Themes: Drug Addiction, Rise and Fall Stories, Actor's Life
Main Cast: Jia Hongshen, Jia Fengsen, Chai Xiurong, Wang Tong, Shun Xing
Release Year: 2001
Country: CN
Run Time: 119 minutes
MPAA Rating: R
Plot
Following up on his award-winning opus Shower, Zhang Yang directs this biographical film concerning and starring Chinese film icon Jia Hong-Sheng, who starred in such groundbreaking works as Suzhou River and Frozen. Following initial professional success, Jia falls into a spiral of depression and drug abuse. Soon he drops out from Beijing's acting scene, withdraws from friends, and locks himself in his apartment listening to old records. His parents, who run a small theater troupe in a remote corner of Northeast China, are elated over their son's success but grow increasingly concerned with his anti-social behavior. Soon they, along with the entire population of the apartment building they live in, venture to Beijing hoping to get Jia out of his funk. Eventually, Jia is committed to a mental institution that makes the one in Titicut Follies look like a trip to Disneyland. This film was screened at the 2001 Toronto Film Festival. ~ Jonathan Crow, All Movie Guide
Review
Zhang Yang's fractured film is a quintessential entry from the so-called Sixth Generation of Chinese filmmakers. Urban, distanced and formally daring, Quitting is a dismal biopic of a Chinese actor whose career and life fell apart as he got increasingly hooked on drugs. The movie's central conceit is that the actor, Jia Hongsheng, as well as his friends and family, play themselves. Part postmodern lark, part Behind the Music episode, Quitting employs a variety of forms and narrative strategies in exploring its subject. The non-linear melange of interviews, footage from Jia's movies, and shots of rehearsals of a stage version of the film seek to give the audience a prismatic view of Jia's downward spiral. Stylistically adventurous though it is, the movie comes across as less than genuine, as Zhang's attempt to interrogate his subject gives way to his shallower preoccupation with formal pyrotechnics. Hardly helping matters is Jia himself, who as star and subject comes across as little more than a spoiled bohemian brat. What little poignancy there is comes from Jia's parents. Uprooted country folk out of place in the city, Jia's mother and father attend to their son selflessly, without a care for their own well-being. It's a touching glimpse of parental devotion that graces this otherwise alienating picture with a touch of humanism. ~ Elbert Ventura, All Movie Guide
Cast
Jia Hongshen
Jia Fengsen
Chai Xiurong
Wang Tong
Shun Xing
Li Jie; Zhang Yang; An Bin; Yu Baoshan; Zhao Zuan; Chen Liang; Du Chunxia; Bai Yuhong; Zheng Pin; Cai Xiurong
Credit
Huo Xin - Costume Designer, Zhang Yang - Director, Zhang Yadong - Composer (Music Score), Peter Loehr - Producer, Zhang Yang - Screenwriter, Huo Xin - Screenwriter
Quitting (Chinese: 昨天; literally "Yesterday") is a 2001 Chinesedramafilm directed by Zhang Yang, starring and based on the true life story of Jia Hongsheng. Jia, an actor and former drug addict, battled his addiction to marijuana and heroin for five years from 1992 to 1997. All members of the cast, from Jia and Jia's family members right down to the doctors and patients at a mental institute Jia was admitted to, are real people playing themselves. The film premiered at the Venice Film Festival on 4 September 2001 and clinched the NETPAC Award.
The original Chinese title is an allusion to The Beatles classic song "Yesterday". References to The Beatles, of whom Jia was an avid fan, are also made throughout the film. Besides dressing up like John Lennon, Jia also fantasized himself as Lennon's son and recited the Chinese translation of the lyrics to Let It Be religiously. However, Michael Jackson, who owned the rights to most Beatles songs, declined to give permission for the song or its title to be used in the film.[1] Instead, the film uses songs by Chinese rockers such as Cui Jian, Tang Dynasty and Dou Wei.
Jia Hongsheng, graduated from the Central Academy of Drama in Beijing in 1989, gains fame in the late 80s and early 90s as an actor in films such as The Case of the Silver Snake and A Woman from North Shaanxi. During rehearsal for a stageplay titled Kiss of the Spider Woman (also directed by Zhang Yang) in the fall of 1992, Jia first comes into contact with marijuana and subsequently becomes addicted and even experiments occasionally with heroin. In 1995, after filming Weekend Lover, Jia quits acting completely and lives off his younger sister Wang Tong. An avid fan of The Beatles, Jia listens to their music obsessively and begins to imagine himself as the son of John Lennon.
In late 1995, Jia's parents Jia Fengsen and Chai Xiuling, both theatre actors from Northeastern China, decide to move to Beijing to help their son to quit drugs. Wang Tong, who had previous moved out, also comes back to live with her parents and brother in the same apartment. Initial efforts by the aged parents to penetrate their son's inner world are met with indifference, sometimes even hostility. Over time, however, Jia begins to open up gradually. He begins to take regular walks with his father, usually buying a bottle or two of beer along the way. Jia Fengsen also buys his son cassette tapes by The Beatles, as requested by the latter.
In early 1996, however, Jia Hongsheng relapses after staying off drugs for almost half a year. On 19 March 1996, after drinking many bottles of beer in celebration of his twenty-ninth birthday, Jia slaps his father, claiming to teach the latter the "meaning of life". Jia's family subsequently contacts the police. Three policemen come the next day and bring Jia to a mental institution.
While at the mental institution, Jia is put under medication and his condition improves significantly. More importantly, he has stopped fantasizing and begins to see himself as just an ordinary human being. The doctor subsequently determines that Jia is not suffering from schizophrenia but recommends that Jia stays in the institution for a longer time to completely quit drugs. On 19 March 1997, on his thirtieth birthday, Jia is finally discharged.
