Director Wang Xiaoshuai (center) alongside his cast and crew at the Berlin premiere on Feb 14. [Photo provided to China Daily]
Wang Xiaoshuai’s latest film charts the lives of two parents who struggle to overcome the sorrow of losing their only child through decades of change in China.
When director Wang Xiaoshuai was shooting his latest film So Long, My Son in the Inner Mongolia autonomous region, there was a moment during one scene when he couldn’t hold back his tears as he sat behind the monitor.
The scene depicted an elderly couple who were sweeping their son’s tomb many years after an accident caused the death of their only child.
The actors – with Wang Jingchun starring as the father and Yong Mei playing the mother – not only touched their director with their acting but also won over the jury at the 69th Berlin International Film Festival earlier this year.
As an original story written by Wang Xiaoshuai and scriptwriter A Mei, the film scooped two Silver Bear awards for best actor and best actress, respectively, setting a record for a Chinese-language film by taking home the two main prizes at the festival.
In the past, only a handful of Chinese actors have won the Berlin festival’s top awards. Two best actress awards went to Maggie Cheung for Center Stage in 1992 and Josephine Siao for Summer Snow in 1995; while Liao Fan won the best actor award for his role in Black Coal, Thin Ice in 2014.
A still image of the film So Long, My Son, which stars teen actor Wang Yuan (left), actor Wang Jingchun (right) and actress Yong Mei. [Photo provided to China Daily]
“The awards went far beyond our expectations and are quite unprecedented,” says auteur Wang Xiaoshuai, whose last Berlin-awarded directorial feature is In Love We Trust, which won him a Silver Bear for best script in 2008.
“They are such excellent actors that they seemingly didn’t perform, but really inhabited the story of the film and endured the characters’ sufferings in their battle against fate,” adds the director.
Considered a prominent figure as one of China’s “sixth-generation directors”, Wang Xiaoshuai shot to international success with the film Beijing Bicycle, which won the Jury Grand Prix at the Berlin film festival in 2001. Most of his films examine social issues through the stories of grassroots people struggling at the margins of society.
So Long, My Son was conceived in 2015, when China relaxed its one-child policy, recalls the director.
“The news coincided with a story that I’ve been pondering over for a long time. I didn’t think too much about festivals or the market then, but just wanted to produce a film which resonated with ordinary people,” he says.
With a running time of three hours, the film charts the lives of two parents over the course of four decades, who move from a city in North China to a faraway village in East China’s Fujian province to escape the sorrow of losing their son. The boy drowned after his best friend asked him to join his friends swimming in a reservoir on a hot day, and the accident left the two families inextricably linked through their sorrow and regret over the years.
Just like most of Wang Xiaoshuai’s previous films, So Long, My Son bonds the individuals’ fate and lives with the immense transformations taking place in China, making the story both wider and deeper in scope.
Wang Xiaoshuai, actress Yong Mei (left), and actor Wang Jingchun celebrate the win of two Silver Bear awards during the 69th Berlin International Film Festival on Feb 16. [Photo provided to China Daily]
For the 52-year-old director, the film is the epitome of life for millions of Chinese families that have experienced the economic changes over the past 40 years.
“Chinese tradition and philosophy emphasize the integrity of a family. You will see in the film that the two leading characters adopt a child in their struggle with fate and bid to regain hope. It’s a manifestation of the tenacity and kindness of Chinese people,” says the director.
Undoubtedly adding to the film’s box-office appeal is the appearance of Wang Yuan, who plays the adopted teenager. A member of Chinese boy-band TFBoys, the 18-year-old pop idol who has more than 72 million followers on Sina Weibo, turns in a good performance.
Speaking about his casting, Wang Xiaoshuai says the young actor met his demands for the character, but his many fans who flocked to the film set soon became a distraction. The director says he felt sorry that stardom had made it impossible for Wang Yuan to discuss the script or share performance skills with veteran actors like some other actors of his age.
With a round of test screenings launched from March 15 to 17, the film has so far scored 7.8 points out of 10 on popular review aggregator Douban.
Yet the film’s commercial prospects remain uncertain, according to industry observers.
Yu Dong, founder, and CEO of Bona Film Group calls on theater operators to arrange more screenings for the film.
“China only had 1,800 screens and 1,100 cinemas in 2001, but that figure grew to 60,000 screens and 10,000 cinemas last year,” says Yu, adding that such a huge market should have the space for artistic films to survive.
So Long, My Son will be released across the Chinese mainland on Friday.