The Post Modern Life Of My Aunt (Screen Daily Review)

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http://www.screendaily.com/story.asp?st ... 117&r=true

The Post Modern Life Of My Aunt (Yi Ma De Hou Xian Dai Sheng Huo)

Dan Fainaru in Toronto 13 October 2006


Dir: Ann Hui. Chi. 2006. 113mins.

A slapstick comedy opening leads to a melancholy and melodramatic ending in Ann Hui's The Post Modern Life Of My Aunt, which is tailored to please home audiences and Chinese communities abroad but will hold limited interest beyond that. Conceived as an episode piece that shifts from a light mood to a crepuscular one, Hui's picture pays as much attention to the new face of the Shanghai as it does its heroine (played by Mongolian actress Siqin Gaowa) who is trying to fend for herself on the city streets.

Working with a cast that features several popular Chinese stars, including legendary Chow Yun fat, Hui summons up a lightweight and entertaining but over-long and self-indulgent portrait of life in China's second most populated city. BTW: the mention of “post modern” in the title has less to do with a cultural movement and more with the generation gap which makes life in a contemporary Chinese metropolis challenging for older generations.

The name of the veteran Hong Kong director is sure to ensure it reaches a certain number of festival dates after appearing in Toronto, but in the grand scheme of things this may well be judged one of Hui’s more minor works.

Mrs Ye (Siqin Gaowa), a lively and exemplary educated citizen, is having a tough time of it, with her friends, her family and all the crooks and confidence men around her. There is also her neighbour, Mrs Shui (Lisa Lu), a dowager her own age, who drives everybody mad with her old fashioned songs and her spoiled cat wrapped up in laces.

The first time the camera catches Mrs Ye she is marching through Shanghai train station, holding an open umbrella and hollering the name of her nephew, who has been dispatched to her care. Only when the crowds thin and she taps his shoulder does the 12-year-old boy, one leg in a cast and walking on crutches, acknowledge her and accompany her home.

It soon becomes clear that aunt and nephew are not going to hit it off, and before long the young rascal engineers his own kidnapping, asking a ransom in exchange for his release. This is the first of three different attempts to swindle Mrs Ye out of her savings.

Then there is the slightly seedy conman, Pan (Chow Yun fat) who first pockets a small sum of money and disappears. He then returns, sweeps Mrs Ye off her feet, eats her food and then involves her in a cemetery plot scam, into which she foolishly puts all her assets.

There is also a peasant woman, Jin Yonghua (Shi Ke) who asks Mrs Ye for help, claiming she has been beaten up by her employer and that she needs money to care for her little girl in hospital. Mrs Ye, despite her suspicions, is once again duped. Cheated and frustrated, she falls down a flight of stairs and is herself hospitalised. Only then does the film reveal her less than admirable past and introduces her grown-up daughter, Dafan (Vicky Zhao Wei), who comes in to take mother back to her departure point.

If all this sounds needlessly complicated and contrived then that’s because it is. The plot is not bothered by problems like lack of plausibility and, despite losing some 15 minutes between when it was programmed (129 minutes in the Toronto catalogue) and its actual screening (114 minutes), it still indulges in unnecessary asides.

Hui takes a high-handed, soap-operatic fashion, with her division of the narrative into separate episodes, almost suggesting that this might have been her intention all along. She invites her actors to play for the gallery - and they willingly oblige.

Siqin Gaowa makes an appealing eye-rolling Mrs Ye, despite gesticulating a bit too often. Chow Yun fat has a grand old time being as sleazy as can be, while Shi Ke manages to suggest that despite all appearances, there is a certain pathos in the character she plays.

Two experienced cameramen, Kwan Pun-Leung and Yu Lik-Wai (the regular cinematographer of Venice winner Jia Zhang-ke) provide attractive Shanghai vistas, expertly inserted into the narrative by editor Liao Ching-Song.

Production companies/backers
Cheerland Entertainment Organization
Polybona Films

International sales

c/o Cheerland Entertainment

Executive producer
Yuan Mei

Producer
Er Yong

Screenplay
Li Qiang, from the novel by Yan Yan

Cinematography
Kwan Pun-leung

Production design
Wu Lizhong

Editor
Liao Ching-song

Music
Joe Hisaishi

Main cast
Siqin Gaowa
Chow Yun-fat
Lisa Lu
Shi Ke
Vicky Zhao Wei
Wang Ziwen
Guan Wenshuo