I like the storyline of this show,it attract me so much

if their story seems completely bonkers, almost like a feverish work of fiction, you ain't heard nothing yet.

A story that's too fascinating to pass by...

It is an exhilarating, distressing, funny and profound film, with one of the more memorable film scores in years,

It is not until the lens of Beijing journalist Alison Klayman pulls in for a closer look that the troubling truth is revealed. These cameras in fact represent the ever-watchful eye of a frightened government that Ai Weiwei views as his opponent in an eternal chess match.Moviegoers unfamiliar with the fearless titular muckraker of Klayman's invaluable documentary, Ai Weiwei: Never Sorry, are practically guaranteed to become instant fans after seeing this richly involving portrait. There is perhaps no greater champion of individuality and its inherent power than this controversial icon, whose distinctive works powerfully function as both art and political statements. Consider his famous photographs in which he shatters a Han Dynasty vase, thus conveying that the past, however sacred, must be done away with in order for necessary reform to be achieved.Ai Weiwei's field of 100 million individually-made sunflower seeds represent the diversity of ideas that remain repressed by the bureaucratic regulations of his country's communist party. No doubt some of his revolutionary spirit rubbed off on Klayman, who utilizes various clips from Ai Weiwei's self-made documentaries that he distributed for free online. The footage chronicles his activism and the abuse that he has endured at the hands of government officials. Klayman has echoed her subject's philosophy by openly admitting in interviews that she hopes her film will be pirated, acknowledging that such a crime could help spread Ai Weiwei's message past the boundaries of American art houses.This is not the sort of stuffy, pompously ponderous doc that audiences view as the cinematic equivalent of nutritious yet tasteless vegetables. Klayman has made an immensely entertaining picture that garners a great deal of its mileage from the irrepressible charisma of Ai Weiwei himself, who subsequently appeared in his own send-up of PSY's "Gangnam Style" video. He is not above poking fun at himself, but he is immensely serious when it come to the message that he intends to convey through his work. There is a visceral thrill in watching him thrust his middle finger at corrupted monuments such as the White House and the Bird's Nest Olympic Stadium for which he served as an artistic consultant. He quickly turned his back on the Olympic Games in protest upon learning of the migrant workers being forced out of Beijing prior to the festivities.One of the most powerful sections in the film centers on Ai Weiwei's enraged response to his government's utter refusal to investigate the faulty construction that may have dramatically increased the number of schoolchildren who perished in the 2008 Sichuan earthquake. To further avoid sullying China's image, the government did not even make an effort to release the names of the deceased children, a disgrace that prompted Ai Weiwei to collect them himself. After posting the names on his blog to commemorate the one year anniversary of the tragedy, he displayed them in the form of a massive list accompanied by the audio recording of citizens reciting the names. Suddenly, the simple profession of the children's' very existence became an act of rebellion in itself.Klayman's film takes the form of a thriller as it explores Ai Weiwei's failed attempt to testify at the court hearing of Tan Zuoren, a fellow investigator of the student lives claimed by the earthquake. Audio was captured of the violence the occurred when Chengdu police broke into the artist's hotel room and bludgeoned his head, causing a cerebral hemorrhage that required emergency brain surgery. With a boldness evocative of vintage Michael Moore, Ai Weiwei confronts one of the officers who beat him while being followed by his trusted crew. It is clear to him as it is to the viewer that justice will continually evade his grasp, but that is not reason enough for Ai Weiwei to give up on his righteous crusade. He may not receive an apology from the cop, but at least he will capture his sorry face on camera.The story that Klayman unspools is so compelling that it registers as somewhat of a disappointment when it ultimately proves to be unfinished. Ai Weiwei's 81-day incarceration where he endured psychological torture at the hands of police received an international outcry in favor of the artist's release. Following his bail in 2011, Ai Weiwei was unable to give interviews and was not even permitted to leave the country. Klayman's decision to end her film in the midst of this dire crisis was perhaps unavoidable since the artist's unquenchable hunger to provoke ensures that his troubles with police will continue until his dying day. Though police claim that Ai Weiwei was arrested purely in the basis of tax evasion charges, Klayman's film makes a thoroughly convincing argument to the contrary.At an effortlessly watchable 91 minutes, the film does leave certain aspects of Ai Weiwei's life underdeveloped, particularly his complex relationship with his devoted wife, who conspicuously vanishes from the film after it is revealed that her husband had a child with another woman. This detail may seem irrelevant to the film's central subject matter, but it is crucial in portraying Ai Weiwei as a flawed human being rather than a larger-than-lie saint. He has no desire to be worshipped, anyway. His single hope is that the vital truths his work illuminates will resonate with the multitudes, and that is precisely what has begun to happen. Ai Weiwei's status as a close runner-up for Time's Person of 2011 parallels the triumph of Chinese writer Liu Xiaobo, who was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize soon after being sentenced to 11 year in prison for "inciting subversion of state power." If these extraordinary activists prove anything at all, it is that one's power and influence can indeed transcend the boundaries of a governmental gag order. Ai Weiwei is more than a mere artist or activist. He is an indomitable force on nature.

