Starring: Jiang Wen, Anthony Wong Chau-sang, Joan Chen, Jaycee Chan
Director: Jiang Wen
Category: IIA (Putonghua)
Director-actor Jiang Wen's drama about intertwined lives during the Cultural Revolution raises fewer questions about tangled interpersonal relationships than it does about the nature of cinematic art versus mainstream filmmaking. Daring in its nonlinear story telling and refusal to spoon-feed the audience with expository material, it's a film that demands multiple viewings, not to mention a perusal of the plot synopsis, to come into focus, even for those familiar with its historical milieu.
The nearly two-hour-long production comprises four chapters whose sequential order is not immediately apparent, a quality that extends to the characters and the gradually revealed interconnecting worlds they inhabit.
The first three episodes take place in 1976 during the twilight of the Cultural Revolution, with parts one and three centring on a teenage brigade leader (Jaycee Chan, far right) and his remote southern village. Part one is mainly concerned with the boy's youthful mother (Zhou Yun), a dynamo whose deteriorating mental state and escalating eccentricities provide the son with clues about the father he never knew.