Checking on the Manchester HOME cinema website for listings of what they would soon be screening, I found out they were hosting an online Chinese Cinema Season. Finding two obscure titles in the line-up,I got set to make the crossing.

View on the film:

Following the coming of age of Peipei (played by a great Yao Huang in her debut role,with Huang blending youthful enthusiasm with a naive vulnerability) as she smuggles iPhones in order to raise funds to go on holiday with her pal and see snow in Japan, debut writer/director Xue Bai & cinematographer Songri Piao keep close to Peipei with excellent, filmed on location tracking shots which take Peipei into the underworld side-streets.

Separating Peipei between living in Shenzhen (a port city of China) and studying in Hong Kong, the screenplay by Bai makes things pretty clear which side of the crossing it leans on,with China keeping the long arm of the law held firm, that acts as a contrast to the crime-ridden streets of Hong Kong filled with rebellious youth.

In the middle of the political element supporting the straight and narrow, Bai smuggles in under Peipei's maturing a sharp aside on consumer-driven society, with Peipei wanting something that money can't buy, (seeing snow) whilst all those around her scramble for every shiny objects, which reflects the merciless grinding machine of an economy that leaves the likes of Peipei with no where to turn to but crime,as Peipei takes the crossing.

Linlin - a young lady living in Shenzhen and going to school across the border in Hong Kong has dreams and plans that she wants to put into fruition - one of them is taking her best friend to Japan which she needs a fair amount of cash for, on the back of this - she decides a course of action which leads her onto a path of events she has ultimately, little control over.

Watched this little gem on the Sichuan Film Channel, well worth a watch and the main role features a future star of Chinese cinema - Huang Yao - she was superb in this.

Typically, As a coming-of-age story,the film focuses on the growth of a protagonist from youth to adulthood, and as the CHINESE traditonal youth movie,there will ultimately demonstrate some specific factors,such as abortion/betray/gun/blood/fighting/suicide,etc. We all tired of that and no one is going to put up with it any more.So that is a big risk for me to spend 99 mins in the cinema after a long day at work. But the investments of time and money would prove worthwhile. Actually,THE CROSSING(GUO CHUN TIAN) avoid all of these usual old formula.It's neat and tidy and pure, just a Sixteen-year-old girl , Peipei attempts to earn money so that she can spend Christmas holidays at a Japanese hot spring with her friend. Of course it showed some factots sounds familiar to us,the divorced parents, neither of them cared about her,falling in love with best friend's boyfriend and then betrayed the orgination for him and so on. Luckly, the director has an excellent taste of expression, she found a special way to deal with those plots, used the detail of visual scene instead of letting characters speaking too many dialogues and avoided excessive performance.Besides,light and sound were handled so powerfully to enhance the affectiveness of the movie scene.

For example,the audiences must find theirselves nervous and fidgeting while watching Peipei and HAO tied the mobile phone to each other.We may expect something happens,but secretly pray it never occurs. There is no kissing and no hugging, no eye contact, just the behaviors, that's to say,the emotional had been restrainted, but we would be able to tell the secret meaning behind their actions, everyone could get the passing ambiguous emotions withing the red light and heavy breathing, the feeling of sensual had increaded through the very few dialogues.

I guess that's the right way to express the love of youth, it is done while it just happens. The pains,the love of the youth, the director made it decent and restraining and limiting, that's why it worths to watch. Precisely,there are also some drawbacks of this film,such as the suddely pause and the terrible music(yes that's so bad),some trivial shots should be deleted...but that's acceptable to a certain extent, as a debut. All in all,it's never too much to say it's a pleasant experience watching this film.