A New Old Play(QJJ Retro)

“As an author, as a filmgoer, I often thought about how I’ve never seen a film like this. So I decided to make one.”

Setting off for the Netherworld, Qiu Fu, a clown-role actor, recalls his past. 20th Century Sichuan: warlords sow chaos. An opera aficionado general establishes his own theater troupe. The kid enrolls and begins to learn opera. The troupe attains fame as Qiu Fu grows up to be a famous actor, but his decline is also paralleled by the fate of the theater troupe. Based on the turbulent life of Sichuanese opera clown Qiu Fuxin, Qiu Jiongjiong borrows the language of Sichuan opera to reinvent the past through his grandfather's perspective. Reconstructing the stage, the surrealist context, and comedy of Sichuan clowning, A New Old Play is a career defining film about his family and the era.