90 minutes / Color
English; Mandarin / English subtitles
Release: 2012
Copyright: 2007
Two interweaving stories of youth crime and family crisis shed light on illegal emigration and human trafficking in China's Fujian province, in this award-winning debut feature.
In the southeastern coastal province of Fujian, Amerika and Roppongi (whose names refer to their absent fathers' whereabouts) front "The Neon Knights", a young band of delinquents caught up in fast living. They fuel their riotous routine by videotaping and blackmailing rich women engaged in trysts while their emigrant husbands are sending checks from overseas. Amerika's ruthlessness is put to the test when he catches his own mother in an affair. Meanwhile, fellow gang member Dragon, who turns to crime to pay his family's debt from smuggling his brother to Ireland, goes into hiding after stabbing a man. After an unexpected windfall, Dragon ponders whether to follow his brother out of the country or to help his family.
Director Robin Weng (WENG Shouming)'s debut brings alive the world of Fujian, notoriously known as China's centre for illegal emigration and human trafficking. Shot vividly on film with street-level realism, Fujian becomes a blistering microcosm for an entire generation of young Chinese lost in the global era. FUJIAN BLUE is an unflinching depiction of the effect of globalization.
"Weng achieves a naturalism in detail that borders on investigative documentary"—Michael Guillen, The Evening Class
"With a marvelous energy, Weng's work captures this situation with remarkable clarity."—Gautaman Bhaskaran, The Hollywood Reporter
Select Accolades
Along a sleepy Hunan riverside, two delinquent boys experience a summer of love and violence.
YANG Heng | 2012 | 112 minutes | Color | English | English subtitles
Bored teenagers and disillusioned adults rage at each other and the emptiness of life in frost-bitten northern China.
LI Hongqi | 2010 | 91 minutes | Color | English; Mandarin | English subtitles
