There's a festival of Chinese cinema on at the moment. I missed out on the black and white 1930's silent classic with live orchestra with which it kicked off through a combination of lack of forward planning and underestimation of the number of sinocinephiles around.

SO, determined not to further tarnish my cultural credentials I invested a tenner in a four filmathon Sunday. I fidgeted charitably through "Liang shan bo yu zhu ying tai", a musical melodrama in which willow pattern bridges in misty landscapes announced a feyness that rivalled Brigadoon and where star-crossed lovers chose death together rather than life with another. You won't be surprised to learn that Shakespearian girl disguised as boy confusions also featured.

Then "Ying xiong" confirmed me in my belief that however beautiful a film is to watch, if its principal action consists in swordsmen/women flying at one another through the air complete with Dolby surround sound swishing and smacking, it's not my bag. Everybody important chose death in that one too.

The evening session started with a film much more to my taste. "Fa yeung nin wa" was a subtle and sensitively told story of a man and a woman brought together, or at least brought into an almost togetherness by the fact that their partners are each having an affair - together as it turns out. Nobody dies in that one but they don't live happily ever after either.

Finally came "Xiao chang zhi chun". The brochure says this has been "voted the best Chinese film ever". I don't know who voted when, maybe those who saw it in 1948 when it was made. But the somewhat tattered print with scratchy sound and subtitles whose English came from the same pen as whoever does the translations for the Japanese self assembly furniture industry left much to be desired. I could see it was probably a good film with fine acting but the story looked a bit predictable and I was hungry and tired so I chose life and left after half an hour.

There is still a score of Chinese films in the offing but I think I shall husband my appreciation resources until the New Europe Film Festival gets going in ten days time. I must Czech that out.