70
With her debut, Xiao Jiang has created the Chinese equivalent of "Cinema Paradiso." The Beijing Film Academy graduate's confident first feature is a lovely, elegant paean to the joy and liberty that films offer as a symbol.
What are people saying?
What are critics saying?
70
A fairly conventional heartwarmer, lifted by likable performances, good-looking production values and (for movie buffs) a story centered on an outdoor cinema in rural China.
88
TV Guide Magazine by Maitland McDonagh
Xiao's bittersweet film is superficially a swoony love letter to the cinema. But her valentine has a hidden sting, rooted in some hard truths about movie mania.
60
Village Voice by Michael Atkinson
Electric Shadows is committed to movies-as-escape swoonery, but the script's late disasters are also predicated on cinema and filmgoing, suggesting an ambivalence the rest of the film seems oblivious to.
75
Christian Science Monitor by Peter Rainer
Things take several turns for the worse as the story plays out, and the film loses much of its charm. But it's a fascinating artifact, and never more so than when it features clips from Chinese and, of all things, Albanian propaganda films.
70
The New York Times by Stephen Holden
Plays as an enthralling but implausible Asian soap opera.
75
The Chinese pleaser Electric Shadows belongs to a genre they don't teach in film school: Triple S, as in sweet, sappy and sentimental.