Chen Kaige, director of the OscarÂ(r)-nominated* Farewell My Concubine, composes a richly imagined and ‘tender symphony (Screen International) about love, ambition and destiny in China’s high-pressure world of classical music. Surging with warmth, humanity and a sense of humor (The Hollywood Reporter), this lyrical, enchanting heartwarmer (Variety) is a ‘sure-fire crowd-pleaser (Los Angeles Times)! When violin prodigy Xiaochun and his father headto Beijing seeking fame and fortune, they soon discover a fierce world of cutthroat ambition. But when Xiaochun is adopted by a famous music tutor, success finally seems within reachuntil a shocking discovery begins to unravel his entire world and the boy must make the most difficult choice ofhis life. Can he achieve the fame his father had always hoped for without losing the extraordinary passion that sets him apart? *1993: Foreign Language FilmDirector Chen Kaige moves from the epic sweep of Farewell My Concubine to a small, intimate story about a boy and his father–but creates just as rich an emotional impact. Liu Cheng (Liu Peiqi) takes his 13-year-old son Xiaochung (Tang Yun) to Beijing in the hope of finding a teacher who will foster the boy’s talent on the violin. The adolescent boy soon becomes infatuated with one of their neighbors, a golddigger named Lili (the lovely Chen Hong), and becomes a pupil of Professor Jiang (Wang Zhiwen). But Liu discovers that a good teacher is not enough; if Xiaochung is to succeed in the world, he must have a teacher with connections–even if this ambition threatens to pull father and son apart. Together would be sappy if it weren’t for the emotional honesty of the actors; under Kaige’s clean direction, the movie is graceful and deeply moving. –Bret Fetzer

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