Zai na he pan qing cao qing (1983)

User Rating:

7.1/10   

Director:

Hsiao-hsien Hou

Writer:

Hsiao-hsien Hou (writer)

Genre:

Drama

Plot:

Da-Nian is a young man from Taipei. He goes to a remote village and works as a substitute teacher. He and Su-Yun...

Cast

Kenny Bee	...	Da-Nian
Meifeng Chen	...	Su-Yun
Ling Jiang	...	Xian-Wang

Also Known As:

The Green, Green Grass of Home
Zai na he pan cing cao cing (Taiwan)

Runtime:

90 min

Country:

Taiwan

Language:

Mandarin

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

2.35 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono

Certification:

Taiwan:GP

Rarity from Hou's commercial period (but you're not missing much, even if you're a fan)

It's not a good movie, but not a terrible one, either. I think this was actually Hou's most profitable film in Taiwan. I know it was successful, anyway. It's certainly more commercial than any of his other films that I've seen. It stars a famous pop singer of the time, Kenny B (and, let me tell you, if this guy could be a pop star in Taiwan, YOU could just as easily). The press release said it was supposed to be a musical, but that was misleading. I was looking forward to it for that reason (a Hou musical? The thought intrigued me), but, alas, all I got was one terrible song in which Mr. B popped in once in a while, a teacher singing a song to a class (both of these are the same song, and it was about sharing cola!), and two songs performed by children at a school play near the end of the film. The plot concerns a teacher (Kenny B) fighting to get a law passed to protect the local stream, in which a couple of people have been spotted either poisoning fish or electrocuting them. Let me cut to the point: every scene that does not concern the kids who co-star in the film sucks. The kids are wonderful, just as they were in A Summer at Grandpa's, which Hou made the next year. They are a little less realistic than the children in Grandpa's, and a little more cutesy, but they are remarkable actors all of them. The screenplay is often horrible, but, all in all, it wasn't too bad. I will admit that it is not nearly as important or artistically accomplished as many of the Hou films that I enjoyed less than it. 6/10.