Director Wang Xiaoshuai’s ‘So Long, My Son’ to face several hurdles at box office
BEIJING: Director Wang Xiaoshuai’s So Long, My Son runs for over three hours and is expected to face hurdles at the box office in China.
This is despite winning two awards at this year’s Berlinale for Best Actor and Best Actress.
The movie tells the story of a couple who drift apart from their close friends after the death of their son It has finally received a release date for the Chinese mainland: Mar 22.
During a press conference in Beijing, Wang said that he tried to tell a story of how people’s lives are affected by the times they live in. In the director’s eyes, husband Liu Yaojun, played by Wang Jingchun, and wife Wang Liyun, played by Yong Mei, are kindhearted people who choose to move away to avoid affecting their friends’ lives even though they are the ones who lost a child.
Media screenings of the film were held over the few days prior to the press conference, with many reviewers noting they couldn’t hold back tears at certain points during the touching film.
This was also the case for the director and lead actor Wang. At the event, organisers showed a short behind-the-scenes video about the film shoot. At one point, both Wangs could be seen crying as they reviewed footage.
Considering the film’s more than three-hour-long runtime, it looks like So Long, My Son will have a tough time this month, especially since it will be going up against Hollywood blockbusters like Captain Marvel, How To Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World and Oscar-winning films Green Book and Bohemian Rhapsody.
Talking about these concerns, Yu Dong - president of Bona Film Group Limited, one of the producers behind the film recalled a talk he had with the director more than 10 years ago.
According to Yu, there were only 1,800 big screens and 1,000 cinemas in China in 2001, the year the former National Radio and Television Administration introduced new regulations and rules to stimulate the Chinese film market.
At that time, he was forced to tell Wang that there wasn’t enough room in cinemas for his films, because they needed to earn money by showing big budget Hollywood movies and other commercial films.
He noted, however, that the situation has changed today now that there are around 60,000 screens and more than 10,000 cinemas in China and called on cinema operators to give Wang’s film more screenshare.
Wang said he wasn’t worried about the film’s length having a negative impact, explaining that he was confident that the film’s intensive plot and ups and downs of the main characters’ lives will lead audiences to feel the three hours go by in a flash.
According to the synopsis on the Berlinale website, the film depicts how “the individual gets caught up in the gears of a society in the throes of constant change.”
The film deals with the repercussions of China’s onechild policy and the numerous mishaps and obstacles that ordinary Chinese had to deal with as China developed into an economic superpower.
“This movie isn’t based on a real person and it isn’t adapted from a novel either, but I believe this story must have happened to someone somewhere,” Wang said.