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In September 1982, British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher visited China, and Deng Xiaoping negotiated with her on the future of Hong Kong. Deng Xiaoping proposed that the issue of reclaiming Hong Kong's sovereignty could be resolved with the "one country, two systems (one country, two systems)" solution.
After two years of up to 22 rounds of negotiations, China and the United Kingdom finally signed the Sino-British Joint Declaration on the Hong Kong Question on December 19, 1984, deciding that from July 1, 1997, China would establish a special administrative region in Hong Kong and begin to exercise sovereignty and governance over Hong Kong Island, the Kowloon Peninsula south of Boundary Street, and the New Territories. On April 4, 1990, the Third Session of the Seventh National People's Congress passed the Basic Law of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China by 2,660 votes in favour, providing a reliable legal guarantee for the stability and prosperity of Hong Kong after its return to the motherland.
At 00:00 on July 1, 1997, the national flag of the People's Republic of China and the flag of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region were raised in Hong Kong, and Hong Kong, after a century of vicissitudes, returned to the embrace of the motherland, and the Chinese government began to resume the exercise of sovereignty over Hong Kong.
The film "My Motherland and Me", released in the 2019 National Day file, is a film co-created by seven directors, and the seven stories in the film are based on several historical classic moments since the founding of New China. The film focuses on the seemingly distant but close relationship between ordinary people and countries in the big times and events, awakening the sincere and deep patriotic feelings of every Chinese.
"The Return" is the third chapter in "My Motherland and Me", written and directed by Xue Xiaolu. The story focuses on the raising of the Chinese flag at 00:00 on July 1, showing a series of processes such as negotiation, preparation, rehearsal, holding and completion before the handover ceremony of Hong Kong's return to the motherland in 1997.
The 1984 Sino-British Joint Declaration stipulated that the British government should return sovereignty to Hong Kong on 1 July 1997, but did not specify a specific time. After more than a dozen rounds of negotiations, which lasted for several months, the Chinese and British delegations finally determined the specific details of the handover ceremony for Hong Kong's return. The Chinese government stressed that the British flag was lowered at 0:00:00 on July 1, and the Chinese flag was raised at 0:00:00 is China's bottom line. 0:00:00 is a major, historic moment, which means that Hong Kong, which has been a colony for 154 years, can return to the embrace of the motherland, and it cannot be delayed for a second.
Around the major historical event of "return", the narrative of the film takes An Wenbin (Wang Luoyong), deputy director of the Protocol Department of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the on-site commander of the handover ceremony of Hong Kong's sovereignty handover, as the main line, with Hong Kong citizen watchmaker Hua Ge (Ren Dahua) and policewoman Lian Jie (Hui Yinghong) as the auxiliary line, the two lines are parallel, and finally converge at the second of Hong Kong's official return, and the film also reaches a narrative and emotional climax. The use of the two-line narrative makes the film reveal from different social levels and perspectives that everyone who has made efforts and contributions to the handover ceremony of Hong Kong's return to the motherland, and every Hong Kong citizen, is a participant and witness of history.
Through the repeated presentation of the specific action of "pairing the table", the sense of history and importance of "time" is constantly enhanced in the film. In the film, when Chinese conductor An Wenbin suggested that Maureen Earls, executive director of the Handover Ceremony of the Return of Sovereignty in Hong Kong, the British side, checked the watch, emphasizing that the watch was calibrated according to the calibration time of the Greenwich Observatory in London, England, and the Purple Mountain Observatory in Nanjing, China.
Hua Ge is a relatively special character in the film, he is not only the messenger of "time", but also the witness of history, playing the role of connection and bond. Hua Ge, who had wandered to Hong Kong many years ago, got the help of a female policewoman Lian Jie when he came ashore, and the two later married, and Hua Ge became one of the citizens of Hong Kong. When Hua Ge was specially invited to calibrate the watch for the British conductor, he used the exquisite technology inherited from his father to control the error within half a second. Before Sister Lian left for duty and returned to the handover ceremony, he put the calibrated watch from his father on Sister Lian's wrist. "Time" in The hands of Hua Ge, became more than a thousand jun, and it was deeply affectionate. Hua Ge's ancestral watch has experienced the vicissitudes of "time", and will witness the historical freeze and brilliant bloom of "time".
