An American in China

Good
This is good because it shows the real china in detail. Real chinese english accents , real chinese characters, real culture. I have lived in china for a few years so recognise this as the real deal. Its a good a travel insight into China you can get for the usual westerner and had a nice romantic storyline with suberb acting by the chinese leading lady in particular. Only spoiled by a vollleyball fun fight and a scene of angry chinese villlagers running after the american. Easily enjoyable, touching and lots of wisdom too. A rare find in a day of films that skim the surface.

Fantastic. Funny, and accurate
To start off...I skipped the first ten minutes or so of the movie. It's pretty much stupid MTV real-world like depictions.

I recommend you do the same. Just skip forward to the part where he travels to asia.

The most commendable thing about the movie is its realism. There is no embellishment: this is how asian people are and how asian streets look. The humor is light-hearted as well, but funny I found. I'm actually only half-way through right now, so I don't know how it ends, and frankly, I don't care. Enjoy.

Watch it for a look at modern-day village China, not for the story
First, in the extras we learn that this movie was filmed using mostly the real inhabitants of a small Chinese village, so their (mostly ordinary) reactions to things that happen really show that despite what politicians would have us believe, these are real people, the kind you meet in everyday life. The have jobs, cook, take care of kids, watch TV (together, since apparently there's only one TV in the whole village--reminds me of when watching TV in America in the 1950's was supposed to "bring the family together")...

I watched this movie not so much for the story, but for a welcome, close look at the culture that is the real China. For example, two Asian values were subtly displayed in one short sentence, spoken by the high-school educated female lead of the movie: "Boys are so lucky." (This line is delivered with a kind of "oh, well" feeling. There's not a hint of the kind of rebellion that an American raised after women's lib would feel obliged to raise.) This...

Click to Editorial Reviews