A Family Tour
Directed by Ying Liang
Taiwan/Hong Kong/Singapore/Malaysia | 2018 | Fiction | 107 min
Mandarin, Cantonese, Min Nan w/ English subtitles
Film Source: Golden Scene Company Limited
Sponsors: A Single Pebble
The plot of A Family Tour is deceptively simple. A Chinese filmmaker living in Hong Kong travels to a festival in Taipei to present a film that has been banned in mainland China. She uses the trip as an opportunity to see her mother, but to avoid attention they can only meet surreptitiously under the guise of a guided sightseeing tour. It’s a story that closely mirrors writer-director Ying Liang’s own situation. In 2012, after his film When Night Falls was deemed subversive by the Chinese government, he was forced to flee his home for Hong Kong. On one level, the film deftly examines questions of national identity and the political complexities that separate mainland China, Hong Kong and Taiwan. At the same time, it serves as a poignant family drama about the cost of abandoning one’s homeland and familial roots in the pursuit of truth through art. A Family Tour was completed prior to the massive demonstrations that began in March, following a proposed bill that would have allowed Hong Kong residents to be extradited to mainland China. With violent clashes between pro-democracy protestors and police in Hong Kong making headlines across the globe, the quiet urgency of Ying’s film has only grown more relevant. ~LB