Tag: 2024

Blue Imagine (ブルーイマジン, Urara Matsubayashi, 2024)

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Over the past few years, there have been a series of scandals exposing a culture rampant sexual harassment and abuse which has long been an inextricable part of the Japanese film industry. Just recently, a director very like the one in Urara Matsubayashi’s indie drama Blue Imagine (ブルーイマジン) was arrested following several accusations of sexual assault though like his film counterpart insists that he has done nothing wrong and all his relationships were consensual. 

This is the battle that the women face. When Noeru (Mayu Yamaguchi), an aspiring actress, tries to take her case to the press she’s first met by a scruffy reporter who puts it to her that she willingly participated in a game and her problem is she didn’t get her half of the bargain rather than having been victimised by a predatory man. The reporter claims that they have women like that in the office who are keen to accompany older men for drinks or dinner in the hopes of getting ahead. In retrospect, one could see Tagawa’s treatment of her as a kind of grooming. He love bombs her with praise for her talent and then half promises her a leading role in his upcoming film before attempting to take advantage her. He insists he’s done nothing wrong, and perhaps on some level believes he simply seduced the women he assaulted unable to see how the power he wields over them prevents them from refusing or resisting him. Then again, he and his producer routinely engage in misogynistic banter and wilfully give false hope to the actors who take part in his workshops hoping to bolster their chances of landing professional gigs. 

Eventually it’s this wilful crushing of dreams that begins to get to Noeru along with the knowledge that Tagawa is still out there probably doing the same thing to other women aided and abetted by a misogyinistc culture that prevents the women from speaking out through shame and social stigma. When Noeru tells her brother, a lawyer, what happened to her he snaps back that this is why he didn’t want her to become an actress as if she’s somehow brought it on herself. A female reporter who treats their case with sympathy encounters something similar when her editor is relcutant to publish because to him it’s just how things work in the entertainment industry so there’s not really a story in it. 

Yet the waters are muddied a little by a sub plot revolving around the concept of compensated dating or as it’s now called “sugar dating” in which young women “date” wealthy older men who provide them with material goods rather than money. One of Noeru’s friends encounters the dangerous side of the arrangement when her Daddy becomes violent and possessive, threatening to leak nude photos of her if she chooses to break up with him. Her friend Yurina (Yui Kitamura) disapproves of what she’s doing which is in effect what the actresses were accused of in engaging in, a solely transactional relationship. A young man Noeru meets who lives in the floors above the refuge she later begins helping out at sees some of their fliers but immediately says they aren’t really for him, which seems like an ironic comment though it’s also of course true that men also suffer sexual harassment from both men and women while facing a similar but different level of social stigma to the women who are just beginning to find the strength to speak out thanks to their newfound solidarity.

Much of this is due to the efforts of Michiyo who runs Blue Imagine to support women who’ve suffered sexual assault or violence. Her Filipina barmaid Jessica also suffered domestic abuse at the hands of her Japanese husband which was compounded by her vulnerability as foreign national knowing her husband could use her immigration status as a further tool to control her while she had little access to help or support.Yet it’s she who tells Noeru that silence is also complicity and she should speak out to the extent that she is able in order to improve the situation for women in the film industry or at least put a stop to Tagawa’s abuse of power.

Confronted at a press conference for his film that is still shockingly going ahead, Tagawa denies everything while the leading actress is forced to say that he was a perfect gentleman only later asking why he and the producer bullied her into a nude scene that wasn’t in her contract or why it was so important for her to take off all her clothes. Pressed by the women for a explantation for his assaults he offers only that his sexual desire was too powerful. The female reporter and her colleague bemoan the lack of progress over lunch, but also refer to another scandal about a minister and his secretary though it turns out not even to be the one the female reporter thought they were talking about. 

