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1-5 of 5
- A satirical tale about a village idiot who might just be a prophet.
- 73 years old Ma and his good mate Cao were once coffin makers. Since Chinese government implemented the practice of cremation, the demand for coffins dried up therefore Ma spend his days hanging out with his grandchildren. When Ma returns from spending mid-Autumn festival with his daughter and her family, he is told that Cao has passed away and his coffin is secretly buried in a cornfield next to a lake. Later Ma claims to have seen a white crane by the lake but none of his children believes him. Thereafter, Ma waits by the lake everyday and becomes a laughingstock in the neighbourhood. Ma's grandson asks why is he waiting for the white crane, Ma says,"I worked so hard to raise your father, uncle and aunt, but now they want to turn me into a pile of ash. I want to be carried to heaven by the white crane." Realising that this is but a dream, his little grandchildren innocently propose to take the matter into their own hands.
- Tiedan's love experience started early in the age of 8 when he fell into adult Mei Jie, but Mei Jie moved to other place with her daughters when the Er-Ren-Tai traditional opera was forbidden. When Mei Jie and her daughters return years later, grown-up Tiedan still misses her. He restarts his emotional and marital life with the three daughters.
- In some rural communities in northern China, the "ghost wife" trade has become an unusual accompaniment to customary funerary rites: rather than allowing them to pass into the afterlife unwed, deceased bachelors are posthumously married off to dead unmarried women. This unique and sometimes controversial custom provides the narrative engine for Peng Taos The Cremator, a moving portrait of an undertaker who resolves to end his loneliness with a posthumous union. Presiding over a small local mortuary is the stoic Cao (Cheng Zhengwu), whose job it is to oversee burial rites for the towns departed a strict system based on a variety of factors: social rank, gender, prominence within the family, etc. in order to ensure a peaceful journey into the afterlife. Cremation, which is held in abhorrence by the community, is reserved only for those deceased whose remains go unclaimed by family or friends. This has led Cao and his friend Xie (Cao Xian) to develop a lucrative sideline selling unidentified corpses as "gate-passing spouses" to bereaved families wanting companions for their unwed, departed relatives to be buried with. Shortly after Cao discovers that his coughing fits are symptoms of a terminal illness, the police deliver an unidentified female suicide victim to the mortuary and Cao decides to take the young woman as his ghost wife upon his death. But the arrival of the womans sister Xiuqiao (Wolf Girl, who also plays the girls deceased twin), complicates Caos plan. Stricken with guilt, he confesses his intentions to the shocked Xiuqiao, who finds herself torn between fidelity to her sister and the growing kinship she feels for the deeply lonesome undertaker. Poetic, sombre and bittersweet, The Cremator unfolds with an intoxicatingly languorous rhythm, mining the intricacies of mourning rituals for both pathos and gentle humour. Caos tentative relationship with Xiuqiao becomes a balm for his stark and lonely existence and as he moves ever closer to his inescapable end, one wonders whether even the most fleeting of connections we make in our lives have the power to resonate beyond the grave. Author: Giovanna Fulvi
- In a small village in Guangxi district, two couples maintain good neighborly relations: twenty-eight-year-old Qiaoyu and her husband Heman have a daughter named Yaya, thirty-eight-year-old Yonggui and his wife Yun Zhen have a son named Zhuang. One day after school, intrepid Zhuang sneaks into Heman's rickshaw. A car hits them and the young boy is killed. The court sentences Heman to pay a big amount of money to the grief-stricken parents. This accident has terrible consequences for both families. Yonggui and Yun Zhen have lost their only child, without hope for another one since Yun Zhen had her tubes tied. Heman was injured in the accident. He cannot pay for the high expenses of an operation which could heal his wounded leg. Even if the responsibility lies with Heman, it is his wife Qiaoyu who bears the burden. One day, drunk and angry Yonggui tells Qiaoyu that she owes him a life and that no financial compensation will bring Zhuang back to life; only another child would sooth his pain.