After receiving the Jury Prize at the 58th Cannes Film Festival, Shanghai Dreams (Qinghong) began screening across the Chinese mainland on June 7, two months ahead of schedule.

Pundits compared it to Peacock, another Chinese film highly acclaimed internationally and which reaped handsome domestic box-office returns after winning the Jury Grand Prix award in Berlin in late January.

Both are small-budget productions, both are classified as "art-house movies," both won an award at two of the world's most prestigious film festivals respectively, and both tell a story set in the early 1980s.

But the financial windfall of Peacock has yet to shower on Shanghai Dreams and the question being asked in some quarters is, will it?

Shanghai Dreams begins in the 1960s, with a father's move to Guiyang in Guizhou Province in the remote southwest, far from his native Shanghai, as part of the drive to help build up the country's backward western regions. Two decades on, China has entered a new epoch and the father has had enough and longs to return to Shanghai. In the process he purposely destroys his 19-year-old daughter's first love with a local young man.

Disgusted by her father's interference and shocked by her parents' despair, Qinghong the Chinese title of the film, or the name of the daughter flounders between love and family.

Director's dreams

For the avant-garde director Wang Xiaoshuai, Shanghai Dreams is of special significance.

His maiden work was The Days (Dongchun de Rizi), which was shot in 1993. In 2001, he won the Silver Bear award at the Berlin Film Festival with Beijing Bicycle (Shiqisui de Danche), which brought him instant fame.

But Shanghai Dreams is different from his previous works. It is based on his childhood memories.

At a press conference held at the Cannes Film Festival, he said: "The film is steeped in memories of the community I once lived in. My parents were among the countless Chinese workers, and their families at the time who left their native cities and scattered across the nation's interior. By the time I was approaching adulthood, my own generation had begun to put down roots in the new, inland communities."

He said he dedicated the movie to his parents, and to "the many others who shared a similar fate."

Due to his father's determination, the family finally left the mountainous province they had migrated to, a decision that would later give him the precious chance to receive an artistic education in Beijing and become a director.

If not for his father, Wang might still be in Guiyang and have ended up working in a factory, his artistic talent untapped.

The director belongs to China's so-called sixth generation of filmmakers, while the most renowned Chinese directors, such as Zhang Yimou and Chen Kaige, belong to the "fifth."

But Wang declined to label himself as representative of the "sixth generation."

"It is something that the media invented," he said at the press conference. "We want to leave behind a body of work as significant as that of the directors from the preceding generation. There's no concept of opposition between the two generations. Continuity is much more prevalent. Moreover, I am the type of director who makes films as a form of personal expression. I can't claim to represent a whole new generation of filmmakers."

In Shanghai Dreams Wang again pairs Gao Yuanyuan, who plays the lead role of Qinghong and Li Bin who plays her secret lover Fan Honggen both were cast in Beijing Bicycle.

Weak market response

In order to promote the movie, the director and leading lady Gao Yuanyuan toured 15 cities in nine days in early June.

Yet judging from market responses in the first week, Shanghai Dreams has failed to repeat the box-office success of "Peacock," which brought home nearly 10 million yuan (US$1.2 million).

Despite its success in Cannes, Shanghai Dreams is still viewed by local industry insiders and theatre-goers with suspicion.

According to the Xinhua News Agency, the premiere screening in many major cities sold only around 100 tickets in each cinema.

In Guangzhou the lack of confidence in the movie's market prospects resulted in tickets being sold for 10 yuan (US$1.2), much less than the normal 25 yuan (US$3) or 30 yuan (US$3.6).

And when the movie showed at the cinema in Oriental Plaza in the heart of Beijing, many seats were left empty, with less than half the tickets sold. According to the distributor of the movie Stella Megamedia Group, the box office totalled 2.58 million yuan (US$311,100) until June 15.

But Wang is neither perturbed nor embarrassed by this muted response, attributing it to his movie's "art-house idiosyncrasy."

"This is already rather good for an art-house movie, especially considering the fact that there is not a distribution channel exclusively for art-house movies currently in China," Wang was quoted as saying.

It is difficult to define an art-house movie. The standards are always changing and quite relative. There are also arguments on whether Peacock is an art-house movie, although that did not impair its handsome box-office.

While Peacock successfully evokes people's nostalgia for the 1980s with tremendous detail and heart-rending moments, Wang's latest offering barely dandles the same emotive pool because it fails to delve into the inner world of the protagonists.

And the director's characteristic avoidance of clash, suggesting that he is unsure how to handle its theatrical portrayal, steals the power of the most vehement scene in the movie, one of rape. Instead of staying close to the actors, the director uses only voice-over in its mention, weakening the movie's ability to strike a powerful blow.

Furthermore, the subject matter of Shanghai Dreams deviates, thus becoming ambiguous. As its Chinese title indicates, this is a movie about Qinghong. But as it progresses, the director focuses more on depicting the father, and Qinghong is relegated to a supporting role.

"The maturing domestic audience does not blindly follow the instructions of international awards anymore," wrote a Xinhua critic.

This is especially true in the case of Shanghai Dreams. While it might be easy to win the hearts of foreign audiences by satisfying their thirst for exoticism, it is much more difficult to touch those of the domestic audience.

(China Daily June 20, 2005)