Two 2016 Chinese movies, Mr. Donkey (驴得水) and Someone To Talk To (一句顶一万句), will play at the AMC Loews Waterfront Theater from November 4.
An October 27 New York Times review summarizes Mr. Donkey, which made its US debut on October 28:
In 1942, a struggling school in rural China needs money. The faculty members, an agreeable if fractious lot, each have psychological baggage: Zhang Yiman (Ren Suxi) is blithely laissez-faire about sex; Pei Kuishan (played by an actor with the same name) has sensitive digestion; Zhou Tienan (Liu Shuailiang) is a righteous hothead; and the dean, Sun Henghai (Da Li), is trying to preserve his institution while raising his 15-year-old daughter, Jia (Bu Guanjin). A pending visit from a severe education commissioner (Han Yanbo) prompts the group to pressure an illiterate coppersmith (A Runa) into masquerading as an English teacher — the title character — to impress the official and secure funds. Enter antic pandemonium.A Hollywood Reporter review summarizes Someone To Talk To, an adaptation of the award-winning novel One Sentence Worth Ten Thousand:
We begin with Aiguo (Mao Hai) and Lina (Li Qian) in Yanjin (in Henan) enthusiastically filling out their application for a marriage license. They’re rudely interrupted halfway through by a couple so sour they curdle the air around them. Those two are applying for a divorce, and needless to say it’s a portent of things to come for Aiguo and Lina. A decade later, the photo of the happy occasion snapped by Aiguo’s sister Aixiang (Liu Pei) is being taped back together by their daughter Baihui (Li Nuonuo). Aiguo is now working as a cobbler, having left the military behind, and Lina toils at an anonymous factory. Their marriage also has soured.Tickets and showtimes are available at the AMC Loews Waterfront website. The theater is located at 300 West Waterfront Dr. in the Waterfront shopping complex in Homestead (map), across the Monongahela River from Greenfield, Squirrel Hill, and the rest of Pittsburgh.
It’s then that things get sudsy. Lina is having an affair with the suave Jiang (Yu Entai), who is married to Xinting (Qi Xi), a local baker. Not to be outdone, Aixiang, a flatbread vendor, considers a marriage of comfort to kind, middle-aged divorcee Jiefeng (Fan Wei). All of Aiguo’s friends are recommending he simply divorce Lina and get on with his life, but after the adulterers run off a second time, he fakes a search for them, and on his travels runs into former schoolmate Chuhong (Sun Qian), who helps him see the light.