Buddha Mountain

Buddha Mountain
Directed by	Li Yu
Starring	Fan Bingbing Sylvia Chang Bolin Chen Fei Long (Actor)
Music by	Peyman Yazdanian
Cinematography	Zeng Jian
Editing by	Zeng Jian, Karl Riedl
Studio	Laurel Films Huaxing Real Estate
Distributed by	Golden Scene
Release date(s)	October 24, 2010 (2010-10-24) (Tokyo Film Festival) March 4, 2011 (2011-03-04) (China)
Running time	104 minutes
Country	China
Language	Mandarin

Buddha Mountain is a 2010 drama film directed by Li Yu and starring Fan Bingbing, Sylvia Chang, Bolin Chen, Fei Long. It was produced by Laurel Films, a small independent production company owned by Fang Li and based in Beijing. Laurel Films also produced Li Yu's previous film Lost in Beijing.

This film chronicles the lives of three youths who have no intention of sitting exams and getting into universities and a retired Chinese opera singer who is mourning the death of her son. The film explores themes of teenage confusion, angst, and rebellion and the impermanence of life.

Plot

When singing on a pub stage, Nan Feng (Fan Bingbing) knocks a man unconscious. Nan Feng, her boyfriend Ding Bo (Chen Bolin), and another friend eat and drink by the roadside, saying it's so good to hit that man. Then they cross the railway and back home.

The next day, Ding Bo, waiting on the motorcycle and doing some bossiness by transporting passengers. Because he has no license, when the city officers come, he immediately leaves. When Ding Bo back home, he finds his father (Fang Li) is tiding his mother's picture on the wall. Ding Bo doesn't want his father to touch, so he denies. Fatso is rubbed by some mobsters when he is walking on the road. He refuses the mobsters’ order to buy some beers for them. In the night, Nan Feng and Fasto go to the mobsters’ place to make revenge. Nan Feng breaks a beer bottle on her head and everyone is shocked. Then Nan Feng kisses a girl. One young mobster asks Fatso to let Nan Feng go away.

One day, Nan Feng, Ding Bo and Fatso go to find room for rent. They knock at the door, Chang Yueqin (Sylvia Chang) opens the door to let them in. After bargain, they make the deal and then cross the railway back home. Then we see Teacher Chang wearing performance cloth practices Peking Opera. We know she is a Peking opera Teacher. A cop knocks in to let Teacher Chang to make her son’s death certificate. Teacher Chang is too reluctant, and then the cop takes the materials away to help Teacher Chang to take the procedure.

Nan Feng is taking a shower when the cell phone rings, she answers the phone. In her words, we know that this phone call is made by her mother, and Nan Feng wants her mother and father make a divorce because of her father's drinking all the time.

Nan Feng, Ding Bo and Fatso rent a man-cab to take their things to new place. When they leave, Nan Feng holds a big bear toy with a sad mood. In new house, they are forced to wake up in the morning by the sound Teacher Chang practicing opera. Nan Feng misuses the newspaper as the toilet paper and eats Teacher Chang’s soup by mistake.

Then we see Teacher Chang opens a garage, a crash-damaged car is in it.

Nan Feng, Ding Bo and Fatso attend the remarriage ceremony of Ding Bo’s father. During the ceremony, Ding Bo wants to drink together with the bride, but his father refuses that. Then Ding Bo and his father have a fight. At last, Nan Feng and her friends leave.

In the morning, Fatso changes the disk in the DVD player so Teacher Chang can’t practice opera with the music.

In the pub, the boss talks to Nan Feng that the man she hit is in the hospital and wants 20000 RMB as compensation. Nan Feng asks her boss, are you still a friend? Then she leaves.

On the launch table in a restaurant, Ding Bo tells Nan Feng he has sold the motorcycle for 3000 RMB, and gives the money to Nan Feng. They joke to sell blood and fresh to earn money. Back home, Ding Bo finds his jeans are destroyed, so he searches the house but unconsciously find 20000 RMB in a suitcase above a closet, then he steals the money and gives it to Nan Feng. Nan Feng back to the pub with Ding Bo and Fatso, gives the money to the boss. On their way home, they buy some fake bills. When they back, they put them in the suitcase in order to blind Teacher Chang. Then they down stairs the house, finding Teacher Chang is leaving from the garbage. They wander what’s in it. Because the door unlocked, they get in and find the destroyed car. The car can still work, so they drive to the road, listening to Xu Wei’s song in the car, singing “when we are child, we want to go outside to look the world’s prosperity, but now we are floating everywhere and have no home”. Nan Feng sees a cliff when they refuel the car, so they take a visit. When they up the cliff, they find a destroyed Buddha temple with destroyed sculptures in it. Teacher Chang is very angry when they come back.

Then we see Nan Feng, Ding Bo and Fatso sitting on the railway, with confused eyes.

Nan Feng, Ding Bo, Fatso and Teacher Chang are eating the supper when someone knocks the door. They open the door and come in a disabled girl. Teacher Chang is shocked when she see the girl, then Nan Feng and his friends know there’s something between them, so they leave. The girl says to Teacher Chang: I have to come to see him. Chang says: are you here to celebrity his birthday? Or remind me that he is dead? Chang opens the cake box, finding a cake in it with cream-decoration words “you are in heaven, also in my heart”. Chang says: this is too romantic, my son died because you want romantic, can you leave me and my son alone? Then the girl leaves. In the night, Chang sitting in the car cries a lot. At the meantime, Nan Feng and his friends are watching fireworks at the top of a building. When they home, they find Chang suicide herself by cutting wrist and take her to hospital immediately. Finally, Teacher Chang is rescued.

