I Wish I Knew

海上传奇 (original)

6.9

/10

2h 5mDocumentary History

Shanghai's past and present flow together in Jia Zhangke's poetic and poignant portrait of this fast-changing port city. Restoring censored images and filling in forgotten facts, Jia provides an alternative version of 20th century China's fraught history as reflected through life in the Yangtze city.He builds his narrative through a series of eighteen interviews with people from all walks of life-politicians' children, ex-soldiers, criminals, and artists (including Taiwanese master Hou Hsiao-hsien)-- while returning regularly to the image of his favorite lead actress, Zhao Tao, wandering through the Shanghai World Expo Park. (The film was commissioned by the World Expo, but is anything but a piece of straightforward civic boosterism.) A richly textured tapestry full of provocative juxtapositions.

Spoken language: zh

Starring Zhao Tao, Chen Danqing, Toon Wang, Hou Hsiao-hsien, Wei Wei, Rebecca Pan, 森悠也, Han Han, Lim Giong, Ming-yi Fei

Watch "I Wish I Knew" from streaming services Vudu, Kanopy, Apple TV+ (itunes) released in 2010. It's a documentary and history movie, and has a rating of 6.9 out of 10 from Imdb which is usually fine for this kind of movie.