'Chinese Art' ↓

The film “The Postmodern Life of My Aunt” (see the trailer below) by Ann Hui, a prominent Hong Kong film director, is a poignant film about values and life in the modern China. I can hardly recall another film that portrays modern China with as much poignancy and emotional undercurrents. No wonder the film is critically acclaimed, reaffirming Ann Hui’s directing talent.

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However, the film does not reveal these undercurrents until toward the middle of the film. So be patient to sit through the first part of the film.

The film features how a 60-year-old woman, who divorced her ordinary husband in the poor northern China during her younger days to pursue her dream in Shanghai, has come to the decision of going back to where her ex-husband is.

She is retired, can speak elegant English, loves painting, books and Peking opera, and still harbors hopes for romance despite her age.

Nevertheless, the reality of modern Shanghai/China has forced her to abandon her city life, or the cultivated and independent life she has been pursuing. She is disillusioned with a woman she knows on the street and who she helps; she is deceived by her niece who thinks up a kidnapping trick just to get her money. The last straw is the cheating of her lover, the new love she thinks she has just found who swindles her of all her savings by getting her to invest in a cemetery plot.

From an older era where honesty is a respected virtue and people trust each other, the woman finds herself in a world that she is no longer capable to deal with. She trusts the people she meets and the one she falls in love with, and yet, one by one, they betray her.

She is back to where her ordinary ex-husband is, in an industrial town with gloomy and dirty streets, and makes a living by sells shoes in an open market, alongside her ex-husband, in freezing cold. Her life is back to where she started. A life of vain inspirations.

The film resonates in those who know China. And the film is great not only because it reflects the modern China (such as the craze of buying cementary lots to make money), but also because it explores into the undercurrents of people’s emotions and aspirations living in today’s China.

My salute to Ann Hui, my favorite Hong Kong film director.

Edward Yang died on 1 July. He was 60.

The only film I’ve ever seen directed by him is YiYi (One One), produced in 2000. It leaves an indelible impression on me, for its humanism, portrayal of life at various levels and human emotions and conditions, accompanied with enriching and subtle details.

No wonder the film won the Best Director Award at Cannes Film Festival 2000 and reaped many other nominations and awards, including New York Film Critics Circle Award and Humanitarian Award at the Vancouver International Film Festival 2000.

It was a shock when I learnt of the news of his passing. 60 years is not too short a life. Neither is it too long a life, particularly for a film master as Yang who could have produced more wonderful films like YiYi.

The shock partly arose from the fact that Yang and Hou Hsiao-Hsien are arguably Taiwan’s two greatest film directors. Their names and films were part of my growing up. I like that distinct eastern aesthetics behind their films, mixed with modernity, and Chinese culture elements, and presented in today’s Taiwan context. I feel a deep sense of loss from the passing of Yang.

Now Yang is gone, so is the era that belongs to his era, says Hou Hsiao-Hsien, commenting on Yang’s idealism and dedication to cinema. The two of them, of same age, once worked together to produce films, and to dream about films.  

When I see this famous Chinese painting, I keep quiet for so long. Long because the painting is physically long, and also because it is really beautiful.

Enjoy it with background music played (the landing page is in Chinese; don’t panic. you will see the painting unfold. just slightly scroll down.)

The painting in question is Qing Ming He Shang Tu (Along the River on Qing Ming Festival), a handscroll painting by Song dynasty painter Zhang Zeduan (960-1127). Ranked among China’s top art treasures, the painting is 24.8 cm high, and 528 cm wide. The fine details of the painting, depicting busy life along the river in the then Song capital Kaifeng, are impressive, as well as its spectacular length.

There are many replicas of the painting (and the one shown in the link is probably a replica). The orginal one, kept in Beijing’s Palace Museum, and a replica are now on display in Hong Kong. Do take note that the original painting is usually not displayed to the public for the sake of protection, and this time, Hong Kong public gets the opportunity to view it only because of the 10th anniversary of Hong Kong’s return to China - a special “present” from the Central Government to the city.

So if you happen to visit Hong Kong this month or next, don’t miss the opportunity.

Lately, Chinese director Jia Zhangke was awarded the top prize of Venice Film Festival, whose winning film is “Still Life”. Relocation of families as a result of the largest-scale water engineering project “Three Gorges Dam” in the history of China and the world, has provided the backdrop for the film story to unfold. I am yet to see the film - this does not stop me from tipping my hat to director Jia Zhangke for his choice of the film subject.

You may not be aware that the construction of the three gorges dam has forced at least one million families - some said two million - relocated and displaced, not to mention the geological hazards and the environmental threat the US$70 million and 17-year long project has caused. Could you imagine the extent of consequence and tribulations for those affected just by imaging the sheer number of one million or two million? I can’t, to be honest. The scope is simply too grave for me to imagine, for each number represents a human being with his or her own life.

These people suffered in silence, for the sake of the economic growth of their country, in whose increasing prosperity they hardly can share. It is saddening that so many people in China, who have neither money nor power, are forced to relocate and be displaced because of rapid development of the property market and the over-heating economy. New buildings pop up everywhere. When the middle class or the super rich move into these buildings, the poor are forced to leave their homes to make way for demolition and re-development. Some get minimal compensation, some none. If you want to appeal to the local government, you can be beaten up by the police or sent to labour prison for being “reformed”.

It was just disclosed in a Hong Kong newspaper that more than 200 residents in Shanghai - China’s largest city and financial centre - lately appealed to the Beijing ruling elite, depicting their sufferings at the hands of the corrupt officials who ordered their homes be torn down and they be punished after repeated appeals. 

It shouldn’t be forgotten that China’s economic growth is achieved at the expense of those at the bottom rungs of the social ladders and I simply do not know when China can be more of an equalitarian society, or if one day it can.