Hou Hsiao-hsien's Assassin is the only one that made it into some prestigious¹ international lists. Yet it was very polarizing on the domestic front. Its elliptical narrative² left many audience members scratching their heads.

 

Jia Zhangke's Mountains May Depart is neatly³ divided into three time periods. The first two, set in 1999 and 2014, find him in familiar territory, but it is the last one, set in 2025Australia, that is jaw-dropping in both positive and negative ways.

 

The year's most satisfying work belongs to Deep in the Heart, the directorial debut⁴ of Xin Yukun. It was titled The Coffin⁵ in the Mountain when it first ran on the festival circuit in 2014.

 

Made with a paltry⁶ budget of 1.7 million yuan ($269,800), the dark drama takes on crime and punishment with a verve and aplomb⁷ befitting a veteran.

 

The Dead End won an acting⁸ award for its male ensemble⁹ at the Shanghai International Film Festival, but the year's most eye-opening male performance belongs to a renowned¹⁰ director.

 

Feng Xiaogang's cameo appearances have been so memorable¹¹ he ranks among the best character actors in the nation.

 

In Mr. Six, he turns his formidable acting chops into a character study so immersive it blew me away when I first saw the film. This is a portrayal¹² that goes beyond technique and into the innermost part of his soul.

 

Xu Haofeng's The Master seems to be a scaled-down version of The Grandmaster, which he co-wrote. It is certainly different from the norm, but his familiarity with the material could be holding him back from a full filmic vision.

 

12 Citizens, a Chinese remake of 12 Angry Men, resolved the biggest conundrum¹³ - that China does not employ a jury system - with a stroke of genius. But it was marred¹⁴ by several clumsy touches, such as the eventual¹⁵ certainty of the suspect's innocence¹⁶ and the secret identity of the Henry Fonda character, here played by stage veteran He Bing.

 

Monster Hunt, a family film in the fantasy genre¹⁷, set a new box-office record at 2.4 billion yuan. It was bankrolled by Bill Kong, of Crouching¹⁸ Tiger, Hidden Dragon fame, and directed by first-timer Raman Hui, who hasHollywoodexperience.

 

Monkey King: Hero Is Back was the sleeper¹⁹ hit of the year when it became the best-selling animated²⁰ film in the Middle Kingdom.

 

Pancake Man and Goodbye, Mr. Loser are the twin winners with Internet genetics. The screwball comedies feature newcomers who are more plugged into the sensibilities of the millennials than the practices of the film community.

 

Lost inThailand, at 1.62 billion yuan, was about the only franchise²¹ movie that climbed over the billion-yuan bench. That, of course, is not counting Mojin: The Lost Legend, directed by Wuershan, which is hot in release and has just exceeded the billion-yuan benchmark by the time this article goes to print.

 

Mojin is adapted from the eight-volume Internet best-seller, which has a huge built-in fan base. The first four volumes were sold to another director, Lu Chuan, whose Chronicles of the Ghostly Tribe debuted²² just three months earlier to 680 million yuan and general critical panning.

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