Nan Feng and her friends again get in the train secretly, they laughing, shouting, and crying on the train. They are waiting for a train home at Buddha mountain railway station. When they back home, they put 2800 RMB in the suitcase.

The repaired car driven by Ding Bo stopped in front of them when they are eating by the road. Then they get in the car and stopped at a destroyed building. By the flashback scenes, we know this building was destroyed by the 2008 Sichuan earthquake. They took a picture helped by a monk in front of the destroyed Buddha temple.

In the pub, Nan Feng sees Ding Bo kissing a girl, and then she goes out. Ding Bo follows, but Nan Feng doesn’t want to see him. Back home, Nan Feng lying in the bed cries. Teacher Chang asks her if she misses parents, Nan Feng says no. The next day, Nan Feng back to her home by the train. Ding Bo receives a short message when he is sleeping. The message is: I’ve left and never come back again, sent by Nan Feng. In the morning, Ding Bo talks to Teacher Chang, says he is jealous of her.

In a KTV, Nan Feng sings: I want to fly in every of your colorful dreams, to tell you, I love you. Her friends console her, saying nothing is easy, in such big world, who cares about us? The same night, Ding Bo and Fatso fight with a driver.

Nan Feng comes to the hospital where her father is, she drinks crazily in front of her father, and her father wants to stop her. Nan Feng says, go and drink to kill yourself.

Nan Feng back to Ding Bo, they get in the train again and go wherever the train takes them to. When Nan Feng and Ding Bo sitting on the railway, Nan Feng asks Ding Bo why can him be with other girls but not with her? Ding Bo says: I have always felt that only after a man owns a lot of things can he have the woman he loves, but I have never understood the meaning of "lots of things". Nan Feng says: even though you have nothing, you still can have the one you love.

Back to Teacher Chang’ house, they find Teacher Chang is burning money. They stop her, telling her some real bills in it. After that, they four go to pub, drinking and dancing, Nan Feng lays on the bed with Chang when they come back home.

Morning, Ding Bo meets his father, a railway officer. Ding Bo hates his father left away when his mother was ill. Ding Bo’s father says he didn’t leave, in fact, he was kneeling down, kowtowing to other people, begging to borrow money.

Nan Feng, Ding Bo, Fatso and Teacher Chang go to the destroyed Buddha temple. They make some repairing and painting, and hang a bell. In the night, they talk to each other. The monk says his master’s real body is in the temple. Teacher Chang says she has done all she has to do. The next morning Nan Feng and his friends seek Teacher Chang and they find Teacher Chang is on the opposite cliff top. Nan Feng looks down to the cliff to see the train passing by, when she raises her head, she finds Teacher Chang is disappeared. Finally, they know Teacher Chang jumped off the cliff and died.

Awards

Year	Group	Award	Result
2010	23rd Tokyo International Film Festival	Best Actress – Fan Bingbing	Won
		Best Artistic Contribution – Li Yu	Won
2011	Casa Asia Film Week	Best Film	Won
	18th Beijing College Student Film Festival	Best Actress – Fan Bingbing	Won

Theme Song Lyric

Lyrics by Han Han. Music by Mavis Fan. Performed by Fan Bingbing

Original	Translation
辞	Farewell
看着, 来了, 夜行的列车,	Look, it’s coming, the train travelling in the night,
搭上, 或迎向, 孤独么? 或是疯了?	Get in, or in its way, are you lonely? Mad?
热血, 洒哪里, 青春都会落幕,	Our blood, wherever it spills, our youth will be end,
来吧, 洒这里, 反正一起上路.	Come, spills here, after all, we will die together.
就像, 花辞树, 总是留不住,	Like the flowers leave the tree, can’t be saved.
他懂, 或不懂, 反正, 我不从.	He knows, or doesn’t know, anyway, I won’t follow him,
你懂, 你必须懂, 否则, 我该何从?	You know, you must know, or where I should go?
热血, 都洒在青春里,	Our blood, spills in our youth,
和你, 一起涂地.	I will die with you.
可惜, 我总会冷下去,	It’s a pity that my body will be cold,
问你, 留或离去?	Ask you, stay or leave？
就像, 花辞树, 总是留不住.	Like the flowers say farewell to the tree, can’t stay.

Alternate versions

This film's release in China consisted of a version different from the version seen at Tokyo International Film Festival. The deleted content including the forced demolitions and the beginning scenes (Sylvia Chang's role originally is at the beginning of the film, she make a scene in Beijing Opera Troupe when her position in the troupe is replaced by another actor, so she is frustrated when the three youngsters first meet her. This clip is deleted, or the role teacher chang will be more complete). Director Li Yu said the deletion was not the request of the State Administration of Radio, Film, and Television, just to make the whole movie rhythm better and narrative smoother.

Reception

The film received generally positive reviews from critics. The film was a financial success, with a domestic gross of more than 70 million RMB.The Hollywood Reporter criticized this film could easily have been a rote, melodramatic weeper but is saved from that fate by some astute writing, strong performances and an almost utter dearth of expected devices and although there are jumps in the growth of the characters, it's hard to find serious fault when the film has such an intense veracity otherwise. The Variety wrote younger thesps also impress, particularly Fan, who makes Nan Feng both childlike and fearsome. Chen's Ding Bo is less detailed, but scenes with the character's father (producer/co-writer Fang Li) give the thesp opportunity to explore greater emotional depths.

External links

• "Tokyo International Film Festival"
• WSJ Review
• Buddha Mountain at the Internet Movie Database