Shadow Magic (2000)

Shadow Magic
What an interesting movie - a real find. Very intelligently written and beautifully executed, the movie "reflects" the birth of motion pictures and how mysterious and wonderful it appeared to people experiencing it for the first time.

I really wanted to like this movie
And there really is nothing wrong with it, other than I was maybe hoping for something really spectacular and intriguing, and what I got was kind of... dull. Shadow Magic is about one of the first introductions of movies to China. In SM the person doing the introducing is Raymond Wallace, an englishman who's wife had just recently left him. A young man named Liu, who is continually fascinated with western technology, allies himself next to Wallace to bring the movies, aka Shadow Magic, to China. Of course life is not easy, and it is tradition and the arranged marriage to the wrong woman that complicates matters. As I said earlier, I really wanted to like this movie. And honestly, I can't quite pin down what it was that disappointed me about it. It flows along at a considerable pace, and has that sweet sentmentality that countries like Ireland and England have practically put a copyright on. But I suppose I was expecting something more, and I was let down. Either which way, I would recommend this film for a historical aspect. But don't expect anything above average.

For everyone learning to speak Chinese a real blessing
I enjoyed the heck out of this movie, but even if I did not, the best part is that the Chinese spoken is easy to understand. The actors speak very clearly and the captioning actually is in the frames where the speaking occurs. The sound tracking is very clean. I have been watching a lot of Chinese films while I learn to speak Chinese.Too many times it is impossible to follow the voices. This film is great for voice clarity. speed of speaking, lack of complex sentences, and tracking. You can even hear the tonality of the language. A real blessing to begining suffering student.