Yang Ban Xi: The 8 Modelworks
Shadow Distribution | Release Date: March 29, 2006 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
60
METASCORE
Mixed or average reviews based on 10 Critic Reviews
Positive:
5
Mixed:
5
Negative:
0
Watch Now
Buy on

Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
80
L.A. WeeklyElla Taylor
Enthralling documentary. Read full review
75
San Francisco ChronicleG. Allen Johnson
A proper labor of love profiling many of the principles involved in the making of the films, peppered with a generous helping of wonderful clips. Read full review
70
The New York TimesManohla Dargis
The director Yan-Ting Yuen revisits the country's recent past to explore the history and legacy of one of the strangest byproducts of totalitarian madness: the revolutionary spectacular. Read full review
63
New York PostV.A. Musetto
Entertaining and informative, but it suffers from distracting voice-overs of what are supposed to be Madame Mao's thoughts. Too bad. Read full review
63
TV Guide MagazineKen Fox
Yuen would have been better off exposing more of that reality and celebrating less of the joyful silliness of the model works, let alone staging pointless hip-hop-inflected dance numbers set to Yang Ban Xi musical themes. Read full review
60
Village VoiceJ. Hoberman
Both frustrating and fascinating, Yuen's documentary is something of a stray footnote. It requires not only the context of the yang ban xi but the perspective of other movies on the subject of entertainment and utopia. Read full review
60
The Hollywood ReporterRichard James Havis
Will intrigue art house audiences unfamiliar with modern Chinese history. But sinophiles and followers of Chinese cinema will be shocked by the lack of historical detail and context. Read full review
60
Los Angeles TimesKevin Crust
Overall, the film lacks cohesion and a true point of view. Further muddling the film's meaning is a voice-over attributed to Jiang Qing, which we learn at the end is fictionalized. Read full review
50
SalonAndrew O'Hehir
Perhaps understandably, these artifacts of a vastly different ideological and economic era -- have become kitsch objects, the focus of a half-horrified nostalgia, in the midst of the feverish Chinese boom. Read full review
50
Chicago ReaderJ.R. Jones
Despite the fascinating topic, director Yan-ting Yuen offers relatively little history or criticism of the works themselves, squandering screen time on such gimmicks as mock voice-over and scenes of young people performing hard-rock and hip-hop versions of vintage songs. It's enough to make you pine for the good old days when irony was illegal. Read full review
More From This Movie

60 Critic Reviews

3.9 User Reviews

Details & Credits|Trailers

Current Movie Releases
By MetascoreBy User Score
1 81 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple
2 77 Project Hail Mary
3 75 Send Help
4 73 Hoppers
5 71 The Sheep Detectives
SEE ALL
Essential Links
New on Amazon Prime Video
New on Netflix
Coming Soon to DVD/Blu-ray
SEE ALL