Um Verão na Casa do Vovô

This is such a beautifully made coming-of-age movie. For many other political and social reasons, people from China mainland lack information and understanding of Taiwan, even today, many websites from Taiwan are still being blocked from being visited from China Mainland, however, it's a great way to know more about a society through its movies. This movie is actually almost 3 years older than me, I bought this movie's DVD copy, and found it such a beautiful movie. It's a movie about realities, about the stories that all of us could have had experienced, everything was so common, realistic, and beautiful, the ending music of this movie is a song called "The Red Dragonfly", with that beautiful undecorated scenery of Taiwan countryside, the movie ended in a poem, a picture... Tung Tung went back to the big city of Taipei, and his summer was over, waiting for him ahead was the hard schoolwork and cruelty of the adult society, farewell to the summer, and farewell to the childhood... I realized that in the 1980s Taiwan had already had a high life standard, while the China Mainland is catching up today.

I'm not a fan of Hou's later work, which can be obscure, pretentious and painfully slow, but this early movie of him from 1984 is gripping in its simplicity. One summer in Taiwan, a young boy and his sister are sent to the country home of their grandparents, as their mother has been hospitalized. The movie is told from the children's point of view, and nothing terribly important happens in much of it, just life passing by during one summer in a rural village in Taiwan. The boy interact with the other children in the picturesque mountain village, while her younger sister, who is unable to understand what has happened to her mother, mostly stays at home of their grandparents. What is best about the movie is the warm portrayal of the characters, especially the grandfather, a stern doctor.

When their mother is forced to stay in the hospital for a prolonged period of time, Ting-Ting (a four year old girl) and Tung-Tung (an eleven year old boy) are taken by their uncle to spend the summer with their grandfather, a doctor in a small, rural town. There are some cliches in the film. The strict, imposing grandfather who at first doesn't seem to like the kids (I saw this just last week in Ford's Wee Willie Winkie) and the crazy lady who later saves one of the children's lives come quickly to mind. A scene where Ting-Ting gives her stuffed animal to a recovering patient of her grandfather's made me cringe a bit. But other than that, it's a rather wonderful movie. The two children in particular are fantastic. When Tung-Tung first meets up with local children, they have a battle between his remote control car and another boy's pet turtle (probably not the best scene to watch if you're a member of PETA, however). In another scene, the boys race their turtles. And there are more. The uncle, kind of the black sheep of the family, has a good subplot, as well. Edward Yang, the director of Yi Yi, has a small role as the children's father. It's too bad this of all of Hou's movies is unavailable. I only liked Flowers of Shanghai better. 8/10.

A boy and his little sister are taken by their young uncle to spend their summer holiday at the country house of their grandparents. They leave behind their father and a seriously ill mother who is hospitalised and awaiting an operation. This comparatively early work by the great Taiwanese director Hou Xiaoxian has an idyllic look that is utterly deceptive. Hou is too complex an artist to merely capitalise on the charms of children and landscape. Indeed, although bathed almost throughout in bright sunshine, the film has a hard edge with never a hint of sentimentality. Hou always makes his audience work hard at making connections leading to understanding. Here he goes one step further by placing his young protagonists in an insecure world that strains their limited resources of comprehension and understanding. The small girl understands little so spends her time clinging to a single toy, more often than not a pink model of an electric fan. Between them the children have to cope with barely understood encounters such as a mentally retarded girl who has been seduced by a lecherous birdcatcher and two youths who have mugged and robbed a truck driver. Even the children themselves are no angels. The girl, irked by being left out of the group of boys' swimming games, reacts by throwing their clothes in the river, while earlier, the boys tease a tortoise by driving a remotely controlled toy car at it. Even the eponymous Grandpa is not the nice old buffer that the title might convey. He is a country doctor and something of a tetchy martinet. Although not overtly unkind, he is obviously put out by anything that upsets his routine even to the extent of angrily attacking his son's moped with a bar of wood when he learns he has got his girlfriend pregnant. Make no mistake, the charm of childhood as depicted in a film like "The Railway Children" or even the wonderment of seeing things through innocent eyes - the marvellous "Pather Panchali" - are not part of this equation. Even what seems at first sight to be an idyllic river valley is scarred by an ugly road flyover. In his completely unsentimental depiction of childhood Hou has given us a work of piercing observation and integrity.

A master piece from director Hou Hsiao-Shien.

Although a different culture, somehow it brought back memories of childhood.

If u are reading this i would suggest you to watch it.

All the best!!