In the end, however, it’s less about changing the film industry or in indeed society at large as it is about solidarity between women as symbolised by the closing scenes in which everyone at Blue Imagine sits down to dinner together to enjoy traditional Filipino food prepared by Jessica and another woman who arrives at the refuge after suffering domestic violence. Through bonding with other women in similar positions and making the decision to fight back, Noeru comes to make peace with herself and begins moving past her trauma determined to support other women in the hope that something will finally change. Shot with a down to earth naturalism, the film may at times feel bleak and filled with a sense of despair yet displays its own resilience and eventual serenity born of female solidarity and long-awaited self acceptance,

Blue Imagine screened as part of this year’s Osaka Asian Film Festival.

Original trailer (English subtitles)

Article 20 (第二十条, Zhang Yimou, 2024)

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There’s something quite strange going on in Zhang Yimou’s New Year legal dramedy Article 20 (第二十条, dì èrshí tiáo). Generally speaking, the authorities have not looked kindly on people standing up to injustice in case it gives them ideas, yet the film ends in an impassioned defence of the individual’s right to fight back in arguing that fear of prosecution should not deter “good” people from doing “the right thing” such as intervening when others are in danger. Nevertheless, the usual post-credits sequences remind us that the legal system is working exactly as it should and the guilty parties were all caught and forced to pay for their crimes.

In this particular case, the issue is one akin to a kind of coercive control. Wang (Yu Hewei) stabs Liu 26 times following a prolonged period of abuse and humiliation. After taking out a loan to pay for medical treatment for his daughter who is deaf and mute like her mother Xiuping (Zhao Liying), Wang was terrorised by Liu who chained him up like a dog and repeatedly raped his wife. Prosecutor Han Ming (Lei Jiayin) eventually argues that his attacking Liu qualifies as self defence under Article 20 of the constitution because even if his life was not directly threatened at the time it was in the long term and he did what he did to protect himself and his family from an ongoing threat.

Han Ming becomes mixed up in several different cases along the same lines only with differing levels of severity. Some years ago he’d worked on the case of a bus driver who was prosecuted after stepping in to help a young woman who was being harassed by two louts. His problem was that he got back up after they knocked him down and returned to the woman which makes him the assailant. Zhang has spent most of his life since his conviction filing hopeless petitions in Beijing. Meanwhile, Han Ming’s son, Chen (Liu Yaowen), gets into trouble at school after stepping in to stop obnoxious rich kid and Dean’s son Zhang Ke from bullying another student.

Now jaded and middle-aged, Chen first tells his son that he should he give in an apologise to get the boy’s litigious father off his back though Chen is indignant and refuses to do so when all he did was the right thing in standing up to a bully. Bullying is the real subject of the film which paints the authoritarian society itself as a bully that rules by fear and leaves the wronged too afraid to speak up. The choice Han Ming faces is between an acceptance of injustice in the pursuit of a quiet life and the necessity of countering it rather than live in fear while bullies prosper.

The thesis is in its way surprising given that the last thing you expect to see in a film like this is encouragement to resist oppression even if the idea maybe more than citizens should feel free to police and protect each other from the immorality and greed of others. It is true enough that it’s those who fight back who are punished, while the aggressor often goes free but according to Han Ming at least the law should not be as black and white as some would have nor be used as a tool by the powerful, or just intimidating, to oppress those with less power than themselves. 

Other than the theatrical drums which play over the title card, there is curiously little here of Zhang Yimou’s signature style while the film itself is not particularly well shot or edited. It also walks a fine line between the farcical comedy of Han Ming’s home life in which he perpetually bickers with his feisty wife (an always on point Ma Li) who worries he’s too interested in his colleague Lingling (Gao Ye) who turns out to be an old flame from his college days during which he too was punished for standing up to a bully by being relegated to the provinces for 20 years. A minor subplot implies that the justice-minded Lingling is largely ignored because of the sexist attitudes of her bosses who feel her to be too aggressive and often dismiss anything she has to say in what amounts to another low level instance of bullying. The film ends in a rousing speech which seems more than a little disingenuous but even so ironically advocates for the right to self-defence against a bullying culture while simultaneously making a case for the authorities having the best interests of the citizen at heart which would almost certainly not stand up particularly well in court.

