A content review based on a film recommendation for Imagery Chinese Film Week by our guest of honour, Chris Berry, Professor at King's College London:
The authentic story of A-Q is one of China's undisputed film classics, and the first Chinese film to be selected for the Cannes International Film Festival's competition programme. The adaptation of the 1920s novel of the same name by the influential left-wing writer Lu Xun was adapted for the screen by the Shanghai Film Studio in 1981, to mark the 100th anniversary of the writer's birth.
A-Q is a poor peasant in the last days of the Qing dynasty, exploited by feudalism and let down by the 1911 bourgeois revolution - the revolution that overthrew the old imperial system and established a republic. The oppressive ideology also distorts A-Q's psyche. This distortion was at the heart of Lu Xun's work, and his aim as a writer was to dislodge the Chinese people from this state of affairs.
Chris Berry, Professor at King's College London, will be the guest speaker.
