Sons

Sons (1996)

儿子

Story of a real family in Beijing. The father's drinking problem starts it all. The mother struggles to keep the family together till she cannot take it any more.

Date of release
1996-09-13
TMDB
6.4 / 10 (5)
Runtime
1h 35m
Genres
Drama
Director
Zhang Yuan

Casting

Interesting facts

Sons is a 1996 Chinese film directed by Zhang Yuan. Detailing the collapse of a family due to alcoholism, Sons straddles the line between fiction and documentary, as the film's "actors" all play themselves in reenactments of their own lives.

Production

The idea of Sons came directly from the two sons of the Li family, Li Ji and Li Wei. According to Zhang, the two sons literally knocked on his door and immediately claimed that they were both the "baddest family on the block" and that their father, who had been committed to a mental institute, was also "awesome." Fascinated by this seemingly contradictory account of the Li family, Zhang agreed to make a film based on their story.

Shooting Sons required Zhang to simply film the Li family as they interacted with each other. In the process, Zhang became very comfortable with the family, to the extent that they would forget that cameras were around. Zhang relates one instance where the family's argument got so out of hand that Zhang had to intervene before the "actors" injured each other.

Read on Wikipedia · Text from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. Data from Wikidata.

Recommended