IMPORTANT NOTE: please use a VPN whenever visiting Hextube, or anywhere else on the internet, for that matter. Protect your privacy.

For this Friday Movie Night, the people demanded more Chinese films, and so, we’ll watch one of the all-time classics of Chinese cinema: Farewell, My Concubine (1992), the magnum opus of Chen Kaige, who is otherwise best-known for The Battle at Lake Changjin (2021). It centers on a boy raied to play female parts in Chinese operas, and his rise and fall from the 1930s through the 1960s, as well as his romantic entanglements with both men and women. It won the Palme d’Or at Cannes in 1993 and is currently ranked #154 on Letterboxd’s Top 250 films of all time.

After that is German stop-motion fairy tale The Adventures of Prince Achmed (1926), the oldest surviving animated feature film, as well as the earliest feature of note directed by a woman (Lotte Reiniger). Inspired by the Arabian Nights, it tells the story of a young prince with a flying horse who battles an army of demons to win the heart of a princess. The entire movie unfolds via silhouettes of paper cutouts, a style rarely used since. This film is pretty much universally acclaimed and considered the apex of silent-era animation, so let’s check it out.

We’ll start at 8PM EST on Hextube, right here:

https://live.hexbear.net/c/movies

Be there, comrades!

Letterboxd:

• Farewell, My Concubine: https://letterboxd.com/film/farewell-my-concubine/
• The Adventures of Prince Achmed: https://letterboxd.com/film/the-adventures-of-prince-achmed/

Doesthedogdie.com links:

• Farewell, My Concubine: https://www.doesthedogdie.com/media/12819
• The Adventures of Prince Achmed: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0015532/parentalguide?ref_=tt_stry_pg

CWs for Farewell, My Concubine:

• Death of dog.
• Child abandonment.
• Domestic violence.
• Gaslighting.
• Opium abuse.
• Alcohol abuse.
• Someone is physically restrained.
• Sexual assault: at about 40 minutes in, a perverted older man wrestles a young boy onto a bed. No sex acts are shown and the scene cuts away, but the implication is clear.
• Someone struggles to breathe.
• Finger mutilation.
• Hanging,
• Suicide.
• Genital trauma.
• Torture.
• Infant abduction.
• Death of child.
• Sexualization of minor (by other characters.)
• Shower scene.
• Spitting.
• Suicidal ideation.
• Crying baby.
• Obscene language.
• Babies.
• Miscarriage.
• Misgendering.
• “Man in a dress” jokes.
• Homophobic slurs.
• Death of LGBT person.
• Sex.
• Nudity.
• Objectification of female characters.
• Male character ridiculed for crying.
• Homelessness.
• Blood and gore.
• Gun violence.
• Sad ending.

CWs for The Adventures of Prince Achmed:

• Silhouetted nudity.
• Kidnapping.
• Bath scene.
• Orientalism.

Links to movies:

• Farewell, My Concubine: https://tankie.tube/w/7ntGtMS8Fa6v6k9Tv92qNr
• The Adventures of Prince Achmed: https://tankie.tube/w/k6jh1L3gydZfpuQ7jXBeJQ