Good job that Roberto Benigni keeps his humour and melodramatic Italian style. The Chaplin style takes its share too. Continental Europeans are more sensitive to cultural and social changes in their countries. This movie was made in 1994, as the end roller reads. It was not the beginning of the hit of learning Mandarin but the number of learning is increasing. I feel so happy to see that the Chinese words used in the film carry meaning. In the old days, when Asia has not yet been in the spotlight or "internationalism" was not yet the buzzword, in movies, written words of Hindi, Chinese, Korean, Japanese carried no meaning because the western viewers didn't bother to know. Now that people got to know more about Asia, film-makers do reasearch more before they shoot the film. I love modern productions with high cultural awareness.
Movie is a good tool to show social, cultural or international changes. In the movie, the Chinese actors though only appeared a few minutes but they had their share like lines, "The candidate is able to write pretty good Chinese.", "Let's give him a question, not very difficult, not very easy." In the past, in most movies, no matter big or small, Asian got no line. Thanks, how I like the change. However, if their names are put in the end roller of this français-italiano production, which posed to be rather international, that would be even better. Interesting that there are more than ten examiners in the exam center. I was completely floored with laughter when I saw that scene. Anyone who has sat for HSK (Mandarin Chinese Proficiency Test) would know that was not true. The exam room in the movie is rather like a Politburo meeting.
I like the setting, a new developing district near Roma, Lazio. An interesting movie about a man (a suspect of serial killer: 18 women) looking for a job and so is learning Mandarin, somehow a novel language to the Europeans and living in a new area. New is the word I can think of when I was watching this hilarious movie. Just lots of fun and amusement in low expense (US$1.29 VCD).
Superb, bravo, buonissimo, magnifique, zhen peng! What a good discovery of Benigni's older production.
Movie is a good tool to show social, cultural or international changes. In the movie, the Chinese actors though only appeared a few minutes but they had their share like lines, "The candidate is able to write pretty good Chinese.", "Let's give him a question, not very difficult, not very easy." In the past, in most movies, no matter big or small, Asian got no line. Thanks, how I like the change. However, if their names are put in the end roller of this français-italiano production, which posed to be rather international, that would be even better. Interesting that there are more than ten examiners in the exam center. I was completely floored with laughter when I saw that scene. Anyone who has sat for HSK (Mandarin Chinese Proficiency Test) would know that was not true. The exam room in the movie is rather like a Politburo meeting.
I like the setting, a new developing district near Roma, Lazio. An interesting movie about a man (a suspect of serial killer: 18 women) looking for a job and so is learning Mandarin, somehow a novel language to the Europeans and living in a new area. New is the word I can think of when I was watching this hilarious movie. Just lots of fun and amusement in low expense (US$1.29 VCD).
Superb, bravo, buonissimo, magnifique, zhen peng! What a good discovery of Benigni's older production.