The 12-year-old boy Kuankuan visits his aunt living alone after her retirement in Shanghai. Through his eyes his aunt appears bizarre, but after a series of adventures together they have reached some understanding before he leaves for home. He is only one of a series of colourful characters his aunt meets in her modern odyssey in a rapidly changing metropolis. They are at once prototypes in the modern city as well as perennial prototypes: the misfit, the amateur, and the underdog. One morning in the park our aunt meets a fatally attractive aging amateur. She falls for him. Finally he runs away after cheating her of her life savings. These and other incidents make the aunt so disillusioned that she decides to leave Shanghai, her home for over twenty years, to return to her husband and daughter in the province. A year later the boy visits her again in her new home. Shanghai seems to have been a mirage, or a happy dream…

Screenplay LI Qiang
Photography (colour) Kwan Pun-Leung, Yu Lick Wai
Editing Liao Ching-song
Music Joe Hisaishi
Sound Tu Du-chih
Cast Siqin Gaowa, Chow Yun-Fat, Vicky Zhao Wei, Lisa Lu
Production Zhang Wang, Yuan Mei
Year of production 2006
Running time 129’
Format 35 mm

Ann Hui

Born in China in 1947, she moved to Hong Kong in her youth. After graduating in English and Comparative Literature from Hong Kong University, she spent two years at the London Film School. Returned to Hong Kong, she worked as an assistant to director King Hu before joining TVB to direct drama series and short documentaries. In the late ‘70s she started the Hong Kong New Wave movement with other prominent filmmakers. Among the many New Wave directors, her style is known as varied and flexible, searching constantly the experiment with new genres. She directed 23 feature films of all genres and won various prizes worldwide. She is currently the head of Hong Kong Directors’ Association.