‘Xiu Xiu’ Continued the Unrest

Q. What is it about the 1998 Chinese film “Xiu Xiu: The Sent Down Girl” that so annoyed the Chinese government?

A. The film, the first directorial effort by San Francisco-based actress Joan Chen, shows China’s Cultural Revolution of the ‘60s and ‘70s to be a gigantic, inept, corrupt failure.

Q. How could a movie that would so irritate the government be filmed in China?

A. The government knew nothing about it. Chen simply gathered some Chinese actors on location in China and shot.

These aspects of “Xiu Xiu” might alone make the film worth seeing when it opens Friday in Costa Mesa.

But it is also directed by a “steady hand and little wasted effort,” making the film “both moving and convincing,” according to the San Francisco Examiner.

The Cultural Revolution was an attempt to remove class distinctions from Chinese society by indoctrination. Nearly 8 million Chinese were relocated and forced to join the manual labor force.

In the film, Xiu Xiu, a teenage city girl, is sent to a remote region to learn horse herding. She expects to be retrieved after six months, but when it becomes clear the government has abandoned her, she becomes desperate. Virtually anyone traveling through the nearly uninhabited region is welcomed into her tent in exchange for helping her return home.

The New York Times praised the film but noted that though it sympathizes with Xiu Xiu’s plight, “it never delves into her soul.

“The demure poetic distance the film maintains from its brutal physical facts mutes the impact of the story. Instead of devastating, ‘Xiu Xiu’ is merely sad.”

* “Xiu Xiu,” Edwards Town Center Cinema, 3199 Park Center Drive, Costa Mesa. Mandarin with English subtitles. Running time: 99 minutes. Rated: R. (714) 751-4184.

Get a Taste of Italy With Food, Film

What’s the most expensive movie in town this weekend?

“Mediterraneo,” the Italian war comedy that won the Best Foreign Film Oscar in 1992. It’ll cost you $40 to see it Sunday night at Prego Ristorante in Irvine.

You get more than the movie, of course. A fixed-price Italian dinner from a special menu is included. After a 6 p.m. dinner, the film will be shown in the garden room, with coffee and dessert afterward on the patio.

The restaurant has received good reviews. “Its quality has been so consistent over the years,” wrote restaurant critic Max Jacobson in The Times. Prego is “among the few local restaurants totally faithful to the Italian sensibility.”

The film reviews are not as favorable.

“A pleasingly soothing piece of escapist entertainment, the film is like a mini-vacation,” according to the Washington Post. But beyond that, “ ‘Mediterraneo’ isn’t much of a movie.”

Wrote Times critic Kevin Thomas: “Warmhearted, good-natured and gently humorous,” but not enough to disguise “the film’s essential triteness and tediousness.”

* “Mediterraneo,” Prego Ristorante, 18420 Von Karman Ave., Irvine. Italian with English subtitles. Running time: 90 minutes. Not rated (includes some sex and nudity). $40, not including tax, tip and alcohol. Information and reservations: (949) 553-1333.