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Dark Matter (2007/I) More at IMDbPro »

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24 reviews in total

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71 out of 76 people found the following review useful:
A beautiful and touching film, 4 May 2008

Author: kooist from United States

Loosely based on the 1991 University of Iowa shooting incident, Dark Matter tells a heart-wrenching story of a brilliant mind lost in translation.

Liu Xing (also means Falling Star in Chinese), a young student with humble background, became the elite a few selected to pursue his dreams in America. Shouldering high hopes of folks back home, the naive dreamer works diligently towards 2 goals in life: a Nobel Prize and a blond wife. When his bright future is blocked by the jealous professor, his rosy dreams crushed by cultural clash, and most damaging of all - his pride and dignity eradicated under harsh reality, our protagonist turned into a cruel monster.

The film is skillfully shot, well acted, and thoroughly entertaining with many bitter-sweet humors depicting the tough living conditions of poor Chinese studying in America during late 80's. Meryl Streep is excellent as usual. Liu Ye, one of the best young actors in China today, played the protagonist with powerful emotions that will bring the gentle hearted viewers to tears.

If you are looking for authoritative explanations to the Lu Gang incident or any of the recent school shootings, you will likely be disappointed. According to the director, this is a story based on his own personal experience, aimed to bring awareness to the dark side of the academics circle as well as the overlooked lives of foreign students in America. I feel the script could to be strengthened by more psychological exploration into the protagonist character, so the ending would not appear so abrupt. Yet overall this is a beautiful and touching movie. Not to be missed by people with similar experiences or those who are curious about the subject matter.

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16 out of 18 people found the following review useful:
Clashes: Cultural, Lingual, Scientific, Emotional, 18 April 2009

Author: gradyharp from United States

DARK MATTER is a film that will polarize audiences: for those who seek understanding of the clashes between science and 'religion' and the matrix from which tragedy grows the film will appeal, and for the audiences who demand tidy stories with happy resolutions the film will not please. Apparently 'based on true events', this story has many layers that invite discussion and reveals some facts about the American Academia that many would rather not know.

Liu Xing (Ye Liu) comes from a poor family in Beijing, but rises to hopeful heights due to his exceptional scientific intelligence and is invited to a prestigious university to study with Cosmology professor Jacob Reiser (Aidan Quinn), the author of the Reiser String Theory - the entire universe is tied into a compact single ball of cosmic wax. Liu Xing encounters initial success not only academically but also as a fresh young student, barely able to speak English, who is taken under the wing of the kind matron of Chinese culture, Johanna Silver (Meryl Streep). Liu Xing develops his own theory that the universe is united by massive amounts of unseen Dark Matter. When the student's theory conflicts with Reiser's theory, the negative results begin to affect each of the characters: Liu Xing sees his dream of earning a PhD in Cosmology and winning the Nobel Prize for his theory destroyed by the powers of academia and as he watches his fellow Chinese students succeed, he is plagued with low self esteem as he attempts to support his family in Beijing with money earned selling cosmetics door to door. The downfall of a simple genius destroyed by the inner workings of academia leads to unimaginable tragedy.

Billy Shebar's screenplay tinkers with the story's credibility with a heavy dose of sentimentality at times, but director Shi-Zheng Chen keeps the story moving by allowing the audience to witness frequent glimpses of Liu Xing's humble Beijing home life. The star of the film is the very talented Ye Liu, but Streep and Quinn carry their rather minor roles with great dignity and understatement. This is a moving story, too frequently repeated in our campuses to overlook. There is much more to this film than first viewings reveal. Grady Harp

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11 out of 11 people found the following review useful:
Second on "based on a true event", 2 March 2008
Author: bondpont from United States

*** This review may contain spoilers ***

I just want to second a previous comment on the claim that the film was "based on a true event". In my opinion, the film should certainly change their claim so that the audience know it is NOT (actually far from) a narrative of the true event.

In the true event, the student, Gang Lu, was far from a naive victim whose dream was shattered by academic politics and cultural difference as portrayed by the film, but rather a self-promoting and selfish psycho who couldn't tolerate the fact that another fellow student was better than him. If you are interested, the following links give more details.

Links: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gang_Lu

If you can read Chinese, this link provides much more details, even including Gang's final letter to his sister, the person he felt the closest: http://history.163.com/07/0417/10/3C98P6TC00011248.html

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5 out of 5 people found the following review useful:
Subtlety to Perfection, 11 May 2009

Author: napierslogs from Ottawa, Canada

Dark Matter is a fantastic movie. Anybody who is frustrated with academic politics or anybody who enjoys a simple movie told well, shot well and acted brilliantly, should see Dark Matter.

