Cinema
For Fun
找樂
Ning Ying · 1992
Synopsis
Old Han, who has spent his life working for an opera house in Beijing, retires and does not know what to do with his days: he misses the regular life of his job. Gruff but generous, he joins a group of retirees who love Beijing opera and founds a club with them, where they sing, play and bicker. He soon intends to turn it into a real troupe.
Context
The film adapts a short story by Zheng Jiangong; Ning Ying co-wrote the screenplay with Ning Dai, and it was produced by the Beijing studio, with Huang Zongluo in the leading role. Completed in 1992, it was shown the following year in Tokyo, San Sebastián and Nantes. The M+ museum presents it as a quiet portrait of the Beijing of the time, attentive to ordinary people, and as the first part of its author's Beijing trilogy, which two further films followed in 1995 and 2001.
Who it is for
A film of one hour thirty-seven, in Mandarin, about retired people in Beijing; released in France in 2013 in a box set of the trilogy.
Prizes and reception
Golden Montgolfière and best actor prize for Huang Zongluo at Nantes in 1993, it also won prizes at Tokyo and San Sebastián.