Sun Valley

He Pings latest film is a mythical story about hate, love and pride, set in an inn somewhere in a barren China of the past. A stranger arrives one day to the valley, Sun Valley, and settles down at the inn with the announcement that he is waiting for a friend. When the friend arrive, death awaits and the stranger, who gets the name The Avenger, can finally be free. While time passes and the friend does not shows up, The Avenger awakes from his state of torpor. He feels the companionship between the grooms that come and go all according to the changing seasons. But above all, it is the female inn-keeper, Hongliu, who makes his feelings run high. The Avenger turns out to be a swordsman; his entire family was obliterated when he was a child and this event made him chose this blood-stained occupation. In painfully beautiful flashbacks, we get to see the events that have shaped The Avenger's life. In these flashbacks, everything is in black and white, apart from the blood that glows in an insipid red nuance. A tentative romance is beginning to grow between Hongliu and The Avenger; but when she realizes that her late husband has something to do with The Avenger's unfortunate fate, she is terrified. The Avenger has an illness. The sight of blood makes him furious and he goes berserk. Violence, however, plays a small part in the story. It is above all the surrounding world that is shown. Dense textiles, animal skins, dark wooden beams, large cauldrons and heavy vessels. Everything is breathing. Every material is alive. Water plays a central part. Everyone is using it: to scoop, boil, drink, pour and wash. Water freezes, flows and vaporizes. The story takes place in an indefinite period of time. It might as well be in the 1950s as in the 1860s. The only place that is mentioned by name is Sun Valley. Every other place is a point of the compass, for instance ''He comes from the North''. This strengthens the feeling of a story that takes place outside time and place, in the middle of nature and at the centre of life. The structure of Sun Valley resembles a classic Western film, but the romantic scenery and the long episodes between the outbreaks of violence brings about a more thoughtful and melancholic feeling to the film. The action scenes are brilliantly carried through in proper Hong Kong tradition and flashes by like a heavy blow to the solar plexus. PM

Orig. titel
Ri guang xia gu: Medverkande
Zhang Feng-yi, Yang Kuei-mei, Wong Xue-qi: Producent
Ma Fung-kwok: Manus
Zhang Rui: Foto
Yang Lun: Musik
Zhao Ji-ping: Talat språk
Mandarin