Nan Ren Si Shi
Hong Kong,
2001, 103 min
Shown in 2002
CREDITS
- dir
-
Ann Hui
- prod
-
Derek Yee, Ann Hui
- scr
-
Ivy Ho
- cam
-
Kwan Pun-leung
- editor
-
Kwong Chi-leung
- mus
-
Tommy Wai Kaileung
- cast
-
Jacky Cheung, Anita Mui, Karena Lam, Shaun Tam, Tou Chung-hua, Eric Kot
- source
-
Filmko Pictures Limited, Unit 1357, Hong Kong Int’l Trade and Exhibition Center, 1 Trademart Drive, Kowloon Bay, Hong Kong. FAX: 852-2736-7111. EMAIL: ahkat@netvigator.com.
- premiere
-
North American Premiere
-
COMMENTS
Ann Hui in person.
OTHER
Old Seng returns to Hong Kong to die, alone. His former students Lam and Ching, now married with their own family, must reckon with the memories and misgivings that Seng’s return and impending death have revived. Forty-year-old husband Lam, inspired by his teacher’s love of poetry and the Yangtze River, now teaches Chinese literature to a sullen high-school class that includes the bluntly flirtatious Wu. The students’ obvious lack of interest in poetry and literature, despite his attempts to engage them, fills him with regrets for what his life might have been. His wife Ching cares for Mr. Seng in his final days while harboring a heavy secret from the past. Lam fills the vacancy caused by her absence by spending more time with Wu and pondering a decision he made long ago in his youth. Director Ann Hui transforms potentially trite details into fully realized human events, thanks to the restrained and layered performances of veteran actors Jacky Cheung and Anita Mui as Lam and Ching. Nominated eight times in this year’s Hong Kong Film Awards, July Rhapsody renders portraits of middle age at a time when even the eternal Yangtze, muse of the great poets, faces gross transformations of its own.
—Frako Loden
FACTOID #27
A surrealist stop-motion animator, the Czech Jan Svankmajer, was the first recipient of the Golden Gate Persistence of Vision Award in 1997. The POV Award honors the lifetime achievement of a filmmaker who works outside of feature-length narrative filmmaking.
