TOKYO The screening of Chinese film Feng Shui will go ahead at the Tokyo International Film Festival (TIFF) Monday night as scheduled despite a a last-minute no-show by the film's cinematographer at a press conference and a request to pull it from the lineup.

Director Wang Jing and actor Jiao Gang canceled their visits to Tokyo, and one of the Chinese production companies has asked its screening to be pulled due to recent Chinese-Japanese political tensions over a territorial dispute.

Who sent the statement requesting the withdrawal was unclear, it was unsigned and therefore we didn't take it as an official notification, said TIFF programming director Nobushige Toshima, referring to a communication received on Friday. We have now received an official request to withdraw the film, but we are planning to go ahead with the screening as planned.

Explained Toshima: Yesterday we were told the cinematographer would attend the press conference and answer questions. He is in Japan, and we were talking about how we would handle the press conference. However, he has now told us he needed permission from the production company in order to engage in any promotional activities."

That permission was evidently not forthcoming.

A statement from the young cinematographer was read out at the press conference. I came to TIFF as a cinematographer, as one of the crew who made this film. I'm very sorry, but I'm not able to speak on behalf of the production company. I hope people can still enjoy the film.

Rumors have been circulating that the film was being pulled from the festival by its producers over recent political tensions between China and Japan over a group of small, uninhabited islands in the East China Sea. The islands, known by the Chinese as Diaoyu, and by the Japanese as Senakaku, are claimed by both sides and have burst into the spotlight again recently after a plan by the Japanese government to buy them from their private owners sparked an angry reaction in China.

However, the film is still scheduled to have its world premiere at TIFF, with the Chinese production companies involved reportedly divided over whether it should bow in Tokyo in the current climate.

TIFF is a film festival, it is not a place for politics, it's a place for cultural exchange," said Toshima in response to a question from The Hollywood Reporter about whether going ahead with the screening despite the request to halt it might further raise tensions at a sensitive time in the relations between China and Japan. "If it's a great film, it doesn't matter if it's from China or not. Both sides signed an agreement to screen the film, and we will show the film according to that agreement.

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Tokyo International Film Festival to Screen 'Feng Shui' Despite Request to Withdraw Film

The Bottom Line

A commanding performance from Yang Bingyan anchors director Wang Jings grim assessment of modern city life in mainland China.

Wang Jing

Yan Bingyan, Jiao Gang, Chen Gang

The yoke of poverty proves an enduring burden in Feng Shui, Chinese director Wang Jings compassionate study of a working-class womans struggle to improve her status during the sharp economic rise of the 1990s. Stepping outside his social-issues wheelhouse with this piercing family drama, the director reveals a keen eye for high-stakes interpersonal conflict and the inner torment roiling within ordinary people.

Older audiences will appreciate the measured, conventional storytelling, elevated by a stunning central performance from veteran Beijing-born actress Yang Bingyan, who is rarely off-screen and convincingly roams the emotional gamut. Her devastating portrayal of a woman undone by a preoccupation with success makes this Mandarin-language production a solid booking for further Asia-centric festivals following its premiere in competition at the Tokyo International Film Festival.

With 2009s Invisible Killer, a murder mystery highlighting the destructive power of the internet, and 2010s Vegetate, which took a critical look at Chinas pharmaceutical industry, Wang Jing has built a reputation for taking on pressing social issues. Condemnation of the wrenching social transformations which accompanied the countrys rapid economic growth is common among Chinese auteurs, but here it is used to background a drama that is resolutely individual in its focus.

Li Baoli (Yang) works as a shopkeepers helper in the heavily populated central Chinese city of Wuhan. Shes a tortured soul, racked by anguish and indeterminate rage, which manifests itself in torrents of abuse and scorn heaped upon her husband and her studious young son. In short, shes a shrew.

She continues to berate her milquetoast husband Ma Xuewu (Jiao Gang) even as his steady job as a factory team leader provides them with the means to move into a well-appointed highrise apartment where, she is momentarily pleased to discover, they have the luxury of their own bathroom.

Wu Nans screenplay, based on a novel by Fang Fang, keeps Baolis inner dialogue from us so we are sometimes at as much of a loss to fathom her emotional thrashing about as her family and friends are. Making this protagonist sympathetic is a Herculean task, but Yang (Memory of Love, Close to Me) rises to the challenge, giving us glimpses of the panic behind her agitation and the steely determination she musters just to carry on.

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Feng Shui: Tokyo Film Festival Review