When it comes to entertainment streaming platforms there’s no shortage of rabbit holes to get lost in, whether it be Western juggernauts like Netflix and Amazon Prime or Chinese options such as iQIYI and Youku. Unfortunately, however, given that these sites traffic so heavily in original content and new releases, it’s easy to lose sight of titles from the annals of cinematic history, those films that we always meant to get around to watching, but remained stowed on the dusty shelves of our minds.
Surprisingly enough, Tencent’s streaming platform (found at v.qq.com), specializes in exactly those movies, and all for the low, low price RMB 15 per month (that's a dang bargain compared with Western counterparts!) – with some titles available for free users, so long as you’re willing to sit through a few commercials at the start.
And so with the long New Year weekend fast approaching, and the uncertainty surrounding recent COVID-19 transmissions and the subsequent canceling of more and more events, we thought we’d introduce you to the wonderful world of Tencent Video, and just a few of the movies to be found there – the website is an absolute beast, and you can scroll through classic films for a seemingly endless amount of time. Having said that, if you have a translator on your web browser, simply reading some of the movie title translations is entertaining enough. Oh, and there’s plenty of old international titles from Africa, Asia, Latin America, etc. And while every film will have Chinese subtitles, the same can't be said for any other language.
If you still haven’t gotten your fill of pandemic-adjacent fiction then The Andromeda Strain should definitely be next on your watch list. Adapted from famed techno-thriller author Micheal Crichton’s 1969 novel of the same name, the film follows a team of scientists as they try to make sense of a debilitating alien microorganism that made its way back to earth on a satellite and threatens to wipe out humanity. Although slow at times, the film is visually stunning and absolutely terrifying in its plausibility. In fact, in 2003, the Infectious Diseases Society of America went so far as to say The Andromeda Strain is the "most significant, scientifically accurate, and prototypic of all films of this genre ... it accurately details the appearance of a deadly agent, its impact, and the efforts at containing it.” Too soon?
Equal parts light-hearted and devastating, the coming-of-agedness in this coming-of-age tale is jarring, to say the least. Stand by Me recounts the tale of 12-year-old Gordie Lachance and the journey he and three friends embark on to find the dead body of a missing boy. For all of its youthful tomfoolery, the film was based on a Stephen King novella, The Body, and is thus imbued with the horror master’s characteristic themes of death and grief, which become ever more oppressive as the journey moves along. The heart of this film is the “innocence lost” trope, however, instead of simply losing the innocence, it’s violently and irrevocably shattered into a million tiny pieces. But hey, there’s plenty of hijinks along the way!
Before Peter Dinklage was running around Westeros causing all manner of trouble for the Lannister clan and helping Daenerys rise to the throne, he was Finbar McBride, a curmudgeonly train enthusiast working at a hobby shop with his only friend, the equally grumpy Paul Benjamin. When Paul meets an untimely end, however, Fin is bequeathed a small station shack in Jefferson Township, New Jersey, where he looks forward to living out the rest of his days in quiet solitude. Unfortunately, much to Fin’s chagrin, there is a coffee truck on his property owned and operated by the overly-friendly, if not a bit boisterous Joe Oramas, played by Bobby Cannavale, and frequented by Olivia Harris, a scatterbrained artist played by Patricia Clarkson, all of whom are expertly cast. What follows is a quiet meditation on friendship, redemption, and finding sincerity both in yourself and the world around you.
Now might be a good time to tell you that while Tencent Video has a plethora of classic Western film options – not to be confused with the genre, Western films, though it has those too – they are still subject to the same censorial powers that be as any other media on the mainland, and thus you might find that some films have been edited for… ahem… moral reasons? Case in point: Much of the more grotesque moments in David Cronenberg’s The Fly – of which there are certainly a few – have been cut out of this version. And while the edits usually don’t mess with the story too much, it does mean you miss some of Jeff Goldblum’s best twitching, writhing, frothing, and general oozing. Side note: I did watch Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining on Tencent Video, only to realize that the entire scene involving the elderly woman and the bathtub was cut, which felt a little more consequential. Either way, if you’re looking for a ridiculous ride through 80s psychoses, you can’t do much better than The Fly.
Whether you’re a fan of music – and more specifically, rock and roll – or not, Rob Reiner’s This is Spinal Tap is a masterclass in hyper-absurdism and largely credited with spearheading the mockumentary genre. When fictional heavy metal band, Spinal Tap comes to the US to embark on a tour, they’re followed by documentary filmmaker Marty Di Bergi, played by Reiner himself, no less. Unfortunately, the band has little success stateside, which sends them into ever-more grandiose attempts at rescuing their name and reputation, to no avail. For an industry largely built on an ethos of “cool,” the skewering achieved in This is Spinal Tap is all too precise and utterly delightful.
To search Tencent Video by country, click here and translate the second field.
READ: 2020 Year in Review: The Movies That Managed To Reach the Screen, but Failed To Reach Our Hearts
Images: jeshoots.com (via Unsplash), from corresponding production companies
Actually this is useful. A perfect way to teach my wife about Yank cinema. She still thinks "Dirty Harry" is a porno sequel to the big budget J.K Rowlings stuff.
Lucky for you neither Spam, nor Oreos, nor mayonaisse are in short supply here.
Will you be celebrating New Year's Eve with Spam sammitches and baijiu like me??
