China’s Lunar New Year movie season is like America’s summer blockbuster season… on steroids. And it got that way thanks to The Dream Factory—a wry 1997 comedy directed by Feng Xiaogang, who’d come to be known as “the Chinese Spielberg.” Host Rico Gagliano gets a crash course on the movie from experts on Chinese cinema, including City University of New York’s Ying Zhu and UCLA’s Michael Berry.
The first season of the MUBI Podcast, titled “Lost in Translation,” spotlights movies that were massive cultural phenomena in one country, but nowhere else. We explore why these films fascinated so many people in one place, at one time. With episodes spanning nearly every continent, tune in weekly to discover unique film stories from around the globe.
Listen to episode 6 below or wherever you get your podcasts:
Each episode, we publish a complementary piece in a new series called “MUBI Podcast Expanded.” This week, we have an article by film professor Ying Zhu building on her commentary featured in this episode about Feng Xiaogang's “The Dream Factory” and Chinese New Year comedies. Read the article here.