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MATT SCOTT

Spring in a Small Town 
Wei Wei, Zhang Hongmei, Li Wei
Director:  Fei Mu
Filmmaker Tian Zhuangzhuang ( The Blue Kite) is not known for being a man who minces his words, so when he goes public with his opinions it pays to listen closely.
When Tian was in Hong Kong in 2002, the trip was essentially to help promote his new film, Springtime in a Small Town. But the more time the director spent in front of the press, the more he seemed to want to turn attention to the original and - many would argue - not only the best version of the story, but also the best Chinese film ever made.
Tian said he had been saddened over the years that Fei Mu's Spring in a Small Town had largely been forgotten as it was the film that had inspired him to become a director. He hoped that if people saw his version, they would hunt down Fei's film, too.
And if Tian's version - quite brilliant in its own right - woke some up to the genius that is Spring in a Small Town, the fact that the Hong Kong Film Awards Association in 2005 named it the greatest Chinese film brought Fei's production alive once again into the mainstream.
What might surprise many is that Fei's film is, on the surface at least, such a gently moving drama. It captures the ordinary lives of people who are slowly undone by the simmering forces of passion, of longing and of regret.
Wei Wei plays the pivotal role of a woman - a good woman - whose husband (Shi Yu) can no longer satisfy her emotional and physical needs. The real drama unwinds when the couple welcome an old friend of the husband's into their home, a man (Li Wei) with whom the wife was once in love.
Fei plays the tension against the presence of the husband's younger sister (Zhang Hongmei) who falls for the stranger, but who has not yet learned enough about life to understand what's really going on.
What makes the film all the more astonishing - especially in these times of overwrought drama and emotion - is that Fei relies so heavily on the portrayal of nature as the enemy. There's human nature, and the need we all have to be needed, and then there is nature itself, as spring approaches and brings with it all the changes that season inspires both around and within us.
The lack of cinematic flourishes or artifice focuses attention squarely on the relationships that Fei - working from the Li Tianji-penned short story - puts through an emotional wringer, the emotions that all humans, through all ages, must deal with.


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'Spring in a Small Town' (1948)

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Fei Mu's 1948 film captures the ordinary lives of people who are slowly undone by the simmering forces of passion, of longing and of regret


Fei Mu's 1948 film captures the ordinary lives of people who are slowly undone by the simmering forces of passion, of longing and of regret.
