Logline
A Chinese mother and her husband travel to Canada to avenge their son, and their first step is to get a handgun.
Honey, Don't Shoot
Creative Statement
This is a story about a mother's self-awakening. In our eyes, parents are dutiful and work hard all their lives; endurance defines them. The mother in my story, carrying the grief of losing her son with her husband, confronts her hatred at the age of fifty in the name of love and with despair as her weapon, and turns from victim into perpetrator.
Synopsis
At the start of winter, Ye Meilan and her husband Li Jinhua fly from China to a city in central Canada, where they meet Lü Pei, a cheerful, outgoing tour guide. The couple, both past fifty, have no interest in the sights and only ask Lü Pei to take them to a shooting range. There, the husband tries to buy a handgun while the wife searches for a Canadian woman. At the range, Li Jinhua runs into his old army comrade Guo Bing. Deciding that the time has come, the couple shake off Lü Pei, move into Guo Bing's home, steal a handgun and bullets from him, and close in on the home of Kate, the mysterious woman they have been tracking. In the confusion, Ye Meilan accidentally pulls the trigger. Kate's five-year-old son falls at the sound of the shot. Having fled back to their old comrade's home, the two finally tell the whole story: five years earlier, their son Li Jun, a student in Canada, was shot dead by Kate's husband Odin during a carjacking. Odin was sentenced to life imprisonment, and Kate, who had encouraged him, was sentenced to ten years for incitement to murder. Having outlived their son, the couple have lived like the walking dead. A month ago, they suddenly heard that Kate had been released early and reunited with her child. Ye Meilan nearly broke down, and her hatred flared up again. She wants Kate dead. She wants to hold a gun to Kate's forehead and make her feel the fear their son felt at gunpoint. Fortunately, Ye Meilan's shot was a blank, and Kate's son is unharmed. As the relieved couple hesitate over giving up their revenge, Kate and the others, by a twist of circumstance, take revenge on the old comrade's wife. Both sides do harm in the name of love. Having survived the ordeal, Ye Meilan comes to a new understanding of love, of loss and of the future.
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Genre:
Drama, Crime -
Director:
Wang Xiao
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Screenwriter:
Wang Xiao | Ye Wan