Green Hat

Green Hat (Chinese: 绿帽子; pinyin: lǜ màozǐ) (also known as The Green Hat) is a Chinese film from 2003 and the debut of screenwriter Liu Fendou. Starring Li Congxi, Liao Fan, and Dong Lifan, the film tells the story of two men, one a bank robber, and one a police officer and their shared problem of unfaithful partners. In China, the phrase "wearing a green hat", refers to a cuckold. The film features full-frontal male nudity.[1]

This article is about the film. For other uses, see Green Hat (disambiguation).
Green Hat
Directed byLiu Fendou
Produced byLu Yan
Peggy Chiao
Written byLiu Fendou
StarringLi Congxi
Liao Fan
Dong Lifan
Hai Yitian
Li Mei
Music byJin Wulin
CinematographyChen Ying
Peng Li
Edited byJia Cuiping
Production
company
Almost Entertainment Pictures
Release date
Tribeca:
May 7, 2004
Running time
100 min.
CountryChina
LanguageMandarin

The film was well received by both critics and festival audiences, notably at the 2004 Tribeca Film Festival where it won a prize for Best Narrative Feature.

Plot

Wang Yao (Liao Fan) is a criminal. Along with two friends, he prepares one last heist with the plan that he will head to the United States afterward for a reunion with a girlfriend he has not seen in two years. After the successful robbery of a bank, Wang stops at a small grocery store to call his girlfriend, who ceremoniously dumps him. Distraught, Wang takes the grocery store's proprietor hostage when she demands payment for the long-distance phone call. When the police arrives, one of their number (Li Congxi) offers to take the place of the hostage. Wang agrees, and then promptly commits suicide after asking the shocked officer, "What is love?"

The film then shifts its attention to the police officer, who now begins to face the fact that his wife (Li Mei) has been carrying on an affair with a swimming coach (Hai Yitian). Struggling from sexual inadequacy and humiliation, the officer decides to confront his wife and her lover.

Reception

Green Hat was screened at numerous international film festivals including Tribeca,[2] Seattle,[3] and Thessaloniki.[4]

Western critics were generally positive in their reaction to the film, with the film winning a Best Narrative Feature from Tribeca,[5] and FIPRESCI awarding a best film award to it at the Thessaloniki Film Festival,[6] These critics, such as Variety's Derek Elley, found the film to be a strong debut by Liu and praised the film's visual compositions and unusual sexual frankness.[5]

See also

References
  1. High Falls Film Festival - Celebrating Women in Film - Movies at the 2004 High Falls Film Festival - THE GREEN HAT: Feature, China, 2003 Archived 2015-05-01 at the Wayback Machine. Publisher: HighFallsFilmFestival.Com. Published: 2004. Retrieved: 18 April 2014.
  2. "Tribeca Film - Film Guide Archive". Tribeca Film Festival. Archived from the original on 2011-07-17. Retrieved 2009-09-27.
  3. Axmaker, Sean (2005-05-23). "SIFF: 14-plus reasons to check out the big screens". Seattle Post-Intelligencer. Retrieved 2009-09-27.
  4. "International Competition - Green Hat". International Thessaloniki Film Festival. 2004. Archived from the original on 2011-07-25. Retrieved 2009-09-27.
  5. Elley, Derek (2004-05-11). "The Green Hat Review". Variety. Retrieved 2009-09-27.
  6. "Thessaloniki 2004". FIPRESCI. 2009-02-15. Archived from the original on 2008-11-19. Retrieved 2009-09-27.
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