SYNOPSIS

A twelve-year-old boy Kuankuan visits his aunt Ye Rutang (Sequin Gowa) who is living alone after her retirement in Shanghai. Through his eyes his aunt appears stingy, out-of-date, loud, and ridiculous. Her neighbour (Lu Yan) also appears bizarre. But after a series of adventures together they have reached some understanding before he leaves for home. Kuankuan, however, is only a series of colorful characters his aunt meets in her modern odyssey in a rapidly changing metropolis. They are at once prototypes in the modern city in China as well as perennial prototypes: the misfit, the dilettante, and the underdog. One morning in the park our aunt meets Pan (Chow Yun Fat), a mysterious, fatally attractive aging dilettante. She falls for him and has an affair with him. Finally he runs away after cheating her of her life savings. Crisscrossing this affair is another story with a peasant woman (Shi ke) who has come to work in the big city. She has a four-year old daughter very ill in hospital. Ye Rutang try to help her but she is shock by her dishonesty. after Ye has endured financial ruin, emotional hurt, physical injury and guilt over her role in the sad fate of a gossipy neighbour (Lisa Lu), the action takes a more sorrowful turn as her hard-edged daughter (Vicky Zhao Wei) arrives, forcing Ye to confront her past.

TECHNICAL DATA

Director:Ann Hui

Producers:Er Yong, Mei Yuan, Wang Zhang
Screenplay: Ann Hui, Qiang Li, Yanyan.
Cast: Chow Yun-Fat, Siqin Gaowa, Zhao Wei
Cinematography: Christopher Doyle
Soundtrack: Joe Hisaishi
Runtime: 111 min. Language: Mandarin. Subtitles: Spanish.

DIRECTOR

BIOGRAPHY

Ann Hui was born in Manchuria in 1947 and moved to Hong Kong when she was five years old. She studied English language and literature and comparative literary studies until 1972, then spent two years at the London Film School. Upon returning to Hong Kong, Hui became an assistant to the veteran director King Hu and then joined TVB, where she directed serials and documentaries on 16 mm. In 1977, she joined the ICAC (Independent Commission for Anti-Corruption) and made seven TV episodes. She then joined the government TV network RTHK in 1978 and made three featurettes for the series Below the Lion Rock, of which the best known is Boy From Vietnam, which subsequently became the first part of her "Vietnam trilogy." The other two films were Huyue de Gushi (The Story of Wu Viet) (1981), which was screened at the Director's Fortnight of the Cannes Film Festival, and Tuo Pen Hu Hai (The Boat People) (1982).,br> Hui left television and made her first feature film, Feng Jie (The Secret), in 1979, a thriller based on a real-life murder case and starring famous Hong Kong actress Sylvia Chang. Zhuang Dao Zheng (The Spooky Bunch, 1980) was her venture into a popular genre in Chinese literature and film, the ghost story. Quing Cheng Zhi Lian (Love in a Fallen City, 1984) was an adaptation of a well-known Shanghai novelette by Zhang Ailing. Hui used the story to comment on the anxiety felt by Hong Kong residences about the Chinese takeover of 1997. Her projects became more ambitious, with the two-part Qing dynasty epic, martial-arts film Shujian Enchoulou (The Romance of Book and Sword/Princess Fragrance) (1987). Ann Hui's films have always revealed a strong sense of history and almost without exception featured strong female characters. The question of exile and the psychological effects of the condition of exile on the individual are her recurring themes. Ke Tu Chin Hen (Song of the Exile) (1990), which is somewhat autobiographical, won the Best Film prize both at the Asian Pacific Film Festival and Rimini Film Festival. Qian Yan Wan Yu (Ordinary Heroes) competed at the 49th International Berlin Film Festival in 1999. In 2002, her July Rhapsody about a middle-aged male teacher facing a mid-life crisis, was released to good reviews in Hong Kong and elsewhere. Her film, Jade Goddess of Mercy (2003), is adapted from a novel from Chinese writer Hai Yan.

FILMOGRAPHY

- The Secret (1979)- Director
- Love in Fallen City (1984)- Director
- Song of the Exile (1990)- Director
- Ah Kam (1996)- Director
- Ordinary Heroes (1999)- Director, producer
- July Rhapsody (2002)- Director, producer
- Goddess of Mercy (2003)- Director
- Night and Fog (2009)- Director, producer