I Wish I Knew

2010 [CHINESE]

Action / Documentary / History

5
Rotten Tomatoes Critics - Rotten 69% · 16 reviews
Rotten Tomatoes Audience - Upright 69% · 100 ratings
IMDb Rating 6.9/10 10 913 913

Plot summary

Focuses on the people, their stories and architecture spanning from the mid-1800s, when Shanghai was opened as a trading port, to the present day.

720p.BluRay 1080p.BluRay
1.07 GB
1280*576
Chinese 2.0
NR
Subtitles us  
23.976 fps
1 hr 59 min
Seeds ...
2.2 GB
1920*864
Chinese 5.1
NR
Subtitles us  
23.976 fps
1 hr 59 min
Seeds 7

Movie Reviews

Reviewed by insomnia

An opportunity missed

Director Jia Zhang-ke was commissioned to make a film commemorating last year's Shanghai World Fair. Population-wise, Shanghai is the biggest city in China. It sits at the mouth of the giant Yangstze River, and is therefore a major port. In 1842, the Treaty of Nanking opened Shanghai to foreign trade. And the city boomed. Shanghai suffered a decline in influence when the Communists came to power in 1949, but rose once again in 1990, when then Premier Deng Xiaoping introduced economic reforms in 1990. When my wife and I stayed with a friend living in Shanghai, it was impossible not to see that Shanghai was booming like never before. One sixth of the world's cranes it was said, crowded the city's skyline. Everywhere one looked, buildings were being razed to the ground to make way for newer, taller structures. In a city with nearly 17,000,000 people, the crowds were like nothing we'd ever experienced before. The traffic wasn't much better. However, the overall impression we took away with us was of a city that was thriving, achieving and vital Jia Zhang-ke's film "I Wish I Knew" has been described as a 'melancholic history of Shanghai", from the brutalities of the Japanese occupation, right up till the present day. Unfortunately, this film in no way gives a person watching this film the impression that Shanghai is one of the most powerful cities in the world. There was scarcely a mention of Japanese occupation Instead, we are subjected to no less than eighteen people sitting around and recounting their memories, more of their family lives than of Shanghai itself. For the most part, these people's memories were mundane and tedious. Then there was the young woman wandering around The Bund, or walking in the rain – why? Who knows, as it's never explained? Granted, things don't have to be spelled out in black and white, but for the life of me, I couldn't see the point. This film is devoid of the sense of a city on the move. The cinema-photography seemed to me well, to be blunt about it, rather amateurish with far too much "framing" The subtitling was truly woeful, with most of the background being pale, the white subtitles were often mainly impossible to read. Footage of Shanghai as it once was to me virtually non-existent and the feel of the city as if it was to me, was also virtually non-existent, too. Overall, this film was an opportunity missed, a perfect illustration of a chance squandered.
Reviewed by cin_kong 9 / 10

A glimpse at Shanghai through the ages

The history of Shanghai as preserved on film or celluloid. That's what this documentary has shown us. Despite having to struggle through the Shanghai dialect and French titles in the TV broadcast, I felt moved by some of stories being related. Presented in chronological order, the documentary manages to show a glimpse of Shanghai through the ages. The people interviewed retells the story that are depicted in the images and the films. Even more poignant because they were witnesses as well as participants of the featured era. Those movies reflected a sign of the times. It truly is a whole different side of Shanghai I never saw from any movie or TV show.
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