Shanghai Dreams

China, 123 minutes
Director: Xiaoshuai Wang
Screenwriter: Xiaoshuai Wang
Cast: Yuanyuan Gao, Bin Li, Yang Tang, Xueyang Wang, Anlian Yao
Drama, In Mandarin, with English subtitles

Synopsis: Red shoes - peeking timidly and unexpectedly from beneath the school bench of Qinghong (Gao Yuanyuan), where a stubborn lover has left them - are the impudent symbol of changing times in sleepy rural China. It is the beginning of the eighties and even in the poor, mountainous Guizhou province, adolescents listen to Boney M and wear bell-bottoms. But Qinghong’s youth is imprisoned by her father’s narrow dreams of a better life in Shanghai. Qinghong - qing means “green” for innocence, while hong means “red” and evokes ardour - and her family moved from Shanghai to Guizhou in the sixties to fulfill patriotic duties, a decision her father has regretted ever since. Dreaming of returning to his native city, Qinghong’s father (Yan Anlian) wants to prevent her from putting down roots in Guizhou. He stalks her when she falls for a local boy, silences her dreams and poisons her life with loneliness and acrimony.

Investigating a theme woven with Wang’s childhood memories and intertwining arrays of defeated hopes, "Shanghai Dreams" chronicles the hardships of China’s relocation policies of the sixties, when urban families were uprooted and moved to remote border provinces to set up a network of new industrial cities, the “third line of defence” against a feared attack by the Soviet Union.

Illuminated by a cold winter light that perfectly suits its bitter atmosphere, "Shanghai Dreams" maintains a chilling sense of suspense and thriller-like momentum throughout its tale of personal tragedy. Thanks to Wang’s assured talent, this social drama of displacement becomes a vivid fresco of lives unhappily confined by myopic government schemes. These deracinated existences are watched as if from a distance, followed by impeccably unobtrusive camera work. Unsettled souls are stalked - often from behind windows and door frames - by the eye of a master who trades dreams for honest yet haunting narrative.

website: http://fortissimofilms.com/catalogue/title.asp?filmID=267

Showtimes: Tuesday, May 2, 7:00 PM - Wednesday, May 3, 5:15 PM