Article 20 is on limited release in UK cinemas courtesy of CMC.

International trailer (English subtitles)

The Moon Thieves (盜月者, Steve Yuen Kim-Wai, 2024)

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If something’s constructed entirely from orphaned parts of others like it, can you really say it’s a “fake”? Watchmaker Vincent (Edan Lui Cheuk-on) might say no, making his living through passing off “period correct” replicas of fancy watches as the “real” thing while trying to stay one step ahead of the authorities and the gangsters who seem to be his prime customers. Then again, The Moon Thieves (盜月者), Steve Yuen Kim-Wai’s return to the big screen in four years since Legally Declared Dead and a vehicle for phenomenally popular boyband Mirror, never really stops to ask just why vintage luxury watches are so desirable that the super wealthy are prepared to expend vast sums on a niche vanity status symbol but perhaps there really is no answer for that one. 

In any case, Vincent’s obsession is with the watch worn by Buzz Aldrin as he stepped onto the moon which seems to have become lost to time with NASA apparently refusing to confirm or deny its existence. His decision to make a period correct watch for a petty gangster in order to retrieve some info on the Moon Watch lands him in hot water when he’s blackmailed by local kingpin Uncle (Keung To), who is actually a youngish guy who’s taken over the name and criminal empire of his late father. Unless he wants the gangster to find out the watch is “fake”, Vincent will have to join his heist team and travel to Japan where he’ll sneakily replace three watches worn by Picasso with his homemade replicas. 

It has to be said that the film’s fatal flaw is the miscasting of Keung To as the mercurial gangster, Uncle. Though his boyish bravado might play into the idea that Uncle is out of his depth, too insecure to even use his own name rather than adopt his father’s, To’s total lack of menace or authority leaves him a rather hollow villain who alternates between super sharp intelligence and dull predictability laced with misplaced smugness. Meanwhile, Vincent is able to stay a few steps ahead of him if only in his canny knowledge of the vintage watch trade and easy power to manipulate the markets though even he probably didn’t plan on incurring the wrath of space-obsessed local yakuza who are very annoyed to have had their luxury watches stolen out from under them. 

This leaves the gang doubly vulnerable while veteran members Chief (Louis Cheung) and Mario (Michael Ning) begin to suspect that Uncle is getting rid of all his father’s previous associates and doesn’t really plan to let them live. Tensions within the group are only further strained by an unexpected hitch in the plan which brings them to the attention of the yakuza despite their incredibly careful preparations. Yuen keeps the tension high through the heist slipping into slick Ocean’s Eleven-style visuals which lend a sense of cool to the gang’s endeavours which are after all a kind of rebellion against Uncle as much as they are a capitulation to his stronghold on the local community. 

Twists and double-crosses abound as the gang try to stay ahead of him with not everything quite as it seems. Like the watches, they take everything apart to put it back together again in a way that better suits them, freeing themselves from Uncle’s thumb which might in itself stand in for another distant and corrupt authority. Ironically, the yakuza remarked that no one remembers who came second yet everyone is desperate to get their hands on the famed Moon Watch worn by the second man to walk on the moon as a kind of holy grail among horologists that they would maim or kill for though of course even if they had it they could never show it to anyone fearing they’d caught out by the authorities including NASA who apparently have a lot of say over this particular relic of the moon landing. The heist isn’t quite as daring as actually stealing the moon, though it is definitely a sticky situation for all involved which eventually requires them to hide their quarry in plain sight while doing their best to outsmart Uncle and avoid turning on each other. Smart and slick, the broadly comic overtones lend an endearing quality to Vincent’s quest for survival while targeted by a ruthlessly corrupt and infinitely implacable authority.                                                                                                                                                                  

The Moon Thieves opens in UK cinemas 23rd February courtesy of Central City Media.

