Yi ma de hou xian dai sheng huo

The Postmodern Life of My Aunt is not a comedy, as the ads, and the poster, would suggest. Instead it's a depressing story of how a woman's life slides downhill.

I had other problems with the film as well. As someone who has lived in China for seven years, I can definitely say Siqin Gaowa seemed too dowdy to be a Shanghai woman, and Chow Yun-Fat looked too suave and sophisticated to be a middle-aged Mainland man. I also didn't see the point of the young boy's character, although I guess it is an Ann Hui trope (if that's the right word) to have a character's story told through the eyes of a kid. He was a real cypher, and was barely in the film at all. How could he even know that stuff about his aunt? Using the child's perspective in Song of the Exile worked well, but not here at all. I also couldn't buy Vicki Zhao Wei in her role, and her appearance and back story came so out of the blue that it almost seemed like a joke.

All in all, a big disappointment, but I wouldn't have been so upset about it if the film's advertisements didn't make it look like a comedy. I really dislike when advertisers pull people into a film under false pretenses. If it is a tragedy, fine, advertise it as a tragedy. Just don't mislead audiences.