Birth Centenaries - Directorate of Film Festivals

China
COMPETITION
The Postmodern Life of My Aunt /
Yi Ma de Hou Xian Dai Sheng Huo
2006, 35mm, Colour, 111 mins, Mandarin Chinese
Director
Ann Hui
Screenplay
Ann Hui, Qiang Li
Cinematography
Lu Lik-Wai, Kwan Pun-leung
Editor
Liao Ching-Song, Yang Hong Yu
Music
Joe Hisaishi
Cast
Siqin Gaowa (Ye Rutang), Chow Yun-fat (Pan Zhichang),
Vicky Zhao Wei, Lisa Lu, Shi Ke, Guan Wenshuo (Kuankuan)
Art
Wu Lizhong
Sound
Tu Du-Chih
Costumes
Ma Yutao
Production
Cheerland Entertainment Organisation
1-2F, Building 1
Madianjingdian Jiayuan, No. 8
Qijiahuozi, Chaoyang District
Beijing 100029 (China)
Tel: +861082015522/6641
Fax: +861062018669
Email: houli@qixinran.com
10
IFFI-2007
In this film, renowned director Ann Hui blends her humanist cinema with the
spirit of Chinese opera. She has created both a humorous look at China today and
a new genre of filmmaking: the post-Cultural Revolution satirical melodrama.
Cool and articulate, the film has a generous heart, a sensitive soul and a clever
mind. Featuring a first-class cast of China’s great actors, it is the story of oldfashioned
Ye Rutang, a single woman in her 60s who struggles to maintain a
dignified life amid the dangers of Shanghai, a city that seems to have become the
receptacle for all kinds of con men. The first to pull a scam on Ye is her 12-yearold
nephew Kuan-kuan. He moves to her old-fashioned apartment after breaking
a leg in an accident, but when he cannot bear her stinginess, he runs away and
pretends to have been kidnapped in order to get the ransom money. Then comes
Pan Zhichang, an amateur opera singer, who tricks Ye into a relationship and
steals most of her savings with a complicated swindle involving speculation in
the price of cemetery plots. Focusing the film on the experience of women in her
home country and around the world, Hui sketches a fine portrait of changing
values. She situates her story in a precise cultural moment - a time where the past
seems to carry meaning only in the stubborn memories of individuals. This
charming social tale takes an original approach to issues including the atrophy of
mores in a society that is no longer egalitarian; its freshness rests in its ironic yet
compassionate look at its curious protagonists.
Ann Hui was born in Anshan, China and moved to Hong Kong as a child. She
studied at the University of Hong Kong and the London Film School, and worked
as an assistant director before directing a series of shorts and television
programmes. One of Hong Kong’s most prominent and innovative filmmakers,
she has directed numerous features, including The Secret (1979), Woo Yuet’s Story
(1981), Boat People (1982), Love in a Fallen City (1984), Song of the Exile (1990),
Summer Snow (1994), The Stunt Woman (1996), Visible Secret (2001), July
Rhapsody (2002) and Goddess of Mercy (2003).