Director: Tian Zhuangzhuang
Screenplay: Ah Cheng based upon a story by Li Tianji
Cinematographer: Mark Lee
Editing: Xu Jianping
Sound: Lu Jiajin
Music: Zhao Li
Cast.: Hu Jingfan, Wu Jun, Xin Baiqing, Ye Xiaokeng, Lu Sisi
Production: China Film, Beijing Film Studio, Beijing Rosat Film
Distribution:
Paradis Films
6 rue Lincoln
75008 Paris
Tel: 0033-1.53.53.44.10
Mail: [email protected]
Year: 2002
35 mm, Color, 116 min,
Mandarin-Chinese with French subtitles
After an endless gloomy and severe winter, spring has finally returned in a small city of south of China. We are in 1946, just after the war which deeply wounded the souls of the people and ravaged the country left with indelible scars. Normal life seems to be back. In Dai’s house, which used to be a gorgeous traditional home before it got dilapidated, life returns to its nonchalant course. Yet, with the arrival of spring, impulses in the family soon reveal the limits of love, commitment, desire and sacrifice. Dai Liyan, the head of the household, is still young but unwell whereas his wife Yuwen is a responsible woman full of life and beautiful, but frustrated. Liyan’s sister is sixteen-year-old Xiu who also lives with them, as well as their old housekeeper Huang who helps them with her lifetime of service to the household. One day, they have the unexpected visit from a man. It is Zhang Zhichen, one of Liyan’s old classmates, now settled in Shanghai as a doctor after travelling all over China for years.
The novel was first adapted by Fei Mu in 1948.
