Zhang Yimou

Zhang Yimou's masterful, stirring "To Live" takes us from the turbulent, treacherous China of the '40s civil war to the brutal Cultural Revolution and beyond through the lives of one couple, who in the course of hardship and tragedy emerge as symbolic of the ordinary Chinese and their capacity to endure and to hope for a better future. Based on Yu Hua's "Lifetimes," the superb "To Live" is fortunately more absorbing than grueling--and it is indeed the latter.

When the Chow Yun-fat action-comedy epic "Let the Bullets Fly" opened in China last year, it quickly became a phenomenon. Lured by its splashy fight scenes and whip-snap dialogue, filmgoers swarmed theaters. The movie wound up taking in more than $100 million at the box office in China, the most for a homegrown film. Yet despite its Hollywood-style violence and an actor with international name recognition, "Let the Bullets Fly" hasn't even managed to find a distributor in the United States.

Poking around a pirate DVD shop down the block from the Apple Store in central Beijing one recent afternoon on her lunch break, Zhou Xin eyed the floor-to-ceiling selection of Oscar-nominated films, indie flicks and B-movies such as "Nude Nuns With Big Guns" before grabbing a sleek copy of "Black Swan," complete with a blurb in English and Mandarin, for closer inspection. "It looks creepy," said the 26-year-old, who works in public relations. She replaced it on the shelf and picked up "The Social Network," which she purchased for eight yuan, or about $1.22.

The Palm Springs International Film Festival will feature 22 premieres beginning Jan. 9 and running through Jan. 13. The schedule will include pictures from Europe, Japan, China and New Zealand submitted as their home country's official entry for an Oscar nomination for best foreign language film. Among the filmmakers represented are France's Luc Besson, China's Zhang Yimou and Japan's Masahiro Shinoda.

Chinese moviegoers may have to wait just a little longer for the latest installments of "Spider-Man," "Shrek" and "Harry Potter." The new releases may be delayed as China suspends imports of foreign movies in July, film distributors say, apparently part of a campaign to protect the local film industry.