UK trailer (English subtitles)

The Storm (大雨, Yang Zhigang, 2024)

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A cosmic storm is likened to the chaos of life in Busifan’s beautifully drawn but narratively obscure family animation, The Storm (大雨, dàyǔ). Set seemingly in a fantasy past which is also a kind of post-apocalyptic future in which mankind has ruined itself through greed, the film is at heart a kind of redemption story in which those left behind attempt to exorcise the negative emotions of the past and ease the destruction they have wrought by abandoning outdated ideas of wealth and status. 

The hero, Bun, is a young orphan adopted by the elusive Biggie who found him drifting down a river in a chest. Biggie decided to adopt the boy as his own but never allowed him to call him father while himself struggling the stigma of having been a criminal. Biggie sometimes leaves Bun on his own while he goes off to try and earn money to give him a better life and justifies his actions that everything he’s doing is only for Bun. Later in the film he expresses regret for “lying” to him, pretending the world was not so chaotic as is it is as the pair become embroiled in a supernatural curse while looking for the famed Nuralumin Satin said to be aboard a mysterious black ship filled with monsters. 

According to biggie, the Black Dragon Army hunting the Nuralumin birds into extinction led to an explosion in the jellyfish population while a prophesy states that the jellyfish will soon unite with another monstrous force during a cosmic storm becoming an awesome dragon that casts a shadow over the land. The ship itself seems to be a symbol of insatiable greed, a kind of floating marketplace in which people entered in search of riches but did not leave again. Inside, they became monsters devoid of all humanity and hungry only for material gain. 

The king’s own mother is said to have fallen victim to the curse, while his nephew also knew a troupe of opera singers who boarded the boat in search of an audience but have apparently lost their way. The spirits of the opera singers recount their plight, that as lowly entertainers they were only ever looked down on and abused no matter if they entertained the king himself and all his other royals. That they fell victim to the curse seems to be a condemnation of outdated ideas about social class and the stigmatisation of a profession, while Biggie’s fate seems to imply something similar. No matter how much he tried to turn himself around and be a good father to Bun, the world continued to reject him and he was left only with crime as a means to support himself. That’s one reason he wants the Satin, so that Bun will be looked after for the rest of his life and they won’t have to debase themselves anymore. 

We can see that the area they live in which is close to the famed Dragon Bay where the Black Ship eventually resurfaces is rundown and abandoned perhaps itself because of the lore that surrounds the area. Even so, the backgrounds are gorgeously animated with flowers in full bloom and Bun making his way through colourful and lively vistas of rural beauty. Yet it’s just this beauty that mankind’s greed has destroyed in the Dragon Army’s senseless killing of the Numalurin birds for which their guardian tribe has never forgiven them. Only the return of these birds and the giant deity that protects them can help end the curse, restoring the proper balance to the land in which the jellyfish are kept in check and the dragon cannot be formed. 

It has to be said that narratively the film is incredibly confusing and difficult to follow, at least for viewers who do not speak Mandarin. Nevertheless, what shines through is Bun’s redemptive power as he desperately tries to rescue Biggie from his own worst impulses, his greed and desperation in being drawn to the black ship like moth to a flame and in danger of being turned into one of the monsters. Constantly accompanied by round ball of fluff he encounters several other cute creatures while otherwise guided by a handsome young man who seems to be made of cloud while his wish that he really could stop Biggie from leaving by treading on his shadow might in an odd way come true. Boundlessly inventive, the film’s ideas sometimes get ahead of itself but are more than made up for in the unshowy beauty of its fantasy world. 

International trailer (Simplified Chinese / English subtitles)

Table for Six 2 (飯戲攻心2, Sunny Chan Wing-Sun, 2024)

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“It’s okay to be screwed, we’ll unscrew you later,” youngest brother Lung (Peter Chan Charm Man) comforts his dejected brother in an accidental advocation of what means to be a family in Sunny Chan’s followup to the phenomenally successful comedy  Table for Six. Like the previous film and in true Lunar New Year fashion, Table For Six 2 (飯戲攻心2) explores the concept of family in a wider sense along with contemporary attitudes to marriage and traditional gender roles.

