VENICE, Italy -- Gianni Amelio's absorbing film The Missing Star (La stella che non c'e) has an intriguing quest and a gentle love story, but its greatest value lies in its insights into a modern China most Westerners have never seen. Screened in competition at the Venice Film Festival, the picture should travel widely on the festival circuit and merits attention from art houses, too.
The quest simply a good man's desire to see that a piece of equipment sold by his company works properly. Maintenance engineer Vincenzo Buonovolonta (Sergio Castellitto) is alarmed when his firm in Genoa, Italy, sells a blast furnace with a faulty valve to a Chinese buyer. Knowing the machinery is dangerous and having devised the means to correct the fault, the doggedly independent Vincenzo travels to Shanghai to deliver a new valve.
The machinery, however, has changed hands and has been sold to a steel mill deep in the Chinese industrial heartland. Determined to do what he thinks is right, the Italian seeks out the young translator, Liu Hua (Tai Ling), who had been with the visiting Chinese delegation. She becomes his guide as they travel in search of the factory that bought the equipment.
With impressive cinematography by Luca Bigazzi, the film follows the unlikely pair as they journey along the Yangtze River, visiting cities including Wuhan, Chongquing and Baotou on their way to southern Mongolia.
Tai Ling is appealing as the young Chinese girl who, as she says, was "born crooked into this world." Castellitto brings sensitivity to the sometimes brash and impulsive but resourceful engineer who discovers a China he never expected.
The quest simply a good man's desire to see that a piece of equipment sold by his company works properly. Maintenance engineer Vincenzo Buonovolonta (Sergio Castellitto) is alarmed when his firm in Genoa, Italy, sells a blast furnace with a faulty valve to a Chinese buyer. Knowing the machinery is dangerous and having devised the means to correct the fault, the doggedly independent Vincenzo travels to Shanghai to deliver a new valve.
The machinery, however, has changed hands and has been sold to a steel mill deep in the Chinese industrial heartland. Determined to do what he thinks is right, the Italian seeks out the young translator, Liu Hua (Tai Ling), who had been with the visiting Chinese delegation. She becomes his guide as they travel in search of the factory that bought the equipment.
With impressive cinematography by Luca Bigazzi, the film follows the unlikely pair as they journey along the Yangtze River, visiting cities including Wuhan, Chongquing and Baotou on their way to southern Mongolia.
Tai Ling is appealing as the young Chinese girl who, as she says, was "born crooked into this world." Castellitto brings sensitivity to the sometimes brash and impulsive but resourceful engineer who discovers a China he never expected.
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