I must admit I knew virtually nothing about the Chinese dissident and artist Ai Weiwei before his detention and disappearance, in 2011, which made world headlines. This documentary, directed by Alison Klayman, does a fine job of capturing the life of Weiwei, who I found to be a very brave and charismatic figure. The film, I thought, was quite inspiring to me and also quite fascinating.The opening scenes show one of Weiwei's cats, who has learned to jump high and put his weight on a door handle and open the door, which is pretty amazing. Then Weiwei in his sly humor states that cats are different than humans because they have no inclination to close a door after they've opened it.His father was a renowned poet in China, but was sent into exile for re-education for 19 years. I imagine this is where Weiwei's iconoclastic spirit began. The movie traces his 12 years in New York City, where his brilliant art conceptions took root. When the crackdown in Tiananmen Square took place, in 1989, Weiwei participated in hunger strikes and demonstrations in protest. In 1993, he returned to China to be with his ailing father, who eventually passed away three years later.Most of the documentary focuses on Weiwei's continuing struggles to achieve more freedom for the Chinese people in a very authoritarian and controlled society. He seems to be in a continual struggle with the government, which shut his blog, surveilled his comings and goings, and even did nothing when security guards beat him in a hotel room, causing his brain to swell, nearly killing him.When the Sichuan earthquake struck China there were over 5,000 children killed, mostly from poor construction of schools, per the film. While the government wanted to keep the names of those who died secret, Weiwei began to identify all the children who died and had people from around the world read one name of each child on his Twitter page, to the consternation of the Chinese government.While some of his compatriots were imprisoned for speaking out against the authorities, such as Liu Xiaobo, Weiwei had escaped that fate. Many felt this was due to his worldwide notoriety, with his shows being so popular in many countries. However, in 2011, he was detained and for nine months held in seclusion. He was eventually released and apparently has slowly resumed his actions to achieve more freedom for the people there.The movie, I thought, was quite inspiring to me, and I found Weiwei's calm but revolutionary spirit to be quite special. The film also gives the viewers a seldom seen inside look at what's going on in China today.

