Young director Zhou Quan's directorial debut feature, End of Summer, about a 10-year-old boy's joys and sorrows in the waterside city of Shaoxing in Zhejiang province, will open across the Chinese mainland on Friday. (Photo provided to China Daily)
Director Zhou Quan's award-winning film about a 10-year-old boy's joys and sorrows is set to hit mainland screens later this week.
Loneliness has haunted Zhou Quan since he was a child, but it also is the young filmmaker's inspiration for his directorial debut feature, End of Summer.
The movie's world premiere was at the 22nd Busan International Film Festival in October 2017, and it won the KNN award there. It was the only Chinese-language movie to win at that year's South Korean event.
On Friday, or one week ahead of Children's Day, the 105-minute movie about the growing pains of a child will open across the Chinese mainland.
The film's cast comprises teenager star Rong Zishan and veteran performers Zhang Songwen, Tan Zhuo and Taiwan actor Ku Pao-ming.
The film, set in the summer of 1998, is about a 10-year-old boy's joys and sorrows in the waterside city of Shaoxing in Zhejiang province.
In the movie, fifth-grader Gu Xiaoyang loves soccer but his hobby is frowned upon by his father, who, like most Chinese parents then, sees sports as a distraction from homework.
Gu discovers his father has a crush on a young English-language teacher.
But all settles down when the boy befriends a grandfather-like neighbor, a soccer fanatic who becomes his coach. And the boy's father returns to his wife, a local Yueju Opera performer who chooses to forgive him.
Zhou's maiden feature reflects his nostalgia for the past.