Even so, it has to be said this table is now uneven as oldest brother Steve has literally run away from his romantic dilemmas taking off for Africa leaving new girlfriend Miaow (Lin Min-Chen) behind claiming she’s too far out of his league and it’s not fair of him to waste her youth. Ironically enough, Bernard (Louis Cheung) has now started a wedding business helping people pull off extravagant public proposals such as the sort of fake one he prepares for Monica (Stephy Tang Lai-yan) as a publicity stunt featuring him dancing in a 90s-style music video. As part of the campaign, they’ve set up Lung and Miaow as a fake couple hoping to build a following for their romance online much to unexpected chagrin of Josephine (Ivana Wong) who has begun to embrace her dreams by becoming a well-known quirky chef who makes food disguised as other food. Though they had agreed to separate so the could both follow three dreams at the end of the previous film, Josephine suddenly proposes leading Bernard to put on an extravagant wedding as promotion for his business. 

In a way, Bernard’s company symbolises the performative qualities of marriage as couples put themselves through a stressful and expensive ritual more out of obligation than real desire. When Lung is prevented from reaching the ceremony on time, Bernard ends up impersonating him in a full body costume making plain that the spectacle is more for show than sentiment and it could really be anyone up there simply fulfilling a role. In fact, no one even checks the certificates were properly signed. Then again, just as in Josephine’s cooking sometimes the “fake” and can actually contain the “real” just in a different way than expected. She may say that once a relationship has cooled the spark can’t be regained, but that doesn’t necessarily mean a new, different, spark couldn’t be found. 

Perhaps that’s what happened for Bernard and Monica who’ve now overcome the awkwardness of Monica having been in a longterm relationship with oldest brother Steve. Ironically enough, they’d more or less decided not to get married only to be blindsided by their reactions to the “fake” proposal but as it turns out more because of the emotional baggage from their parents’ failed relationships that have left them too afraid to get married. Monica is still traumatised by her father’s extra marital affair which resulted in a half-brother she’s never met but has since become a Cantopop star, while Bernard still has bad memories of being treated as a “red-headed” child and like Steve is preoccupied with a desire to keep the family together while worried that he isn’t really up to it. 

The lesson Bernard learns is that family is a burden that’s carried together so he didn’t need to save it on his own and that it’s alright to mess things up because his family will be there to take care of him. Miaow meanwhile is left in the same place as Steve had been in the first film, wondering how long she should wait for love or if Steve is ever coming back, trying to decide whether to accept a promising job offer in Japan or stay in Hong Kong. Part of her reluctance to move on is that she’s become wedded to the family and fears losing her place within it but as Monica says her status wasn’t dependent on blood or relationships and that she’s already been accepted into the family just for being herself. 

Then again, families can also be annoying as Bernard remembers after inviting his gangsterish uncles to one of the weddings only for them to muscle in as a major sponsor for another own insisting on designs the dress themselves complete with a par of shark fin wings to promote their business none of which meshes well with Monica’s passion for conservation. In any case, as Monica reflects family means you can embarrass yourselves together so maybe wearing a stupid dress for a few minutes isn’t such a big deal. Heartfelt and zany, Chan’s farcical drama shifts past the performative aspects of marriage and family to what lies beneath which, like Josephine’s cooking, may not always be what it first appears.

Table for Six 2 is in UK cinemas from 9th February courtesy of CineAsia.

UK trailer (English subtitles)

Johnny Keep Walking! (年会不能停！, Dong Runnian, 2024)

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A satirical morality tale, Dong Runnian’s incredibly witty comedy Johnny Keep Walking! (niánhuì bùnéng tíng) sees a bumpkinish middle-aged factory worker still filled with an idealism that seems outdated even in the late 90s transferred into a lion’s den of corporate greed and dubious morality while ultimately expressing the younger generation’s increasing dissatisfaction with the inherent unfairness of corporate life in modern China. Ironically turning Tom Chang’s 1988 hit My Future is Not A Dream into a rallying cry from disillusioned youth, the film nevertheless places its faith in the moral generosity of a fat cat factory owner who struck gold in the nation’s 90s reforms but has largely forgotten those who helped him get there.

