Synopsis
The Golden Era (黃金時代, 2014) is a historical drama by Ann Hui — watch online on iFILM. Tang Wei plays Xiao Hong, a Chinese writer who died at thirty and left behind two novels still considered landmarks of Republican-era Chinese literature.
The film tracks her adult life: poverty in Harbin, an intense and eventually ruinous relationship with writer Xiao Jun (Feng Shaofeng), wartime displacement from Shanghai through Chongqing, and finally Hong Kong, where she died during the Japanese occupation in 1942. Hui builds an unusual structure — characters step outside scenes to address the camera directly, offering their recollections of Xiao Hong as testimony rather than dramatisation. At 177 minutes, the film takes its time.
Hong Kong submitted The Golden Era for the Best International Feature Film Oscar in 2015. Hui refuses to sand down the complexity: Xiao Hong is brilliant, sometimes impossible, and the film stays honest about both. It's a portrait of a woman who wrote herself into permanence while living in conditions that should have made writing unthinkable. Stream The Golden Era online on iFILM.
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