Plot
A documentary that chronicles artist and activist Ai Weiwei as he prepares for a series of exhibitions and gets into an increasing number of clashes with the Chinese government.

Release Year: 2012

Rating: 7.1/10 (143 voted)

Director: Alison Klayman

Stars: Ai Weiwei, Danqing Chen, Ying Gao

Storyline
AI WEIWEI: NEVER SORRY is the first feature-length film about the internationally renowned Chinese artist and activist, Ai Weiwei. In recent years, Ai has garnered international attention as much for his ambitious artwork as his political provocations. AI WEIWEI: NEVER SORRY examines this complex intersection of artistic practice and social activism as seen through the life and art of China's preeminent contemporary artist. From 2008 to 2010, Beijing-based journalist and filmmaker Alison Klayman gained unprecedented access to Ai Weiwei. Klayman documented Ai's artistic process in preparation for major museum exhibitions, his intimate exchanges with family members and his increasingly public clashes with the Chinese government. Klayman's detailed portrait of the artist provides a nuanced exploration of contemporary China and one of its most compelling public figures.

Cast:
Danqing Chen -
Ying Gao -
Changwei Gu -
Tehching Hsieh -
Huang Hung -
Yanping Liu -
Evan Osnos -
Ai Weiwei -
Inserk Yang -
Zuzhou Zuoxiao -

Taglines: Can an artist change China?

Details

Official Website: Official Facebook | Official Twitter |

Release Date: 14 June 2012

Filming Locations: China

Technical Specs

Runtime: 91 min

User Review

The commonality of Ai Wei Wei and Prophet Nathan

Rating:

This documentary covered a serious look in various aspects on the Chinese artist/ activist, Ai Wei Wei. He was quite famous even before his 2008 Beijing Olympic main structure, Bird Nest. The shooting style was rather straight forward. As a documentary, the most important thing is the subject of the documentary. Definitely, Ai Wei Wei was an interesting subject that does not require a lot of enhancement work in other areas. The documentary was very rich with interview like local culture blogger, colleague, friend, wife, son's mother, mother and himself. More importantly, couple events like following up with the assault cases in very tense situation does capture attention because it is real event with some hidden camera. In one of his art, he dropped a two thousand year old Han Dynasty Chinese urn and toke picture of it. At first, people might though he was an insane post-modern artist who was acting weird with his new age behavior art. He also painted over those antique urns with funky bright yellow and blue color. It may be a heartbroken experience for those antique lovers. Later, he explained the city of Beijing was just like those Han's urns. The city was torn down for new development. That was of power of his art which making strong statement and interesting parable. His expression echoed the prophet in the Bible like Prophet Nathan. Prophet Nathan told a story of how a greedy rich man ripping of the poor to King David. King David was very upset of this story. But, Prophet Nathan later pointed out that King David actually was the one who ripped off the poor by taking someone wife and murdered her husband. Both of Ai Wei Wei and Prophet Nathan had the power of using parable to have a sneak behind attack before the defense system was setup.

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