‘Caught in the Web’ to be China’s Oscar Entry
It just may take Best Foreign Language Film next year. It’s a small-budget but must-see film about a minor incident whose accidental video went viral on the Internet demonizing a secretary leading to her suicide. It’s an indictment of sometimes vicious ‘human flesh searches’ in China.
Top Chinese film director Chen Kaige’s latest movie, Caught in the Web, a modern-day drama about cyber bullying, has been selected as China’s official contender for the Best Foreign Language Film award at the Oscars in 2013.
The film, adapted from an online novel of the same title and starring Gao Yuan Yuan, Yao Chen and Mark Chao, looks at how a woman becomes the subject of an online witch hunt after an episode in which she refuses to give up her seat to an elderly man on a public bus is secretly filmed and goes viral.
One of China’s most respected filmmakers, Chen Kaige is best known outside of China for his period dramas, including Farewell to my Concubine (1993), which received the Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival.
This is the fourth time a film by the Chinese director has been selected to be China’s official Oscar entry in the Best Foreign Language Film category, the previous entries being Farewell to my Concubine (1993), Forever Enthralled (2009) and The Promise (2005). The last Chinese film that took home a foreign-language Oscar was 2002’s Hero, directed by Zhang Yimou.
According to the Chinese-language website news.cn, Caught in the Web, which was released in July in China, took in nearly 180 million yuan ($28 million) at the domestic box office, a record high for a Chinese art film in the country.
The movie received mostly positive reviews by movie critics in China, with many calling it the director’s best work after Farewell To My Concubine in 1993, reported Chinese-language news daily Takungpao.
– AFP