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Director’s note
Before I went there, many of my friends suggested that my film would capture the beauty and sentiment of Fengjie, so-called “the town of poetry”. Some of the most-recited poems in Chinese history were born
there, the Three Gorges is the poem of the nature, and the local natives create poems everyday. I said, sure! The poetry is the key of my arts and will be the theme of my film.
But, when I really was there, the thing I was not sure is how the poetry could react to the tears of an aged Korean-war veteran, and depict the everyday life of a gang of miserable cargo-movers who live
like dogs there. Everyone was talking about one thing, house. House is the only thing beyond all things, and only value above all values. Even in the church, each chant that has ever been sung echoed for house.
Poverty and unemployment prevailed, social justice and civic rights were often forgotten, dog-fighting against each other by all kind of means was the only rule left in the ruins, and life goes on there.
However, I had to deal with the fear growing in my heart, when each attempt of my camera failed to spot the resumption of human dignity before the flood.
After on-field shooting, I went back Chongqing for post-production editing. My friends asked me, how was it going there? Had you captured the sentiment of poetry? I said, no! They asked, why? Why not? I was
in a bad mood, and answered: since now, I am an enemy of all poetry!
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