Key among them would be Jianlin (Da Peng) whom we first see trying to fix the disco ball at the factory’s 1998 gala and being asked to sing a song instead. 20 years pass with Jianlin still living the life of a model factory worker stuck on the same old salary while applying to perform in the company’s annual gala has become his only joy in life. Meanwhile, the factory owner has gone on to head an increasingly powerful multi-national company leaving Jianlin and those like him far behind deprived of the successes that the modern China has to offer. 

This is in part a paean for those left behind by the economic reforms of the 1990s which saw the end of the old factory system with mass unemployment and displacement amid frequent plant closures. Jianlin’s is still open, but devoid of the sense of comaradie that mark the opening scenes. His scheming floor manager, Zhangzi is trying to engineer a transfer to head office so that his son could attend a better school in the city and has been helping a series of corporate lackeys defraud the company, in addition to paying a direct bribe, in return for a job offer. A drunken mix up by office party boy Peter (Sun Yizhou) results in Jianlin being hired instead in a shock move that proves inexplicable to all. 

Jianlin is such an innocent that he thinks the reason he’s been given a huge promotion is because he was employee of the year for 12 years straight and the company probably want to send a message to the youngsters that hard work really will be rewarded. Of course, the opposite is true. HR manager Magic (Bai-Ke) quickly spots the mistake but is prevented from fixing it because it would get them all into trouble, and while it’s obvious to most people that Jianlin has no idea what he’s doing they choose to say nothing because they assume he must be a nepotism hire and they want to stay in the boss’ good books. Everyone at the company uses an English name with Jianlin rechristened “Johnny” though he understands no English and struggles with Chinese business jargon having no idea what people mean when they go on about “aligning the details”. Charged with firing someone under the company’s radical new “optimisation” programme, he takes the word at face value and gives them a promotion and a raise instead.

In fact, much of the film is him muddling along like typical middle-manager promoted beyond his abilities. He’s advised that good management is all about setting employees against each other so they forget about resenting you while basically delegating all your tasks to your subordinates who will be only too happy to help in order to curry favour. Slowly corrupted, Jianlin beings to play along, taking all the perks of corporate success while signing documents he couldn’t understand even if he actually read them.

Nevertheless, he develops a kind of team spirit with Magic, a man stuck in a mid-career rut because of his lack of skill at office politics, and Penny temp whose perpetually kept on the hook rather than being given full employee status so that the company can exploit her more. Penny also suffers sexual harassment at the hands of the party happy Peter with Jianlin getting her out of a sticky situation by telling her to finish a report and drinking with Peter himself. Together, and with the assistance of the workers at the factory and others about to be unceremoniously fired as part of the cost cutting enterprise, they attempt to expose corporate corruption and stage a protest against unfair working practices but the only saviour they have to turn to is the company president strongly suggesting a return to the old factory days which, it is implied, were much more wholesome and innocent. In any case, justice eventually wins out with the good rewarded and the bad getting their just desserts though it doesn’t do too much to tackle the inherent and quite ironic rottenness of the system in which the worker has been reduced to a mere tool to be used and discarded by a faceless and uncaring corporate entity. 

International trailer (English subtitles)

My Future is not a Dream (Tom Chang)

Brief History of a Family (家庭简史, Lin Jianjie, 2024)

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Part way through Lin Jianjie’s smouldering social drama A Brief History of a Family (家庭简史, Jiātíng Jiǎnshǐ), two boys play a game with a series of coins in which the objective is not to be forced into claiming the last remaining piece. Shuo (Sun Xilun), a visitor to the other boy’s home who had been starting the game remarks that whoever gets to play second will always find a way to win which is quite an ambivalent statement given the questions we might ask of what playing second might mean. 

