So-Called Friends Q&A Session

As China undergoes rapid economic growth, Beijing's once ubiquitous bicycles are giving way to cars, and new urban culture and ways of life must co-exist with the old backstreet culture in this cosmopolitan city. Director Tai began tonight's Q&A session by saying, "I wanted to portray relations between ordinary young people." He described Taiwanese pop star Lim Giong, who plays a young man visiting Beijing from Taipei, as possessing natural expressions, and young actor Huang Lei, who plays the Beijing youth with whom Lim's character becomes close friends, as rising to the challenge of playing a role that wasn't cool and handsome but rather reeked of everyday life. Director Lien laughed as he added, "The two are completely different, but they're both very into music, and actually got along better than we (two directors) did." The friendship between the Taiwanese and Chinese protagonists of So-Called Friends, the first feature by these two young Taiwanese directors who studied at the Beijing Film Academy, is only the first in a series of encounters in which languages and dialects simply fly about in the film (others include the relationship between a Japanese girl studying Mandarin and a woman teacher from Fujian). "I wanted to convey the sense of feelings that waver as they come and go, a sense that rises above differences in customs and social environment," said Tai. This relaxed Q&A session left the film's worth lingering with audience members. Shot in the early spring as Beijing begins to wake from winter, the film makes viewers want to stretch and grow as they too move towards an unknowable future. This relaxed Q&A session left such evidence of the film's worth lingering pleasantly with audience members.