Asian Education on Film, Episode Four

Song of the Exile (客途秋恨) (Ann Hui, Hong Kong / Taiwan, 1990)

The story of Song of the Exile revolves around the relationship between a young Hong Kong-born woman, Hueyin (or Hiuyan in Cantonese) (曉恩), and her Japanese-born mother, Aiko. Their estrangement and eventual reconciliation forms the core narrative thread. While education is a marginal theme, identity, how it is learnt and unlearnt, how it changes over time, is a central concern of the film. We see the main characters searching for a sense of belonging that’s ultimately resolved by their willing adoption of a local, Hong Kong, identity. In part, then, this is a celebration of Hongkongeseness - an identity that today, in the 2020s, the Chinese authorities are seeking to undermine or destroy as they use education to inculcate a monolithically ‘Chinese’ consciousness amongst Hong Kong’s youth.

This film was released in 1990, during an earlier period of great upheaval for Hong Kong. The 1984 Sino-British Joint Declaration had set the territory on the path towards ‘reunification’ with China. In 1989, the brutal crushing of China’s Student Movement, epitomised by the Tiananmen Massacre of June 4, created huge shock. Many Hongkongers came to reexamine their loyalty to China, or at least to the regime in Beijing. Meanwhile, a sense of Hong Kong as a place with a distinctive identity of its own was steadily growing, especially amongst the young.

But Song of the Exile is far more than a political allegory; amongst other things, it’s a semi-autobiographical reflection on the director’s own life. The main character, Hueyin, is really an avatar for Ann Hui (許鞍華) herself. The film begins when Hueyin’s formal education ends, as she completes her studies in London. As the story unfolds, we’re shown in flashback various scenes from her childhood, while we follow her on a journey of self-discovery from Britain, to Hong Kong, to Japan and finally back to Hong Kong again. The result is partly a very personal coming-of-age story, and partly a meditation on the trials endured by ‘exiled’ or diaspora communities - and especially women - as they adopt or construct new identities for themselves.

The film can be viewed via this link (original Cantonese dialogue): https://rarefilmm.com/2018/05/ke-tu-qiu-hen-1990/ A version dubbed into Mandarin is available here: https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x8juoe1

Further reading:

Audrey Yue (2010). Ann Hui’s ‘Song of the Exile’. (The New Hong Kong Cinema), Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press.

Luk, Bernard Hung-Kay (1991). “Chinese Culture in the Hong Kong Curriculum: Heritage and Colonialism.” Comparative Education Review 35, no. 4: 650–68. http://www.jstor.org/stable/1188110.