News
ONE SECOND
Media:
More than two years after the world premiere of Zhang Yimou's "One Second" was canceled mere days before its scheduled gala screening at the Berlinale on account of a "technical problem" - the insultingly transparent wording of a censorship bureau grown smug about its power - the renowned Chinese filmmaker's most intimate movie since the days of "Hero" and "House of Flying Daggers" is finally here. Or at least some version of it is, as specifics about whatever snips and reshoots have taken place since 2019 remain as vague as the Chinese government's reason for interfering with the film in the first place.
Rumor had it certain officials were convinced the movie was a lock to win the festival's Golden Bear, and panicked at the international attention such a prize might attract to a story that reflects the poverty caused by the Cultural Revolution (albeit with only a small fraction of the searing harshness seen in late-20th-century works like "The Blue Kite" and Zhang's own "To Live"). It's a testament to the surviving cut of "One Second" that such an explanation still feels vaguely credible...
Set in 1975, "One Second" begins with an elegantly simple encounter that combines the sly black comedy of "Blood Simple" (which Zhang once remade) with the elemental dread of "No Country for Old Men" (which Zhang did not). A nameless fugitive played by "Cliff Walkers" star Zhang Yi has escaped from a prison somewhere near Dunhuang, a remote desert town surrounded by the biggest ocean of sand dunes this side of Arrakis. He shuffles into the first village he can find, desperate for water, but even more desperate to catch that night's screening of the 1964 propaganda epic "Heroic Sons and Daughters." Alas, he's too late, and the reels are already being loaded onto the motorbike that will drive them to the next oasis a million miles away. The fugitive can't even process his disappointment before an orphan girl - the kind with a permanent streak of dirt smeared across her face - steals the footage and runs off into the darkness, kicking off a frenzied chase shot under midnight-blue skies and scored to nothing but the whistle of a desert wind...
READ FULL REVIEW
One Second Review: Zhang Yimou's Censored Drama Is a Nostalgic Gem | IndieWire