"There are individuals who come along in certain periods of time who advance the human spirit to the next level." – actor James Newcomb Heroes are not only those who achieve unprecedented success, but those who create possibilities for others. "Breakthroughs" according to Werner Erhard, "are created by …people who will act to make possibility real." Such an individual is Ai Weiwei (pronounced "Ay Way Way") a Chinese artist and political activist whom Time Magazine named as runner-up for "2011 Person of The Year." Directed by Alison Klayman, the compelling documentary Ai Weiwei: Never Sorry, winner of a Special Jury Prize at this year's Sundance Film Festival, follows Ai Weiwei pursuing his sculpture, architecture, curating, photography, film, and other arts in a political system that does not hesitate to use force, repression, and censorship against those they see as threats to the Communist government.Ai Weiwei's father was Chinese poet Ai Qing who was denounced and sent to a labor camp with his wife, Gao Ying, an event that had strong repercussions in Ai's life. Ai Weiwei lived in New York from 1983 to 1993 where he studied and worked as an artist. While in New York, he created conceptual art by altering ready-made objects. He also compiled 10,000 photographs that were shown in an exhibit at the Three Shadows Photography Art Centre in Beijing and became the subject of a 20-minute film "Who's Afraid of Ai Weiwei" shown on PBS in 2008, a work that was expanded to produce the current documentary.Using interviews with friends, family members, fellow artists, and young followers, Klayman describes Weiwei's involvement in the Sichuan Earthquake Names Project which listed the names of 5,000 student victims who lost their lives because of shoddy construction of schools, his criticism of the government's use of propaganda to support the Beijing Olympics whose Bird's Nest Stadium he helped to design, and his provocative use of humor in his exhibit using photographs showing his extended middle-finger in front of Tiananmen Square. Weiwei says, "There is no outdoor sport as graceful as throwing stones at a dictatorship." The film also documents the artist's exhibitions in Munich, especially a work called "Remembering" which displayed 9,000 backpacks spelling out the words "She lived happily on this earth for 7 years," a reference to students who were killed in the Sichuan earthquake. Another exhibit shown at the Tate Gallery in London consists of 100-million porcelain hand-painted sunflower seeds made in China. Though China claims that human rights have improved in their country, Ai Weiwei's assault by police thugs attempting to prevent him from testifying at the trial of Tan Zuoren belies the claim. Zuoren, an activist and recent Nobel Peace Prize winner, was sentenced to 11 years in prison for several articles that, according to Weiwei, were reasonable and not at all provocative.One of the most important aspects of Weiwei's activism is his use of social media, especially Twitter (@aiww), an activity that he began in earnest after his blog was taken down by the authorities. This is demonstrated by his ability to quickly organize resistance to the government's proposed demolition of his newly-built art studio in Shanghai which they deemed "illegal." Though the documentary breaks no new ground as an art form and only skims the surface of Ai's personal life, Ai Weiwei: Never Sorry is a well-made and often inspiring film about an artist who is willing to take enormous risks for his own safety to expose human rights abuses and which reaches a new level of intensity when it is discovered that Weiwei has disappeared, leading to world-wide protests and an uncertain outcome.

There are times when I watch a documentary that I realize I am incredibly under-educated on real world issues. Perhaps my head is to glued on the silver screen and television for me to stop and actually research international issues or maybe I am in a country where Kristin Stewart cheating on Robert Pattinson is the only news I hear about for days at a time. Either way, one of my favorite parts about watching a documentary is hearing the stories I would never hear otherwise and coming to a better understanding of other countries, cultures, and struggles for both.This is exactly how I felt after seeing the documentary Ai Weiwei: Never Sorry. The story of a very popular artist trying to make change in China, Ai Weiwei: Never Sorry is a great definition of David vs. Goliath; the everyday man against a system and a country that tries to hold him down.While Ai Weiwei is a very famous artist in China, this film is not necessarily about his art. It definitely covers some of his major pieces that he has done to raise questioning and explanations for the deaths of thousands in China from a deadly earthquake, but the doc is more about his personal fights to try and raise knowledge world-wide and striving to have the country explain many of the "accidents" that have occurred.The main incident that begins this entire journey is Ai Weiwei's attempt to find out more information on thousands of children that died in school collapses resulting from an earthquake. The main concern is that Ai Weiwei believes shoddy architecture, which he refers to as 'tofu' construction, was what caused the schools to collapse and that the tragedies could have been avoided.The reason this actually becomes a story is not because he wants to find out the names of the children that died, it is because the government has not released the names AND tries to hinder Ai Weiwei in finding all the names himself. The government shuts down Ai Weiwei's online blog and squashes any of his attempts to question families and communities about the deaths.Eventually, Ai Weiwei receives over 5,000 names by using mail, interviewing families in person, and using Twitter. What is amazing is this doc is just as much about technology as it is about Ai Weiwei's fight. Eventually, Ai Weiwei is beaten by police, fights for justice against the policeman who wronged him, and has many artists and friends around him who are imprisoned or go missing. This is all documented for the world in the only way Ai Weiwei can: through Twitter. With the Chinese government unable to restrict anything Ai Weiwei does on Twitter, he is free to share his stories and any information he finds through the social website.To read the rest of the review (IMDb form too short) visit: http://custodianfilmcritic.com/ai-wei-wei-never-sorry/