Lovers on the Road follows Lei as she moves to Beijing for her boyfriend’s job, despite their rocky relationship. She starts a project interviewing other outsiders about Beijing and what they miss. One outsider, estranged from his family in Tokyo, takes Lei on a journey of self discovery…
This debut feature marks out Tsang Tsui Shan as director to watch, and we are delighted to welcome Tsang Tsui Shan to introduce this screening and for a post-screening Q&A.
Presented in association with the Confucius Institute at The University of Manchester.
review
“Lovers on the Road is Tsang Tsui Shan’s first feature and marks another European premiere for Visible Secrets, and another feather in the caps of Sarah Perks and Andy Willis, the co-curators of what is proving to be one of Manchester’s cultural highlights of 2009.
The film follows the life of Lei (Joman Chiang) and her boyfriend Nam (Dick So) as they move from Hong Kong to Beijing. While he works as a graphic designer, we watch Lei as she comes to terms with a new city and a new language as well as the perilous state of her relationship.
She spends her days photographing and interviewing other lost souls in China’s capital. A chance meeting with the happy-go-lucky, Masa (Otsuka Masanobu), a handsome Japanese boy with an engaging interest in Buddhism, leads her to further question her commitment to Nam.
Lei and Masa run off together to Shanxi in search of the famous Buddhist grotto sculptures of that region, some enlightenment, and a little love. As Masa returns to Tokyo, Lei contemplates her future as she relays the sound of the wind blowing through a canola field to her puzzled boyfriend in Beijing.
At a brisk 75 minutes, Lovers on the Road is an elegy to dislocation, disenchantment, and doomed love that fits neatly into the cannon of China’s urban generation of young film-makers.” Robert Hamilton, Senior Lecturer in Film, MMU
Awards
South Taiwan Film and Video Festival ’09 – WINNER
– Best Feature