The writer/director got it right. I'm not saying details surrounding previous incidents that this is based on are the same, but the overall attitude of the students, and professors at the university are exactly right (to most people's perceptions).

Without giving anything away, the story follows a brilliant Chinese student at an American University trying to get his Ph.D. under a successful/respected Professor (played by Aidan Quinn). They showed us everything we needed to know about the main character, including contrasts to his fellow Chinese students with very effective, subtle scenes.

For the subtlety, effectiveness, and simplicity of all the scenes, Dark Matter is one of the best recent films made.

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7 out of 9 people found the following review useful:
I Hope Your Happy Now, 29 April 2009

Author: valis1949 from United States

No one can know what is in the mind of another-especially in the case of mass murder. Shi-Zheng Chen, director of DARK MATTER, has created a fresh vision of America from the point of view of a recent arrival to this country. Liu Ying, masterfully played by Ye Liu, is a Chinese graduate student who has come to the US to study Cosmology with a professor that he has idolized his entire life. Ying's life seems to be filled with unlimited possibility, and the answers to all of his dreams and wishes seem just around the corner. DARK MATTER's forte is the portrayal of the energized spirit in this young graduate student. The film is shot in Big Sky country of Utah, and this location perfectly mirrors this limitless potential. Ying's area of study is the examination of dark and uncharted areas of the cosmos which seem to exert dramatic effects on the nature of life. These 'dark areas' are mirrored in the clandestine machinations of the politics of graduate school. It seems that the unfettered life of the mind only works if new ideas are able to fit within intellectual processes which have been well established over time. And this becomes the dilemma of the film. How can the free and uninhibited flow of ideas intersect with the rigidity of higher education? The sudden and shocking climax to the movie is a resolution to this issue, although certainly not a fair or just one. DARK MATTER shows how violence can be the inescapable consequence of murdered hope.

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10 out of 15 people found the following review useful:
Intense. Heart-Breaking. Funny. Tragic. Beautiful. - THUMBS WAY UP, 16 April 2008

Author: eugenetard (eugenetard@yahoo.com) from Los Angeles

*** This review may contain spoilers ***

I just saw a screening of this tonight, and it ROCKED.

This flick was Hard-Core. Kind of a matter-of-fact, naturally progressing story of a nice brilliant kid who comes from China to a U.S. college to stake his claim to scientific fortune and glory, but instead finds only a politicized academic world he can not penetrate.

A pretty extreme character to start with, but also extremely likable, he turns into a poster- boy for a certain type of desperation with no outlet. You can kind of see it all coming from a mile away, but the outcome still packs a crazy kick in the gut. Maybe even all the more so for its nauseous inevitability.

The movie really puts you in the head-space of a person who most of us insular Americans don't consider too often: the Grad student from a foreign country (like China) who's here against all odds to pursue a prestigious P.H.D., and who's under enormous academic, financial, and familial pressures we can hardly match.

And the way that it's all conveyed to us is beautifully done.

There's a Whole Lotta Feeling in the colors and shapes and sounds and music that are poured over us, like a bath. The subtle but far-reaching color-palette and the composition of the shots are great. Bright colors for the campus (and the "wild west"). Washed-Out Browns and Grays for his parents back in China. Drab Greens and Grays and Blues and Yellows for the students' dormitory apartment. There's a lot of interesting use of space. Both claustrophobic and wide-open, imposing and freeing. The fragmented frame. The sometimes crazy angles. The use of extreme close-ups. The placement of the main guy within much larger spaces in wide shots that emphasize his relative insignificance. He knows he's onto a big break-through about the nature of the universe, but to us he's just another hamster on the wheel.

And it was really sweet the way the whole thing was segmented and labeled with the elements over iconic shots like "fire", "water", "wood", "metal", and what-not. It was in keeping with the themes they had going of natural forces, and the strange physics of human relationships and kiss-ass politics, and what was really there or not, what was the dark matter in play against this guy? forces that he couldn't see operating, on the D.L. wavelengths that he didn't have the science for himself? There's a lot going' on for this guy.

The acting is great all around. Really Cake-Taking in places.

Meryl Streep is under-stated as a supporting player who has some great moments with the main guy, especially in a quiet scene at her place toward the end that's an All-Timer.

Aidan Quinn is great as a professor and potential mentor, and potential player-hater. He embodies qualities both admirable and unforgivable with equal directness and verve. By the end there are indeed shadings of light and darkness to that ever-present twinkle in his eye. A tragic figure himself, he seems like somebody who there's probably a lot of like out there.

