Song of the Exile

The early seventies. Hueyin studied in London and has graduated; she cannot find work and returns to Hong Kong. Her sister is getting married. She has to stay in the same house as her mother and the two agree on nothing. The mother is Japanese; she came to China during the war years and married a Chinese man. She never understood her daughter, and the daughter never understood her. After a while the two travel together to Japan, to the town where the mother was born. There the roles turn over: this time it is the daughter who does not know the language and is the foreigner. Ann Hui directs. It is a Hong Kong production. The film rests largely on the director's own life; Hui's mother was Japanese and she did not know it for a long time. The structure runs on two times; the present journey and the wartime marriage are given in alternation. The matter it works at is language; the mother never learned Chinese well and the family's bearing toward her was hard because of it. In the Japan section the narrative reverses the situation without explaining anything, and that is the best part of the film. Hui belongs to the new wave of Hong Kong cinema and this is considered her most personal work. The narrative passes no settled judgement on either family or country; the question of where anyone belongs is left open. Who it is for: viewers who like quiet drama built on family and migration. Who it is not for: the pace is slow, little happens, and the narrative deliberately suppresses feeling.