The Cinematheque

“One of [Cheung’s] most haunting performances, encapsulating the horrors of an American dream becoming a nightmare.”

BFI

The land of the free is but a purgatory for poor immigrants in Clara Law’s harrowing, post-Tiananmen Square drama. Tony Leung Ka-fai won Best Actor at the Taipei Golden Horse Awards for his tortured performance as Nansan, a Mainland Chinese schoolteacher smuggled illegally into New York to find his wife (Maggie Cheung), whose single-minded goal was to make it to American shores—and whose pregnancy may very well have been a tool for acquiring a visa. Swallowed into the seediest corners of the derelict city, Nansan befriends Jane (Hayley Man Hei-lin), a 15-year-old Chinese American runaway, and together they search for his disappeared spouse, each clue turning up another unsavory piece of her migrant horror story. Law has stated how the 1989 Tiananmen massacre was an inflection point for Farewell, China. Aching with despair, the film offers not a glimmer of comfort for those expecting to find pastures greener—or less besieged by inhumanity and violence—in the West.

In English and Cantonese with English subtitles
Advisory: Farewell, China includes a scene of sexual violence.

Virtual Q&A with Clara Law and Eddie Fong on January 18.

“A film [set] in the world of the new Chinese diaspora … A portrait of post-apocalyptic (post-1989) tragedy.”

Shelly Kraicer, critic

“A Dantean descent into Hell … Harrowing.”

Stephen Teo, Senses of Cinema