A Summer at Grandpa's (1984)

A coming-of-age story about a young brother and sister who spend a pivotal summer in the country with their grandparents.

Director:

Hsiao-Hsien Hou

Writers:

T'ien-wen Chu (screenplay), T'ien-wen Chu (story)

Stars:

Chi-Kuang Wang, Shu-Chen Li, Hsiu-Ling Lin

3 wins & 3 nominations.

Cast

Credited cast:
Chi-Kuang Wang	...	Tung-Tung
Shu-Chen Li	...	Ting-Ting
Rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Hsiu-Ling Lin
Mei-Feng
Nai-Chu Ting	...	Tung-Tung's mother
Edward Yang
Li-Yin Yang
Cheng-Kuo Yen	...	A kid

Storyline

When a young brother and sister spend a pivotal summer away from home, they are changed. Ting-Ting and Tung-Tung (Wang Qiguang) are children of the city, but when their mother is struck ill, they must leave Taipei, Taiwan, behind and spend the summer with their grandfather and grandmother (Mei Fang) in the country. As they wile away the days at play, the elder Tung-Tung is garnering glimpses of adult responsibility and is slowly growing to realize what it means to be a grownup.

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Plot Keywords:

grandparents | children | part of trilogy | turtle | train | 

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Genres:

Drama

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Did You Know?

Trivia

This film is inspired by screenwriter Chu Tien-wen's childhood memories. It is the first installment of director Hou Hsiao-Hsien's "Coming-of-Age Trilogy" that features three prominent Taiwanese screenwriters' coming-of-age stories - the other two are A Time to Live and a Time to Die (1985) (inspired by the coming-of-age story of Hou Hsiao-Hsien, who is a screenwriter-turned-director) and Dust in the Wind (1986) (inspired by the coming-of-age story of Wu Nien-Jen).

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Connections

Followed by A Time to Live and a Time to Die (1985)

User Reviews

Farewell to the summer, farewell to the childhood

This is such a beautifully made coming-of-age movie. For many other political and social reasons, people from China mainland lack information and understanding of Taiwan, even today, many websites from Taiwan are still being blocked from being visited from China Mainland, however, it's a great way to know more about a society through its movies. This movie is actually almost 3 years older than me, I bought this movie's DVD copy, and found it such a beautiful movie. It's a movie about realities, about the stories that all of us could have had experienced, everything was so common, realistic, and beautiful, the ending music of this movie is a song called "The Red Dragonfly", with that beautiful undecorated scenery of Taiwan countryside, the movie ended in a poem, a picture... Tung Tung went back to the big city of Taipei, and his summer was over, waiting for him ahead was the hard schoolwork and cruelty of the adult society, farewell to the summer, and farewell to the childhood... I realized that in the 1980s Taiwan had already had a high life standard, while the China Mainland is catching up today.

Details

Country:

Taiwan

Language:

Hakka Mandarin Shanghainese

Release Date:

1984 (Taiwan)

Also Known As:

A Summer at Grandpa's

Filming Locations:

Taiwan

Company Credits

Production Co:

Central Motion Pictures

Technical Specs

Runtime:

93 min

Sound Mix:

Mono

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1