The Angel and the devil = Tian shi yu mo gui

Zheng Tian and his gangster friends live life on stealing and robbery. Zheng Tian believes that human nature is half good and half evil, and therefore, his life has two sides. On the one hand, he likes to help people, on the other hand, he commit crimes. Once at a metro station, Zheng Tian comes across a girl who has similar experience as Zheng Tian but has now cut off from her past. The two fall in love and decide to have a new life. But Zhen Tian is tempted by his friends to commit crimes again and is arrested. His girlfriend becomes a member of the Buddhism Association. Zheng Tian understands how his girlfriend has suffered and writes a film script based on his true stories in prison. Towards the end of Zheng Tian’s jail term, he is chosen to play himself in the film and Zheng Tian wants to start a new life with his girlfriend. The film stars Chen Baoguo, who is a leading actor in China and has appeared in many films and TV series.

The film is adapted from well-known Chinese writer, Wang Shuo’s popular novel Half Flame, Half Seawater. Wang Shuo’s work has been translated into many languages and most of his novels have been adapted into films, for example In the Heat of the Sun (dir. Jiang Wen, 1994), Little Red Flowers (dir. Zhang Yuan, 2006) and so on. This film shows that before the 1990s, a lot of PRC films have educational purposes. (3 stars - Yuxing Zhou; December 16, 2010)