Jong Lin

Movies

Send Me to the Clouds
Director of Photography
Diagnosed with ovarian cancer, iron-willed journalist Sheng Nan (“Surpass Men” in Chinese) is pressured to make a quick fortune and find mind-blowing sex before the costly surgery numbs her senses. Taking on a businessman’s biography writing job, she hikes into the misty mountains, where a chain of outbursts with her dysfunctional family, grumpy client, misogynistic co-worker and dreamlike romantic interest hilariously unfold. As deeply moving as it is luminously witty, writer-director Teng Congcong’s debut waltzes across the bitterness swallowed by her generation of women born under China’s One Child Policy, unprecedentedly burdened to “surpass men” while trying not to be “leftover women” at the same time. Saluting the 18th-century Chinese literature classic Dream of the Red Chamber in its title, the enchanting gem refreshes the novel's transcendent contemplation on desire, death and womanhood from a modern cinematic perspective.
Great Wall, My Love
Editor
Chun, 28, Taiwanese, goes on a conflict-packed search journey with her Chinese guide, Ming, to find her father's long-lost first love, XiuQian, in China. Chun's father had promised XiuQian 60 years ago that he'd definitely come back to marry her. But not until recently, Taiwan and China were hostile to each other, he was never able to fulfill his promise. Chun and Ming grew up on two sides of the Taiwan Strait and were brought up with different values. They don't hesitate to cut each other down to size. Their turbulent romance unfolds in tears, laughter and a clash of values. The love story of two generations, across the Taiwan Strait, told with touching drama and biting comedy, is a poignant and entertaining road movie.
Great Wall, My Love
Director of Photography
Chun, 28, Taiwanese, goes on a conflict-packed search journey with her Chinese guide, Ming, to find her father's long-lost first love, XiuQian, in China. Chun's father had promised XiuQian 60 years ago that he'd definitely come back to marry her. But not until recently, Taiwan and China were hostile to each other, he was never able to fulfill his promise. Chun and Ming grew up on two sides of the Taiwan Strait and were brought up with different values. They don't hesitate to cut each other down to size. Their turbulent romance unfolds in tears, laughter and a clash of values. The love story of two generations, across the Taiwan Strait, told with touching drama and biting comedy, is a poignant and entertaining road movie.
We'll Meet in Heaven
Director of Photography
In China, during the Cultural Revolution, a young girl's parents are thrown in jail for ten years. She is raised by her grandfather. He introduces her to gymnastics where she does her best to fit in with the others.
Death Dowry
Director of Photography
Blind Mountain
Director of Photography
Young student Bai Xuemei is cheated and sold as a wife by human traffickers to a remote village. Raped and beaten, she leads the life of a sex slave and child-bearer with no hope of escape because of the villagers apathy and selfishness.
The Road
Director of Photography
A young girl comes of age -- while also coming to terms with her destiny, pre-determined by the Communist Party -- in this beautiful, sweeping Chinese drama.
Shanghai Rumba
Director of Photography
Wanyu (Yuan Quan) has married into a wealthy family but is irresistibly drawn into the world of the movies and famous actor Ah Chuan.
Sunflower
Director of Photography
Sunflower is the story of the Zhang family in Beijing father, mother and son across three decades, centering on the tensions and misunderstandings between father and son. Nine-year-old Xiangyang is having the time of his life, free of adult supervision until the day he meets the father he can hardly remember. Having spent years away, he returns with strong ideas about his son learning to draw. But Xiangyang chafes under his father's constant rules and soon stages his own revolution against the lessons enforced.
Bend It Like Beckham
Director of Photography
Jess Bhamra, the daughter of a strict Indian couple in London, is not permitted to play organized soccer, even though she is 18. When Jess is playing for fun one day, her impressive skills are seen by Jules Paxton, who then convinces Jess to play for her semi-pro team. Jess uses elaborate excuses to hide her matches from her family while also dealing with her romantic feelings for her coach, Joe.
Red Persimmons
Director of Photography
The ostensible subject of this film is the growing, drying, peeling and packaging of persimmons in the tiny Japanese village of Kaminoyama. The inhabitants explain that it is the perfect combination of earth, wind and rain that makes their village’s persimmons superior to those grown anywhere else, including the village just a few miles away. The film’s larger subject, however, is the disappearance of Japan’s traditional culture, the end of a centuries-old way of life.
What's Cooking?
Director of Photography
In LA's Fairfax district, where ethnic groups abound, four households celebrate Thanksgiving amidst family tensions. In the Nguyen family, the children's acculturation and immigrant parents' fears collide. In the Avila family, Isabel's son has invited her estranged husband to their family dinner. Audrey and Ron Williams want to keep their own family's ruptures secret from Ron's visiting mother. In the Seelig household, Herb and Ruth are unwilling to discuss openly their grown daughter's living with her lover, Carla. Around each table, things come to a head. A gun, an affair, a boyfriend, and a pregnancy precipitate crises forcing each family to find its center.
Once Upon a Time in Shanghai
Director of Photography
The protagonists are mainly Huirong, Zhaobai, and Jikan, who have studied business management in the USA and have returned to their hometown, Shanghai. Huirong and Zhaobai are engaged, and although three of them are close friends, problems arise when they find out that their opinions clash on the matter of what the objective for building a new China should be and what direction it should take.
Eat Drink Man Woman
Director of Photography
A retired and widowed Chinese master chef Chu and his family live in modern day Taipei, Taiwan. He lives with his three attractive daughters, all of whom are unattached. Soon, each of the daughters encounter new men in their lives. When these new relationships blossom, stereotypes are broken and the living situation within the family changes. Since the family has difficulty expressing their love for each other, the intricate preparation of banquet quality dishes for their Sunday dinners is the surrogate for their familial feelings.
The Wedding Banquet
Director of Photography
A Taiwanese-American man is happily settled in New York with his American boyfriend. He plans a marriage of convenience to a Chinese woman in order to keep his parents off his back and to get the woman a green card. Chaos follows when his parents arrive in New York for the wedding.
Pushing Hands
Cinematography
Mr. Chu is an elderly widower who teaches tai chi chuan in Beijing. He moves to America to live with his son's family, but finds the cultural adjustment difficult. Since his daughter-in-law is a white woman who does not speak Chinese, Mr. Chu's son, Alex, must mediate.
Pushing Hands
Director of Photography
Mr. Chu is an elderly widower who teaches tai chi chuan in Beijing. He moves to America to live with his son's family, but finds the cultural adjustment difficult. Since his daughter-in-law is a white woman who does not speak Chinese, Mr. Chu's son, Alex, must mediate.