I liked this best for its glimpse into modern China, and specifically its look at a city of 10 million most Westerners do not even know exists, Wuhan.When Westerners think about China, they may conjure images of traditional values and filial piety. But here we see the remnants of a dysfunctional family and the profound depression that haunts a father and daughter.Mr. Li made an error in his youth that got him exiled to the countryside for manual labor. He apparently thought his daughter would make good in the city, but she'd wound up settling for a job as a karaoke-bar prostitute. Mr. Li's son, her brother, apparently had the poor judgment to play cards with the gangster Da Ge, ending up paying with his life.I saw this film on the TV channel of the City University of New York, where commentator Jerry Carlsson noted that it had its premier in Wuhan. It's interesting to see that a film that portrays the seamy underbelly of a Chinese mega-city can have an airing there -- and that it eventually gets here. The beautiful Yuan Tian, who plays Yanhong, turns in an interesting and nuanced performance. Her pillow talk with the loathsome Da is the psychological nadir of this dark tale.The movie's parting shot, of an accepting Mr. Li awaiting the birth of his grandchild, offers a bit of hope. Not much, though.

Like UNIFORM, this visually-beautiful film demonstrates the struggles of modern-day Chinese people. The protagonist, an attractive so-called bar girl, has left her rural roots to find big city success. She hides her less-than-noble occupation from her father, who searches for her brother, also a city newcomer. Most of the film dwells on their cat-and-mouse game of secrets, but there is an amazing connective scene after the one-hour mark. It takes place in a luxury car, and its four passengers each harbor unspoken individual turmoil. Thereafter, the film races to an ending fitting of 3 luxury AfroPixFlix detanglers. Luxury Car (Jiang cheng xia ri) 2006; Director/Writer: Chao Wang

Yanhong(Tian Yuan) climbs out of the taxicab with the studied self-assurance of a woman about town. Quiming(Wu Youcai) stares in wonderment at how altered his daughter looks in her designer clothes and cosmetically-enhanced face. Little do we know, however, that this curbside reunion will be the last chance for Yanhong to make a good impression. She's a prostitute. If her slummy apartment that she shares with another young woman isn't a tip-off, it's the john that Quiming passes in the hallway later in the film. Confirming his worst suspicions, the jig is up for Yanhong when daddy pays a visit to her working place, an upscale karaoke club. Like many girls from rural towns and villages, a big city such as Wuhan can be a sentence for the benighted.In "Hardcore", a father goes on a tireless search for his "little girl" in the seedy side of Los Angeles after seeing her perform sex acts on eight-millimeter film at a porno theater. Although Qiming rescues his daughter, he does it by sheer happenstance, as an afterthought, because the impetus behind his visit involved the disappearance of Yanhong's brother. Our perspective on Quiming changes dramatically when we learn that he's not an ignorant peasant like the Gong Li character in "Qui Ju da guan si"; Yanhong's father is a college-educated man who was banished to the countryside after making anti-revolutionary remarks against the communist regime. Since he's not a naif, Quiming should have anticipated that his uneducated daughter could wind up working in the sex industry. Yanhong's boyfriend, her boss and pimp, a much older man whom Qiming initially likes, escapes physical harm, or at the minimum, a stern reprimand from the father for exploiting Yanhong to his sleazy clientele. Despite the distraction of locating his missing son, he should have the presence of mind to defend his daughter's honor. The father George C. Scott plays in the 1979 film by Paul Schrader would have torn this hoodlum apart, but this is China, a country where girls infamously are victims of infanticide.So it's with great irony when we learn that Da Ge(Huang He) played a part in the boy's death. Qiming unknowingly rode in the very spot within the luxury car where his son bled to death. If Quiming did the right thing by honoring his daughter, he'd be avenging his son bilaterally, as well. Now that the father has no male child to carry his name, Yanghong is no longer just a daughter, a luxury, but a necessity, the child who survived.

As his wife is dying from cancer, an old school teacher from the provinces journeys to Wuhan hoping to find the son they haven't seen for years. He stays with his daughter, unaware that she is a call-girl working in a karaoke club, but enlisting the help of a policeman approaching retirement, he soon becomes aware of the character of the big city, the dangers it poses and the compromises it forces from people.Luxury Car gives a rounded perspective on the circumstances of people in present day China, presenting it as a well-placed drama without obvious political or social commentary, but it there if you want to look for it – in the changing values, in the striving for power and influence, in criminality, and of course in the dangerous dream of the lengths one will go to in order to own a luxury car. It even makes reference to the past through the father's background and his expulsion from the city during the Cultural Revolution.Beautifully made, the dark tones and colour of the film all play a part in conveying the image of cheap superficial glamour, which – like the spray-painted stolen luxury car – hides the reality underneath.