Synopsis

TANG Xixin, “Old
 Man TANG” is an 80-year-old bachelor and retired
 railway official. Living alone in a ramshackle house in Hebei province, he is
 reluctant to receive his grown children. However, he maintains a close
 relationship with his daughter, Caifeng. Old Man TANG, who has incredible
 memory, describes the tales of his life without refrain. He is an ideal witness
 of the 20th century China. And this film shows Caifeng’s
 current efforts including trying to boost business at a brothel and deal with illegal
 mining practices.

Program Note
TANG Caifeng (also known as TANG Xiaoyan), who has mingled around in social circles for many years, visits her home in Hebei
 province for the Chinese New Year. Her father, Old Man TANG tells his old stories in fragments but with remarkable details. Although he
 wants to have a happy reunion for the Chinese New Year, there happens a quarrel between the members of her family, and they leave
 home one by one. In the final of the film, TANG Xiaoyan also takes a train to leave her father who waits for his last days.

 Shattered is the last one of XU Tong’s ‘Vagabond trilogy’, following Wheat Harvest and Fortune Teller. As his documentary works are
 inter-related one another, his first one Wheat Harvest portrays the life of a Chinese female sex worker, and the succeeding work Fortune
 Teller deals with a fortune teller couple whom the female sex worker often visits. Old Man TANG in Shattered is father of TANG Xiaoyan
 who appears in Fortune Teller. (Likewise, his recent work The Fourth Brother also is a story about TANG Xiayan’s fourth brother. Although
 this documentary was originally planned to be screened, unfortunately it was canceled because of the legal and political constraints.) His
 serial documentaries have provoked the questions of the attitude and ethics of the filmmaker along with partial criticism on the problem
 of his displaying female sex worker in his documentaries. In this sense, Shattered, which digs deep into life of the subaltern, raises
 profoundly the political, aesthetic, and ethical issues in relation to representation and documentary. [KIM Jung-koo]