Twenty-Four Flavors

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Creative Statement

To understand life, we must often look back; but to live well, we must have the courage to look forward.

Synopsis

After many years abroad, Siyue returns to her hometown and finds that her long-divorced parents are still bound together in countless ways. She cannot forget her father Yongtang's infidelity and the harm he did to the family and to her mother. The herbal tea shop on the old street faces demolition, and Siyue insists on taking her mother abroad to live with her, but her mother, Qiaozhen, wants to keep running the shop. Her father, thrown out by his mistress and destitute, still cares for Qiaozhen and their daughter. In his old age he quietly helps Qiaozhen raise money to reopen the tea shop, but while doing everything he can, he falls for a scam and dies. Through all this, Siyue comes to understand her parents' struggles, their trials and the love they kept hidden; she lets go of her resentment toward them and faces her future openly.

Running Time:

117 min

Genre:

Family, Drama

Director/Screenwriter:

Huang Qiling

Chief Planner:

Lin Bingkun

Executive Producer:

Wu Junxiang

Producer:

Ding Yu

Starring:

Sylvia Chang | Kenny Bee | Angela Yuen

Production Company:

Yidai (Guangzhou) Culture Communication Co., Ltd.

About the Director/Screenwriter

Huang Qiling: lecturer in the Film Production Department of the Vancouver Film School at Shanghai University and an independent director. In 2018 she produced the documentary The City Besieged by a Thousand Mountains, selected for the short documentary competition of the International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam. In 2017 she wrote the screenplay Twenty-Four Flavors, which won Best Project at the Lujiazui Film and Finance Alliance project market; it was selected for the 2018 Wu Tianming Youth Film Fund project market and the 2020 Golden Rooster Films Project Market (under the former title Safe Travels). Short films she directed include Kuipeng, Little Beluga, Blind, Regret, Ferris Wheel, Beloved, Ten Minutes in New York, This Time Next Year, Godzilla, Fool Mob and Randy's Days. Stage plays she directed include Princess Marlena, A Midsummer Night's Dream, The Heart Thief, Love in a Fallen City and Alice in Bed.

Logline

A subject no one today can avoid: through one family, the film reflects a question of our time, namely how to reconcile with one's parents, with oneself and with the world.