Spring in a Small Town, directed by Fei Mu in 1948, is an iconic masterpiece of Chinese cinema. More than a half-century after its debut, Tian Zhuangzhuang chose to end his directorial hiatus with a remake of this very classic, which he renamed Springtime in a Small Town (2002). The plot of Tian’s version, portraying a love triangle between a married couple and an ex-lover, is almost identical to the original, but the messaging and cinematography get a complete overhaul.

The remake discards the female protagonist’s soliloquy for an objective narration, and favours long shots over close-ups. In the original, stage and cinema are seamlessly conjoined. The remake, on the other hand, modernises the film language with abundant camera movement. Mark Lee Ping-Bing’s tracking shots wind their way gracefully through the desolate courtyard, increasing the interaction between spaces and characters, utilising techniques he refined in Flowers of Shanghai (1998).

Tian Zhuangzhuang was born into a film family in China in 1952. A key figure in the country’s Fifth Generation of filmmakers, his many hats include director, producer, actor, and film educator. After graduating from the Beijing Film Academy’s Department of Directing in 1982, he became a long-term employee at the Beijing Film Studio, his talent shining no less brightly than the likes of Chen Kaige and Zhang Yimou. In 1992, Tian’s The Blue Kite (1993) won the Grand Prix at the Tokyo International Film Festival, but the sensitivity of its subject matter subjected Tian to a harsh eight-year filmmaking ban. This, however, did not stop him from engaging with the arts in other capacities. After the lifting of the ban, Tian welcomed the second peak of his creative life with Springtime in a Small Town (2002), a tribute to a classic; Delamu (2004), a documentary about Yunnan; and two long-in-planning titles, The Go Master (2006) and The Warrior and the Wolf (2009). In recent years, he has committed himself to film education. In addition to teaching at his alma mater, the Beijing Film Academy, Tian assumed the reins of leadership as vice president of the Shanghai Film Academy in May 2016, continuing to nurture fresh talent for the industry.