2002

Director: Huo Jianqi
Camera: Sun Ming
Producer: Jin Zhongqiang
Cast: Tao Hong, Tao Zeru
Scenario: Si Wu, based on a story by Chi Li
Art Designer: Cui Ren
Sound: Chao Jun

Running time: 107'

LIFE SHOW tells the story of Lai Shuang Yang (Tao Hong), a capable business woman with an enigmatic smile and a cool exterior. Shuang Yang runs her small Ji Qing Street restaurant at a night market. At the same time she tries to keep her nephew safe, her brother from drug addiction and to regain possession of the family home, which was lost during the Cultural Revolution. But for whom does she struggle and for what happiness?

As the circle tightens around Lai, she also finds out that the night market is due for demolition, to make way for new buildings - with the demolition of the market a way of life disappears too, and in the modern Chongqing Lai has to struggle to find a new identity.

The fact that this story, about a woman facing drastic changes, is set in a city which is famous for being all 'up-hill' would appear to be a metaphor for the difficulty of existence encountered by the main character. Sun Ming's cinematography is very effective in showing the settings as well as the skyline of the city, that can symbolize Lai's feelings. It is a very web-crafted work for the cleverness and elegance of its composition and colours. Huo Jianqi, the director, continues his analysis of characters wavering between the old and the new China.

Winner of the Grand Prize at the 2002 Shanghai International Film Festival, including Best Actress for Tao Hong and Best Cinematography by Sun Ming, LIFE SHOW encapsulates the challenges of the modern Chinese woman.