On the surface, Reunion is about joint burial: how an elderly couple in a second marriage deal with their burial arrangements. Its deeper theme is how people face and deal with a traumatic past. Today, when facing history, people tend to forget. This is a pragmatic strategy. The protagonist's insistence on joint burial is, at heart, a rebellion against forgetting. In Reunion, forgetting is no longer erasure, but a new beginning.
Lao Li and Lao Nie both lost their spouses early. In the 1980s they married as a second marriage for both, and they have been devoted to each other ever since. After they take part in a group wedding to make up for the ceremony they never had, Lao Li learns that the grave of his first wife, Fengxian, in their home province of Shanxi is to be relocated. Out of guilt, he proposes that he, Fengxian and Lao Nie be buried together. The idea causes conflict between the couple. As they discuss the burial further, Lao Li discovers that Lao Nie's first husband, Zhang Hongshu, may have been connected with his first wife's death...
Genre:
Drama, FamilyEstimated Running Time:
92 minDirector/Screenwriter:
Gao LinyangLead Actor:
Li XuejianLead Actress:
Song XiaoyingProducer:
Wang DonghuiProduction Company:
Seven Impression (Shanghai) Pictures Co., Ltd. | Seven Impression (Xiamen) Film and Television Media Co., Ltd.Executive Producer:
Guan HuProduction Company:
Beijing Seven Impression Culture Media Co., Ltd.Gao Linyang: Master's degree from the Directing Department of the Communication University of China. As director: Reunion. As screenwriter: The Sacrifice; Striding into the Wind, selected for the official selection of the 73rd Cannes Film Festival; On the Border, which received a Special Mention in the Short Film Competition of the 71st Cannes Film Festival.
Li Xuejian: joined the China Central Experimental Drama Theatre in 1978. Representative works include Jiao Yulu, Supreme, Forty Years Without Doubt and Monk Comes Down the Mountain.
Song Xiaoying: actress from the Chinese Mainland, graduated from the Beijing Film Academy. Representative works include A Suffering Heart, A Time to Love and The Emperor in Han Dynasty.
Wang Donghui: Vice President of Beijing Seven Impression Culture Media and producer. Representative works: executive producer of the film A Romantic Story (2012), directed by Gao Qunshu; producer of the film Beijing Blues (2012), directed by Gao Qunshu; producer of the film Brotherhood of Blades (2014), directed by Lu Yang; producer of the film The Revolutionary (2021), directed by Xu Zhanxiong.
Seven Impression (Shanghai) Pictures Co., Ltd. and Seven Impression (Xiamen) Film and Television Media Co., Ltd.: founded by director Guan Hu and actress and producer Liang Jing, with a team of experienced film and television professionals. The companies work in the development and production, investment and distribution of films and series, and in talent management. Since its founding in 2016, the company has produced dozens of film and television works across a range of genres, combining artistic and commercial value.
Guan Hu: Chinese director, graduated from the Directing Department of the Beijing Film Academy. Critics in China and abroad have described him as the Chinese director with the strongest point of view. Representative films: Cow, Design of Death, The Chef, the Actor, the Scoundrel, Mr. Six, The Eve (a segment of My People, My Country), The Eight Hundred and The Sacrifice. As executive producer: The Revolutionary, Streetwise (selected for Un Certain Regard at the Cannes Film Festival) and Reunion (selected for the WIP Lab of the Hong Kong - Asia Film Financing Forum and the Work-in-Progress section of the Pingyao International Film Festival).
Li Zhenhua and Nie Suzhen both lost their spouses early and married in the 1980s, a second marriage for both. When the grave of his first wife, Fengxian, in their home province of Shanxi is to be relocated, Lao Li proposes that the three of them be buried together. The idea upsets the couple's quiet life.