Drifters

Wang’s films have often been screened in Rotterdam since his début. The beautifully crafted Drifters (the result of unique cooperation between Hong Kong, Mainland China and Taiwan) is about an uncertain and broken future as a result of (failed) emigration. While China is modernising at a rapid rate, adventurers continue to embark on a perilous journey to `the west’. Drifters is not about this journey itself, but more about the consequences for family bonds and the world of those who returned. In his birthplace on the coast, where dozens of stowaways prepare for the journey, Hong (nicknamed Er di, ‘little brother’) has some status because he once spent several years in the United States. When he made the daughter of his Chinese boss pregnant, her family reported him to the immigration service and he was sent back to China. Since then, his family has not been very enamoured of his aimless hanging around. Even when Er di starts something going with an actress in a travelling opera company, he remains equally passive. Then he hears that his former in-laws have returned to China, with his son. His brother urges a meeting, which leads to a series of uneasy and emotional events. This film that sometimes seems aloof eventually turns out to be very intense and involved.