble with the law and ends up behind bars, it’s up to her to find out how to bail him out. She goes back to Guizhou and ends up, with a former lover, setting up a funeral crying business, meaning that she gets paid to cry and mourn at funerals (this is supposed to bring some dignity and prestige to the deceased and their family).

The film is definitely of the wry and often none-too-subtle social commentary genre, but is still a comedy, of sorts, which is nice. There are times when their barbs are a bit too obvious, as with the prison warden who professes ideals of crime, punishment but is will not refuse a woman who offers him a quickie in the office. However, the film on the whole moves quite nicely, never bogging down, telling the story simply and effectively.

The Time Out review was pretty positive, as was the one we found on efilmcritic.com Some Chinese people who watched it recently in Paris seemed to like the film as well. However, the film was banned in China (there are maybe two sex scenes in the movie, none of them too raunchy for our tastes), and from a 2006 post from Simonworld, it seems that the director of the film, Liu Bingjian (刘秉鉴), has gone into …. selling men’s beauty products for Amway instead, which, if true, is a sad commentary on the state of Chinese art cinema.

EP 1

EP 2

Luckily for you, especially those of you in China, the entire movie is available in the video above.

译文: 哭泣的女人

      在巴黎，我们在剧院看电影。似乎这是唯一可以在大屏幕而不是在电影节上看到这部电影。这部电影实际上可以追溯到几年前，但却从来没在中国上映。可能当时有我们没有看过的DVD的版本流传。这部电影是关于一个在北京生活落魄的贵州女人，她靠卖DVD来维持她和她欠债的丈夫的生活。就在他丈夫因犯法被关进监狱，她要把他赎出来。她回到贵州，过去的情人现在是镇上做殡葬买卖的老板，他就叫她去做哭丧婆，给死者和他们的家人尊严。这部电影是扭曲的，招致很多社会评论，但仍然是部很好的喜剧。 虽然有的地方冲突过于明显，如狱长伪罪刑罚，却不拒绝女人在办公室和他偷情。故事整体叙述流畅，不缓慢，简单直接。暂缓看到这部电影也是好的。

      正像我们在efilmcritic.com 看到，很多中国人在法国看到这部影片，但在中国却被禁（可能因为里面的性镜头，过于淫秽不适于观看。然而在2006Simonworld的海报上，该片导演刘秉健开始替安利销售男性用品。如属实，应称得上是中国电影艺术史上的悲剧。

第1集

第二集

      幸运的读者，特别是在中国的读者，可以在上面的视频里看到电影的全部。