ALL TOMORROW'S PARTIES

Year: 2003
UK: ICA Projects
Cast: Yong Won-cho, Diao Yi-nan, Wei Wei Zhao
Director: Yu Lik Wai
Country: China
Languages: Mandarin / Korean (English subtitles)
UK: 96 mins
UK Release Date: 2 April 2004

Synopsis

Serious science-fiction, ALL TOMORROW'S PARTIES is set in a post-apocalyptic mid 21 st century where China is controlled by a severe religious authoritarian sect (shades of Falun Gong and Taliban) that has effectively abolished all traces of freedom. Two brothers follows the story of Zhuai and his younger brother Mian who are sent for re-education to an internment camp - the sinisterly named Camp Prosperity - so their dissident minds can be forcibly re-educated and they befriend a Korean mother, a hard-fought-for human bond in an inhuman environment.

After their incarceration Zhuai and Mian are plunged into chaos when the sect is suddenly overthrown. Liberated by this sudden and unexplained revolt, the group set out together to discover what's become of their devastated world. They discover total freedom for the first time in many years, something they discover they are ill equipped to deal with. Zhuai falls for the pretty Zuelan, and takes her and her son to a nearby deserted industrial city where they settle in an abandoned apartment and try to rediscover life's simple pleasures.

Director Yu Lik Wai (director of the 1999 Cannes entry LOVE WILL TEAR US APART and Jia Zhangke's regular DP) may have created - entirely on found locations - one of the grimmest dystopias in cinema history, but he's realised it with a visual style that makes experiencing it no hardship. A powerful and mesmerising experience ALL TOMORROW'S PARTIES was shot on digital video on location in Mongolia and mainland China.