THE WAY

ORIGINAL TITLE OF FILM: AZ ÚT
COUNTRY OF PRODUCTION: HUNGARY/FRANCE
ORIGINAL LANGUAGE: CHINESE (MANDARIN), ENGLISH SUBTITLES, YEAR PRODUCED: 1997
RUNNING TIME: 84 MINS.
FORMAT: 35MM, COLOUR, RATIO: 1:33, SOUND: DOLBY A,

DIRECTOR, (CO)-PRODUCER: FERENC MOLDOVÁNYI
CINEMATOGRAPHER: TIBOR MÁTHÉ,
MUSIC: TIBOR SZEMZŐ,
EDITOR: MÁRTA RÉVÉSZ
SOUND: ISTVÁN PETŐHÁZI
PRINCIPAL CAST: LIU ZHIXIAN, LIU YANGHE

PRODUCTION COMPANY / WORLD SALES: ENGRAM FILM COPRODUCTION PARTNERS: LAPSUS(FRANCE)-CANAL+(FRANCE)-BRTN(BELGIUM) AND HUNGARIAN TELEVISION

TV VERSION: BETA SP 84 OR 50 MINS WITH ENGLISH OR FRENCH SUBTITLES OR INTERNATIONAL ALSO AVAILABLE

Contact: ENGRAM FILM
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Synopsis

The hero of our film is a sixty-year old man from Sichuan, Liu Zhixian who arrived to Budapest in 1990 at the time of an influx of Chinese immigrants to Hungary. Tens of thousands of Chinese people came to the country in those days in the hope of a better life and quick profit. Mr. Liu an older man, has gone through many hard years and humiliation and escaping from a bad marriage too, is now seeking love in Budapest.

Mr. Liu, although a university professor, is now an administrator at a Chinese market in Budapest occasionally selling newspapers, renting a small room on a housing estate where he is dreaming about love. His financial situation is rather modest nevertheless in the course of six years he invited three women from China but had no luck with either of them. Cheating him out of his savings all three left him moreover one of them even gave him a bad beating.

Inspite of these failures Mr. Liu is not willing to give up hope and turns to an agency in China seeking for a wife. Will he succeed this time? In fact Mr. Liu has high expectations: his lady should be young and pretty about thirty years of age and possibly a singer too. Mr. Liu is preparing excitedly to meet Miss Wu in Beijing who seems to be interested in his quest of a wife. But Mr. Liu is due to have another meeting also with his son whom he hasn't seen for a long time.

His twenty-year old son would like to be a poet however he spends his days in lonely wondering living from hand to mouth. He is rather an unhappy character, a depressive who has already tired to commit suicide.

He perceives the world as a prison and has no trust in anything. Liu is filled with remorse because of the son he has left behind but his selfishness proves to be stronger. He now at an advanced age badly wants to receive compensation for all those terrible years, his ruined life. Is this really possible? Can he patch up his relationship with his son? Can two different worlds communicate with each-other? Is happiness still in reach for Liu?

The film wishes to delve into the world of the trodden down common man his disillusionments and his thoughts as well as the tormented world of the twenty-year old young man living in China. Besides presenting the different meetings and conversations of our heros the film wishes to build a subjective world made up of prints the past has left behind and images of present-day China and Hungary.