And the main guy, the Chinese student, forgive me for not knowing the name please, but this guy is Incredible in this role. I mean he's Awesome. Really Amazing.

I mean, he's so endearing at the beginning. I just wanted things so much to go well for him when he was starting out. He can barely speak English, but the guy communicates so much. And then, as he has more and more trouble navigating the mutual back-scratch society of the U.S. P.H.D. chase, the uncomfortable moments just start snow-balling. And whoever this kid is, he really REALLY takes it there. He's so reaching and vulnerable it's menacing. A real cringer.

It's a tall statement, I know, but his portrayal has amazing echoes, in quality and nature, of De Niro's Travis Bickle in "Taxi Driver". In the way that they're both so searching and sincere and even sweet, and yet thwarted at every turn in their quest for belonging and identity and success. Mind you, this kid's got a whole helluva lot more going' on than Travis did, but that adds to the magnitude of his personal tragedy. He's a Genius, with so much amazing potential, but just as much a social cripple and outcast, and even more doomed. It's Heart-Breaking.

Maybe it ain't for everybody.

This is one of those movies that some people might dismiss as "independant" or "artsy- fartsy" or what-have-you, but which is a Damn-Well-Made story, and an uncomfortably familiar one. A sad scary detour off the road to the "American Dream" that we're seeing all too often in the news lately. Whatever the reaction to it is when it hits theaters, It's a movie that'll be looked back on as a searching and serious (and vital) work of art. As something informed by the times and asking some overdue questions. Among them:

What happens? Why's it happen? And how can we keep it from happening again?

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19 out of 35 people found the following review useful:
not bad, try again please, 26 June 2008

Author: jamesstreet from United States

I watched this with several friends and it was interesting to see who was surprised by the ending and who wasn't. Let there be no doubt, there is a great subject for a plot here. Forget that its based on a true story because its not - that's just marketing and fodder for pointless forum discussions.

What really hurt this movie were the pointless special effects and overly exaggerated sentimental shots, mostly featuring Meryl Streep, interspersed throughout the movie - typically after a scene where the protagonist experiences success or failure. There are only a handful of these shots and they only last seconds – but they are schmaltzy in an otherwise very believable movie. If you're watching even somewhat closely, they give away the movie very quickly.

I'll bet Shi-Zheng Chen goes on eventually to make a truly great movie. This one is about half way there.

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2 out of 2 people found the following review useful:
A Clash of Egos, 14 April 2009

Author: sol from Brooklyn NY USA

*** This review may contain spoilers ***

(There are Spoilers) Getting the highest entrance scores in the collages history young but very naive Beijing physics grad Liu Xing, Ye Ling, was given the honor to work with the great American cosmologist professor Jacob Reiser, Aidan Quinn, as his #1 assistant. Being very impressed in the work, in both physics and cosmology, he did back in China Prof. Reiser wants Liu to help him with his work in proving the "Reiser String Theory". It's the "String Theory" that, in Reiser's mind, ties together the entire far flung universe into a neat compact and single ball of cosmic wax.

Liu who at first worshiped the ground that the "Great Man"-Professor Reiser- walked on soon came to conclusions that were totally opposite to his "String Theory". This made made the at first friendly and lovable professor a bit ticked off in his #1 assistant Liu making him look foolish by being totally off the mark in how strings keep the universe from drifting apart! What Liu theorized and later proved on paper, with higher mathematics, is that there's in fact undetected but massive amounts of "Dark Matter", instead of strings, that keeps the universe uniformed-in the even distances of its stars nd galaxies from each other-and in tact! By this very simple formula that he was to base his doctoral dissertation on Liu totally destroyed Professor Reiser's flimsy and badly thought out "String Theory". With the professor putting Liu's theory down as just wishful thinking he later had it, behind Prof. Reiser's back, published in a prestigious science magazine that had Reiser-in making his "String Theory" look totally ridicules-really lose it!

Feeling that Liu isn't a "team Player" Prof. Reiser used all his power-as the "Great Man" of science that he is- and influence to destroy Liu career as not only a future Nobel Prize winner but even flunking him and preventing Liu from advancing in the world of science and becoming a physics professor. Liu for his part was totally shocked in his boss-Prof. Reiser-actions since he always thought that the pursuit of knowledge-or science- was above petty politics! Ending up as a delivery boy, selling perfume and body lotion, Liu in finding out that his fellow Chinese grad student Laurence Feng, Llyod Suh, has been picked by Prof. Reiser as the collage's BSY-Best Student of the Year-his brilliant mind completely short-circuited!

