July Rhapsody begins as a love story of sorts between Lam (Jacky Cheung) and Wu (Karena Lam), a student who openly flaunts her flirtatious side to him any opportunity she gets. However, the core of the story lies in the relationship between Lam's wife Chan (Anita Mui) and her teacher, Mr Seng (Tou Chung-hua). Whenever Lam and Chan share the same space, there is a faint sound of pattering rain, lurking in the background like an undercurrent beneath their seemingly peaceful relationship. The imageries of the Three Gorges Dam and the water of the Yangtze River that appear in the end seem to be a metaphor of the classic Chinese saying, 'A wise person has tolerance as vast as the sea'. The water swallows all the tears that Chan has shed over the years and the thorns in Chan and Lam's marriage.

After working in commercial films that gave him little room for creativity, Tomy Wai found himself in a creative funk. Wai recalled that even though Ann Hui's Visible Secret (2001) motivated him to rediscover his creativity, he hit another bottleneck when he arrived at July Rhapsody. One night, as he was sitting on the floor of a hallway, questioning himself after a long day in the studio, someone sat down next to him and said, 'Tomy, you're actually really good!' That person was Ann Hui. After that, Wai returned to the studio and turned off the lights. Instead of thinking about July Rhapsody, he recalled his rebellious childhood and all the obstacles he faced on his path to music. The finished work isn't just the sound of the mid-life crisis in July Rhapsody; it is also the music of Wai's own story.

# Post-screening talk with Tomy Wai & Dr Angela Law

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