Southeast Asian Movie: After This Our Exile

Now in its fourth year, the Southeast Asian Wednesday Night Movie continues to build a loyal following of regular film attendees from both the university and local communities.

The series has showcased, often for the first time in Hawaii, more than seventy-five subtitled films which span the diverse and dynamic landscape of cinema in Southeast Asia.

Join us on Wed., April 16 for a screening of...

AFTER THIS OUR EXILE
Fu zi

Directed by Patrick Tam
Hong Kong/Malaysia, 2006, 120 minutes
Cantonese with English Subtitles

One of the leading filmmakers of the Hong Kong new wave of the early ’80s, Patrick Tam returns after a 15-year absence with his characteristic compassion and inventiveness intact. Set in 1990s Malaysia, Tam’s family drama dissects the troubled relationship between a loser father (Hong Kong superstar Aaron Kwok), who cooks in a cheap restaurant, and his son, who has the instincts of survival that his father has lost. Deserted by their wife and mother, the men drift across the thin line that divides survival from collapse. Fleeing from loan sharks, they move to a small town where the father encourages his son to rob houses, a scheme with predictably disastrous results. In contrast, the mother is now remarried and living a comfortable middle-class life. Some years later, the grown-up son returns to the place where he lost his innocence and where his future was intertwined, for better or worse, with his father’s fate. Like many filmmakers of his generation, Tam is shadowed by patriarchal complexities both on a personal level and in connotations of Hong Kong’s pre-’97 relationship with China. Tam masterly navigates the points of view of father and son to deliver a profound reflection on the split between the wisdom of maturity and the ambitions of youth.

Watch the trailer online.

Event Sponsor
Center for Southeast Asian Studies, Manoa

More Information
Paul Rausch, 956-2688, cseas@hawaii.edu

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