Laikals The greatest movie ever made..!

SeeQuant Blending excellent reporting and strong storytelling, this is a disturbing film truly stranger than fiction

Lucia Ayala It's simply great fun, a winsome film and an occasionally over-the-top luxury fantasy that never flags.

Edwin The storyline feels a little thin and moth-eaten in parts but this sequel is plenty of fun.

paul vincent zecchino If The Shower fails to touch your heart in some way? Yeah, you maybe wanna go down hospital there, get yourself one them EKG's, see if your heart still beats, not. Why? Because The Shower tells a simple story of family and dear friends in same manner that Hollywood did many years ago, yet has not for some time due to its standing infatuation with the gods of efficiency, PC, and the same old leftist drivel.The Shower is one of the sweetest, most powerful films to grace the screen here at Casa d'Amplitron. Having watched it again recently, it's all the more poignant as the cancer of centrally-planned New World Odor efficiency spreads like a syphilis rash across the globe and devours every last bit humanity, including the oasis known as The Shower.You'll recognize The Shower's protagonist as one of the most expressive actors on the planet, who played lead in King of Masks. Unless, that is, you were busy watching high-grossing sensible films from Hollywood whose themes concern proper subjects such as surfboard decapitations, exploding helicopters, and face-booted bimbos barking like rabid Teamsters at geek-voiced capons attired sensibly in black rimmed glasses and Gothwear for the Young Condemned.No, my review The Shower don't tell ya much, there, 'bout the it, see? And that's 'cause maybe you wanna go rent it, download it or whatever everybody's does their computers these days - which is not the case here at Casa d'Amplitron, where The Shower graces the below decks film library in respectable VHS format.You want hi-tech vapid entertainment? Go watch some machetes-for-machismo-morons film, something like that. Wanna see if your cardiac T-waves are still capable of breaking over beautiful stories of life, family, and friends? Go hit The Shower.Paul Vincent ZecchinoAristocrat of Film AuteursManasoviet Key, Florida13 September, 2010

Dennis Littrell This delighted audiences at a number of film festivals, and it is not hard to see why. Director Yang Zhang, with the help of some very nice work by the three principle actors, Xu Zhu as the father, Master Liu; Quanxin Pu as the elder son, Da Ming; and especially Wu Jiang as the irrepressible and lovable younger son, Er Ming, spins a tale that will warm the coldest heart.The film starts with a man taking a shower in an automated booth in the middle of Beijing. He puts some money in a slot, opens the door, takes off his clothes and puts some of them on a conveyor belt to be cleaned, steps into the shower and gets cleaned with brushes and squirts of water and soap as though he's a car at the car wash. This is the future symbolically speaking, and the old bathhouse we will see in the next scene is the past. Agrarian China is giving way to industrial China.Pollution? Cultural revolution hang-over? Industrialization blues? No way. What we have here is a celebration of people and their kindness and love for one another, a celebration of goodness in the hearts of men. Yet I wonder how the Chinese government views this film. On the one hand, it clearly presents a pleasant view of China and its people. It is stringently nonpolitical without criticism of the present regime expressed or implied. Yet there is the slightest sense that the good old ways are going to be replaced by something that may not be as good. I think Yang Zhang had the wisdom to just let that be as it may. Tell a story about old men at the bathhouse where they get back rubs and massages, where they tell tall tales and reminisce about the good old days, where they can relax and play Chinese chess and stage cricket fights, where the Master is a spry and wise old guy and his assistant is his son, who may be retarded or autistic, but who does his job with glee and an infectious spirit of fun and good will.Enter back on the scene the older son, Da Ming, who is polished, well groomed and taciturn. He is uncomfortable with what he sees as the unsophisticated behavior of his father and brother. He represents modern China with his tie and his briefcase, his cell phone and his education. He has only returned because he thought his father was dying. When he sees that this is not true, he packs his bags and is set to return to his wife and his career. But then a crisis ensues and it is during this crisis that Da Ming sees the value of the natural, people-centered life that his father and his brother have been living.And so Yang Zhang reconciles the old and the new, and does so in such a charming manner that I will not object, especially since his style is so neat and so carefully expressed. One of the nice things he does that I miss in most movies is the way he dovetails the subplots within the larger story so that they are resolved before the picture ends. The bathhouse regular who sings "O sole mio" in the bathhouse as the water showers down upon him, much to the delight of Er Ming, finds that he can't sing in public because of stage fright. Near the end of the film he loses his stage fright and sings thanks to some inspired help from Er Ming. And the bathhouse regular who is losing his wife because...well, he tells a tale to Master Liu before he confesses the real reason. But Liu understands and again before the movie is over, husband and wife are reconciled.This kind of "happy ending" movie-making is unusual in today artistic and international films, or in almost any film directed at adults. Some happy endings are so contrived as to embarrass not only their contrivers but their audiences. And some are so blatantly condescending that the audience is offended. Here however the audience is delighted.See this especially for the comedic performance by Wu Jiang whose warm effervescence overcomes any handicap his character may have.(Note: Over 500 of my movie reviews are now available in my book "Cut to the Chaise Lounge or I Can't Believe I Swallowed the Remote!" Get it at Amazon!)

patherto Shower keeps within itself in so many ways. Almost all of the movie takes place in an old- time bathhouse, with the denizens supplying the humor, pathos, and emotional touches. The love and friendship between the proprietor and his retarded son is deep and moving. The way the older brother is drawn into this tiny world seems unforced and persuasive. The plot is meandering, full of surprises and ironies, and touched overall by a sense of what I'd have to call neighborliness in the relations and conflicts of the performers. This is a film I pull out when I want to believe in the world again.

JesNollie This was a very enjoyable film. A humorous, but poignant look at family, and the obligations that come with it. The story of a man who comes home from his life in the city to his fathers bath house in a small Chinese village. There he learns to appreciate, even cherish the very things he left home to get away from. The film is as visually beautiful as it is emotionally beautiful.