Father and Son (4K Digitally Restored Version)

Dir: Allen Fong
Scrs: Chan Chiu, Lillian Lee, Alfred Cheung
Prod Co: Feng Huang
Cast: Shi Lei, Chu Hung, Yung Wai-man, Lee Yu-tin, Cheng Yu-ngor
1981 | Colour | DCP | Cantonese | Chi & Eng Subtitles | 97min

Allen Fong’s unique, uncompromising creativity was already apparent in his debut feature, seeking to update the humanistic realism of 1950s and 60s Cantonese cinema by infusing updated film techniques into the enduringly touching form of storytelling. The New Wave director draws on his personal experience growing up in a working-class family, his perceptive portrayal of the day-to-day life and personal relationships evoking the collective memories of a whole generation. The film is a collection of moments in the life of a boy, growing up from primary school to entering university. A distracted student who is nonetheless the light and hope of his old-fashioned father, he comes to realise that his sisters are denied hope and happiness because of him. He agrees to go along with the father’s mandate to study abroad, a form of concession and perhaps of compensation.

The story of a father putting all his hopes on his son is reminiscent of Ng Wui’s Story of Father and Son (1954), but Fong turns his focus on the son (somewhat a sign of the generational shifts in the film industry). The film manages to avoid the sentimental and preachy penchant of past family melodramas, opting instead for subtle, understated depictions of the constraints, mismatched expectations, as well as care and responsibility between father and son, creating an indelible, three-dimensional portrait of a relationship at once intimate and realistic, complex but contradictory. The abundant use of location shoots and the realist sets evoke the everyday environs of ordinary folks, providing also a tracking record of the social changes and economic developments of Hong Kong in the 1960s through the early 80s. Father and Son was screened as part of the ‘Information Show’ (now ‘Panorama’) section of the 31st Berlin International Film Festival and also won Best Film and Best Director at the 1st Hong Kong Film Awards.

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