In any case, Shuo clearly has an intention and desire to work his way into this stereotypically nice, upper-middle class family with its tastefully decorated home. He gives away little about himself and we can’t even be sure how much of what he says is true, whether he really yearns for the mother who died suddenly when he was ten or is astutely playing on the frustrated maternity of Mrs Tu (Guo Keyu), or whether his father really is a violent drunk who beats him out of a sense of defeat and insecurity feeling betrayed on finding out that he’s been spending all his time with the Tus. Their son, Wei (Lin Muran) who goes to his school and seemingly befriends him, is by contrast an almost open book aside from the lies he tells his parents in choosing to follow his own desires at the fencing club rather than attend English classes.

It’s this contrast between the two boys that comes to emblematise the crises at the heart of the contemporary China in the wake of the easing of the One Child Policy. It gradually becomes clear that Tus have on some level already given up on Wei who does not fulfil their expectations as the perfect son of a middle-class couple. Mr Tu (Zu Feng) in particular is austere and traditionalist. Wei points out that he made him study calligraphy at an early age but what use is it when everyone types? He threatens to send him abroad to study if his grades don’t improve, but then begins to switch his allegiance towards Shuo who is quiet and intellectual in contrast to Wei’s perhaps outdated brand of virile masculinity. In a pregnant moment, Wei begins to realise that he’s being replaced, displaced inside his own home, when the chairs around the dinner table are rearranged from two on left and right to one on each side with his parents and Shuo huddled on the other end discussing Ivy League colleges and dismissing his news that he made it onto the county fencing team with the false enthusiasm shown to a child who’s just drawn a picture that will soon be pinned to the fridge.

Yet there’s also a transgressive element of homoerotic tension between the boys that is surprising given the censors’s usual objections. Lin frames them sheltering from the rain playing at fencing with umbrellas until Wei symbolically kills Shuo and cradles him softly in a pieta surrounded by a pool of light. At a later moment Shuo moves offscreen and we hear what sounds like a peck of a kiss, though we can’t be sure if it’s pure calculation or an attempt either to calm or needle an increasingly febrile Wei who is very definitely concerned about his place within the family and feels as if the rug is being pulled from under him. 

Every so often Lin cuts back to a circular frame, as if looking through a microscope studying the dynamics of this family and how they change once Shuo enters the picture. Shuo seems to instructively spot the loneliness in Mrs Tu, looking at photos from a holiday taken before she was married in which she looks happy and free while her life as a stereotypical housewife has robbed her of individual fulfilment outside of her husband and son. Mr Tu meanwhile looks down on his wife intellectually and is disappointed in his son who he feels reflects badly on him. Later we discover that they conceived a second child but Mr Tu insisted on an abortion rather than pay the fine though the undercurrent is that had it been born they would not necessarily have been so disappointed in their son. Mrs Tu describes Shuo as their second chance, in one fell swoop admitting their “failure” with Wei while buying themselves a shot at the kind of child they always wanted to have, a “good son” like Shuo who is quiet and intellectual and can easily fit into their world. An attempt to teach him tennis ends in disaster, but Mr Tu says it doesn’t matter because he will “train him systemically”.

This seems to be the implication the film is making, that the systematic training of the young to turn them into the children their parents want them to be is producing only barely constrained rage and resentment. The cool and clinical aesthetic of the microscope window suddenly turns a bloody red while we see Wei try to construct a beauty that might not in reality be there. The chairs are put back in their original position complete with their sense of absence but his parents seem to be in their own worlds. They eat in silence, and do not even really look at him. He goes to English cram school but is made to robotically repeat meaningless phrases until he drops the pace, looking into the camera with darkened eyes that suggest an oncoming explosion. Lin conjures a smouldering sense of dread in the urgent string score, slow creep zooms, and usual framing that often cuts someone out be it Shuo on the doorstep trying to cross a threshold or Wei with his back to us wondering how he can turn the camera around all while we place this family under a microscope doubling for the oppressive gaze of an all too conformist society.

Brief History of a Family received its World Premiere as part of this year’s Sundance Film Festival.

Images courtesy of First Light Films.