(minor spoilers.) I watched it in a local theater yesterday, laughed out loud along with fellow audiences countless number of times, and am still chuckling at the many hilarious moments that pop out in my mind...
It's Ning Hao's second hit in China (the first being "the crazy rock (or stone?)", and people often relate him to directors like Guy Ritche, Quentin Tarantino, or Cohen brothers, given that his recent movies adopted certain ways of story-telling of theirs, i.e., the interweaving of many plot-lines, the bizarre coincidences, and the uncanny humor that comes out of those coincidences...
Indeed Crazy Racer (Silver medalist) has a lot of these elements, but all incorporated seamlessly in a genuine Chinese setting (both physically and culturely), with something more. The movie sets in a southern city in modern China, Xia'men, which is close to Taiwan. The figures come from many different regions (North, South, Taiwan, Thailand, etc.). The story starts with an unlucky (and yet funny) incident that happens to our lead role, a professional bike racer. Then the camera rolls to a couple of year later, where several chains of bizarre incidents that happen around and to him
Everyone in the movie, from the lead guy to the passing supporters, from the real gangsters to newbie killers, are all, real and likable, with ridiculously surprising and funny things happen to them. No cliché of China or Chinese people, or the ambition of portraying the whole Chinese philosophy, with which some recent big movie productions from China have played (and failed).
Bottom line -- this movie is smart and hilarious -- highly enjoyable. A real gem in current Chinese movie industry, especially considering the outrageous censoring the movie has to go through
It's Ning Hao's second hit in China (the first being "the crazy rock (or stone?)", and people often relate him to directors like Guy Ritche, Quentin Tarantino, or Cohen brothers, given that his recent movies adopted certain ways of story-telling of theirs, i.e., the interweaving of many plot-lines, the bizarre coincidences, and the uncanny humor that comes out of those coincidences...
Indeed Crazy Racer (Silver medalist) has a lot of these elements, but all incorporated seamlessly in a genuine Chinese setting (both physically and culturely), with something more. The movie sets in a southern city in modern China, Xia'men, which is close to Taiwan. The figures come from many different regions (North, South, Taiwan, Thailand, etc.). The story starts with an unlucky (and yet funny) incident that happens to our lead role, a professional bike racer. Then the camera rolls to a couple of year later, where several chains of bizarre incidents that happen around and to him
Everyone in the movie, from the lead guy to the passing supporters, from the real gangsters to newbie killers, are all, real and likable, with ridiculously surprising and funny things happen to them. No cliché of China or Chinese people, or the ambition of portraying the whole Chinese philosophy, with which some recent big movie productions from China have played (and failed).
Bottom line -- this movie is smart and hilarious -- highly enjoyable. A real gem in current Chinese movie industry, especially considering the outrageous censoring the movie has to go through