In Liu's mind not only was Feng a butt-kissing, in how he always sucked up to Prof. Reiser, creep but that he also dishonored his Chinese culture and forefathers by becoming too Americanized. This act of betrayal to his race was by Feng changing his given Chinese name of Zhang to Laurence, or "Larry", in order to get the very coveted Best Student of the Year Award. What was even worse is that Liu felt, and rightfully so, that he was a far better student then Larry ever was! It was there and then that Liu made up his mind to not only make Larry but Prof. Reiser and all those-the collage faculty-who conspired to destroyed his future in the world of science pay for what they did to him and pay big time!

The movie "Dark Matter", which is based on a true story, was to be released around the time of the April 16, 2007 "Virginia Tech Massacre". It was then that a 23 year-old South Korean exchange student Seung-Hui Cho, much like Liu Xing in the movie, went nuts and gunned down some 30 people. The movie was put on the shelf and released only on DVD some two years later when the "Virginia Tech Massacre" was no longer front page news.

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2 out of 2 people found the following review useful:
Dark Matter, 21 September 2008

Author: The_CareBearJew from every where

*** This review may contain spoilers ***

"The universe is made mostly of dark matter and dark energy, and we don't know what either of them is" - Saul Perlmutter Inspired by actual events, director Chen Shi-Zheng's socially conscious psychological drama follows the journey of an ambitious Chinese scientist working towards his Ph.D. in America, only to be marginalized to the extent that he ultimately loses his way. All Liu Xing (Liu Ye) ever wanted was to study the origins of the universe at a Western university. Upon arriving at the school, Liu immediately rents a modest apartment with a few other Chinese students and begins flirting with the pretty American who works at the local coffee shop. Personally welcomed into Department Head Jacob Reiser's (Aidan Quinn) select cosmology group, Liu remains dedicated to his studies and optimistic about the future. Things continue to look up as Liu becomes close with wealthy university patron Johanna Silver (Meryl Streep) after the two become acquainted at an orientation for foreigners sponsored by a local church.

Eventually, Liu becomes Reiser's protégé, and makes a sizable impression at a prestigious conference attended by the pair. But attitudes start to shift when Liu's studies in dark matter come into direct conflict with his mentor's prominent theories and well-established studies. His excitement about a potential breakthrough causes him to ignore repeated warnings that he must pay his dues, and Liu's findings are eventually eclipsed by that of more studious fellow student Laurence. Determined to have his studies published, Liu goes behind Reiser's back, but he ultimately becomes the target of ire rather than accolades, with Johanna's naïve encouragement prompting him along a dangerous collision course. While Liu remains enamored with the concept of the American dream and optimistic about American science being a free market of ideas, he begins to grow dejected after his dissertation is rejected, the girl at the coffee shop blows him off, and his roommates all find lucrative jobs. Essentially left behind at the university, Liu rejects Johanna's offer for help and vows not to return home to disappointed parents. Now, as he coasts on the fumes of his unrealized dreams, the dishonored student prepares to lash out with one final act of devastating annihilation.

A fairly good film with a promising plot and class A actors but what really brought this film down I think is the way the director handled his cluttered vision of the premise and it came out to messy for me. The special effects were really unnecessary, this is an indie art house flick so its alright if you don't use special effects if its not really called to the occasion. And the repetitive use of overly sentimental shots of lead character Liu Xing was a bit annoying, I mean I already get the scene was emotional, I don't need to stare in the face of a mopey Chinese guy contemplating his streaks of bad luck.

On the other hand though, the actors in the film were really exceptional. Lead Liu Ye, who is apparently a big shot actor in China marks his American debut with this film. The material given maybe a bit too cluttered but he did his best with it and came out really good. I can't really say his debut went out with a bang but he's almost there. Meryl Streep of course, always the pro. You can't go wrong with the lady.

Overall, I'd say the acting was exceptional and the plot is really promising but the material is just too cluttered and messy for my style. Should have left the unnecessary special effects in the cutting room floor.

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4 out of 6 people found the following review useful:
This is a great film, 25 January 2009

Author: vladtn from Edinburgh, Scotland

I started watching this film with the IMDb reviews in mind. Nothing could prepare me to what I have seen. Definitely a great director. The story is told with subtlety, depression is painted with soft strokes, one almost doesn't even know what caused it. A story of minimal events that makes a life. Strangely, and I feel sorry to say that, it is the first Chinese film I have seen that embraces foreign culture, and in such a way. The only thing that is bad in this film are the title credits and the end which is maybe too dramatic, but beautiful. Watch it. Yes, I am watching the end right now, too dramatic, and the end credits look like the start one. Great film.

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