Springtime in a Small Town

Fei Mu's classic Spring in a Small Town, an anatomy of China's post-war anomie across a sexual triangle, doesn't exactly cry out for a remake, and Tian's new version of the story doesn't entirely radiate contemporary relevance. But anything that gets Tian directing again after a ten-year lay-off (he was blacklisted for making The Blue Kite) is welcome. Yuwen (Hu) lives in a war-damaged country house with her ailing husband Liyan (Wu) and his sparky younger sister (Lu). The somnolent household comes alive when Liyan's old friend - and Yuwen's sometime fiancé - Zhang (Xin) comes to visit from Shanghai, bringing a whiff of metropolitan style and an outlet for long suppressed passions and resentments. Tian casts younger than Fei did, and makes it explicit that Liyan's impotence is psychosomatic, but otherwise does little to modify the material. The result is paradoxically more theatrical than the original - but thanks to serene cinematography and superb design, sumptuously so.