You have exactly 2 more days (and by two I mean: ONE MORE WEEK as we just found out) to see the special, one-week only showing of SUMMER PALACE [Yihe yuan] at the AFI.

And this is why you should:

In September of 2006, director, the most romantic of the Chinese directors, was barred from making movies for five years because the film incorporated footage of the Tiananmen Square demonstrations and wasn’t screened for Chinese officials. The Chinese government also demanded that all copies of the film be confiscated.

(and let me ask you, which one of you does not instinctively and instantly love something the second you find out it is banned from somewhere?….thought so)

Since then the movie (which by the by, aside from being politically flammable is an erotically charged epic of the post-Cultural Revolution generation which charts the sentimental education of Yu Hong — played by stunning newcomer Lei Hao — from small-town life in the borderlands through wild years at Beijing University to the hard-earned wisdom of adulthood) has made waves at the 2006 Cannes Film Festival and recently appeared in Film Comment’s “Distributor Wanted” section.

Closing in at 140 minutes it is somewhat of a endurance test to sit through, but then, what isn’t these days? But with its sex, youth and politics themes and a dazzling mise-en-scène, Summer Palace is a generational portrait that is being lapped up by the sex-starved, politically charged DC media this week.
You don’t want to not be able to talk about it at your next cocktail party, now do you?

“Beautifully blends the political with the personal” — The New York Times

“A mesmerizing, wonderfully acted love story” — The Hollywood Reporter

more details and tickets: http://www.afi.com/silver/new/nowplaying/2007/v4i5/summer.aspx