Cinema
Swan Song
絕響
Zhang Zeming · 1985
Synopsis
In Canton, in the early sixties, Ou Laoshu, a musician of Cantonese music, can no longer get anyone to play what he composes. He entered the new China with the habit of opium, lost his job and his marriage there, and lives in poverty. His tunes are now played only by a small orchestra of amateurs, blind musicians according to Time Out. He places his hopes in his son, Guangzai, raised by his mother; but the Cultural Revolution separates them, and the boy joins the Red Guards.
Context
The film is based on a novel by Kong Jiesheng. Zhang Zeming wrote the screenplay in 1984, and his Cantonese studio produced it in 1985 with a young crew; it was his first film. Kong Xianzhu plays the father, Chen Rui the son. The story follows the old musician from the fifties to the eighties. Tony Rayns, at the San Francisco festival of 1987, regarded it as the best first film made in China the year before, and the Institute of Contemporary Arts in London, which revived it in 2025, ranks its author among the little-known figures of the fifth generation.
Who it is for
Film of about a hundred minutes, in Mandarin and Cantonese, carried by Cantonese music; no French release is recorded.
Prizes and reception
It received the special jury prize at the Turin Young Cinema Festival in 1986, and two Golden Roosters, for the sets and for the cinematography.
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