Director: Que Wen
Script.: Que Wen, Lin Hongtong adapted from a novel by Ba Jin
Cinema.: Luo Dan
Cast.: Xu Huan-shan, Pan Hong, Lin Moyu, Gao Fei, Liu Wenzhi, Tian Chong
Production : Beijing Film Studio
Year: 1984
35 mm, Color, 110 min, Mandarin Chinese with French subtitles
Un Certain Regard Cannes Film Festival selection 1984
Unreleased
With support of the Chinese Embassy of Paris
We are in Chongqing during the war of resistance against Japan in the forties. Wang Wenxuan is a young enthusiastic and idealist student at the faculty of Pedagogy. Despite his mother’s opposition he lives with his young girl friend Zeng Shusheng. He dreams of founding a school but is confronted with the hard reality and he contents himself with a clerk job. He is suffering from tuberculosis. His wife uses her charms to get a well paid job in a bank and provides for her family. Wang’s mother lives with the young couple. She finds her daughter-in-law’s attitude hard to take. Zeng Shusheng finally abandons her family and leaves for Lanzhou with her chief clerk. Yet, she does not forget them and regularly sends money. When the war ends, she comes back home…
