Mandarin Chinese Movies

Quid

I've got a couple week break coming up and while I don't be studying especially hard I'd like to keep my ears at least somewhat accustomed to Chinese. So I'd like recommendations for movies that either have Mandarin spoken originally or dubbed, since I tend to have bad luck and every movie I own is Cantonese.

Preferred genres are comedy, action, kung fu, etc. I generally avoid drama and horror. Something centered on Chinese culture is obviously a plus.

Page-

Beijing Bicycle is the first movie that comes to my mind. It's a drama, for sure, and has some very depressing (outrageous may be more apt) themes, but it's a good movie and very much about China. Worth watching, I think.

Hypatia

If I remember right, Eat Drink Man Woman is in Mandarin, so is Curse of the Golden Flower, and Hero.

If you've got a local chinese-run grocery store, a lot of them will have a bunch of movies in the front that you can borrow that are in Mandarin.

Quid

Oh hey, Netflix now has a Mandarin language genre.

Guess this thread is solved unless anyone knows American movies with Mandarin dubs.

Erios

The Harry Potter Mandarin dubs are pretty hilarious.

But yeah, naturally Hero is a solid recommendation (you should see it anyway, it's a beautiful film.)

Quid

Erios wrote: »

The Harry Potter Mandarin dubs are pretty hilarious.

But yeah, naturally Hero is a solid recommendation (you should see it anyway, it's a beautiful film.)

I saw it years ago and, coincidentally, today being our last day in class all the teachers did was play Chinese movies in every room and our room got Hero.

Unearthly Stew

Just in way of suggestions: The Missing Gun is pretty good, so is World without Thieves, and Crazy Stone. The last two are two of my favorites actually.

OremLK

I remember Shanghai Triad being pretty damn good.

Dis

Quid wrote: »

Preferred genres are comedy, action, kung fu, etc. I generally avoid drama and horror. Something centered on Chinese culture is obviously a plus.

Comedy
Stephen Chow Movies.
He is the King of Comedy Movies. :winky:

Kung Fu
Bruce Lee Movies.
The Kung Fu Classic.
Jackie Chan Movies.
The successor of Kung Fu Movies and action films after Bruce Lee.

DHS Odium

I feel sad. I took a year of Mandarin in college. Now, a couple years later, I don't remember shit. I was top of that class too.

Dis

DHS Odium wrote: »

I feel sad. I took a year of Mandarin in college. Now, a couple years later, I don't remember shit. I was top of that class too.

That's how it is.
Lack of usage makes u forget what you have learn.

bobmyknob

Most Chinese movies, especially the discs that were designed for China, have two audio tracks, Cantonese and Mandarin. You usually have to tweak the audio settings, sometimes they have the languages on the left and right channels so you just use one of them and mute the one you don't want.

shadydentist

Steven Chow movies are partially in canto, partially in mandarin. They are awesome, though, so you should watch them anyways.

Good luck with Mandarin. Chinese is shit-hard to learn. Despite being a native speaker, learning characters seems to be beyond my capabilities.

Quid

shadydentist wrote: »

Steven Chow movies are partially in canto, partially in mandarin. They are awesome, though, so you should watch them anyways.

Good luck with Mandarin. Chinese is shit-hard to learn. Despite being a native speaker, learning characters seems to be beyond my capabilities.

Not too worried. I have an excellent school with the Chinese department maintaining a freakish pass rate compared to the other languages and my next job centers around Chinese. I just have to keep watching movies and reading things when I leave since the job is mainly technical language.

robotsintheskies

Try watching 'Not One Less'. There's another really good one about an artist and his father, but I forget the name...

Also, I join the others in wishing you the best of luck learning Chinese. It's a tough language to learn, especially all the goddamn characters.