In an extremely limited space, the director accurately portrays the personality characteristics of the characters and the story behind them, expanding the thickness and length of the narrative time. More importantly, the film expresses the emotions of the people of the two places through Hua Ge, which are connected by blood, implicitly and deeply. In terms of audiovisual language and sound and painting modeling, the director not only retains the cantonese soundtrack, but also captures the strong human touch and daily life atmosphere through the regional space such as Kai Tak Airport and Tang Lou, so that the film exudes the Hong Kong film style familiar to the audience.
The highlight of "The Return" is to show the handover ceremony of Hong Kong's return to the motherland. Hong Kong's return to the motherland is one of the witnesses of the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation, and every detail of the handover ceremony cannot be ignored, especially the second of declaring sovereignty, which requires the Chinese flag to reach the top of the flagpole without any mistake, which will be the focus of everyone's attention. In the film, the honor guard led by the flag raiser Zhu Tao (Du Jiang) conducts very hard training in order to complete the task. At the handover ceremony of Hong Kong's return, the British side ended 12 seconds ahead of schedule, disrupting the original plan, and the Chinese side implemented Plan B without chaos. History gives the film ample space and opportunity for performance, Zhu Tao is highly nervous while waiting for the national anthem to sound, and the film adopts a stream of consciousness technique, using a set of dream shots to express his psychological space and spiritual world. Although it is only a short 12 seconds, every second of waiting makes everyone feel extremely long, and such an anxious wait greatly increases the suspense and emotional tension of the film.
When our honor guard showed national prestige and military might, when the national anthem sounded, the flag raiser withstood the huge pressure to complete the task, and the five-star red flag was raised on time, and the entire short film reached its emotional climax. Every audience member was deeply moved by this historic moment, and a strong sense of pride in the motherland was born. Immediately after the camera cuts from the ceremony scene to the fireworks outside victoria harbour, Hua Ge stands on the roof and shouts with his arms raised, and the cool and heroic Sister Lian issues an instruction to change the hat badge. The music of "Oriental Pearl" sung by Luo Dayou sounded, which is an affectionate interpretation of the reunion between Hong Kong and the motherland for a long time, and the director also completed a warm and affectionate political lyric here.
In just over 20 minutes, the director restores the historical situation one by one, tells the story behind the handover ceremony, and shapes typical characters. The film also implants a lot of historical documentary footage, leading the audience back to the historical scene. The clock hand of history pointed to the moment at 00:00 on July 1, 1997, when the Great Hall stood solemnly, thousands of pairs of eyes saluted the bright five-star red flag and the flag of the Bauhinia District. This is a moment that the Chinese nation has been looking forward to for a long time, and this is a moment that will forever be recorded in the annals of world history! After the national anthem, at 00:04, Jiang Zemin, President of the People's Republic of China, solemnly declared: In accordance with the "Sino-British Joint Statement on the Hong Kong Issue," the two governments held a handover ceremony for Hong Kong as scheduled, announcing the resumption of China's exercise of sovereignty over Hong Kong and the formal establishment of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China. The return of Hong Kong to the motherland after a century of vicissitudes marks that Hong Kong compatriots have since become the true masters of the motherland, and Hong Kong's development has since entered a brand-new era.
"The Return" may be the most direct representation of historical events in "My Motherland and Me", and the main characters and events are based on real material. Director Xue Xiaolu not only filmed the profoundness and thickness of the grand history, but also showed the simple feelings of ordinary people who love the country and Hong Kong, with extraordinary temperament and emotion, tension and degree, rigidity and softness.
This collection of seven directors, with excellent production standards, integrates the national memory of many historical moments into the image, and has a long-lasting emotional resonance with the audience. The film has received good responses in terms of artistic quality, market effect, box office and word of mouth, and has become another successful example of the main theme of the new era.
In order to greet the centennial birthday of the Party, the Shanghai International Film Festival officially launched the special plan of "Paying Tribute to the Centenary - Telling the History of the Party with Movies and Recalling 1921", taking the time clue as the main context, selecting 21 main theme films that can reflect the major events, important achievements and key historical scenes in the history of the Party in the past century, and reliving the glorious history created by the CPC leading the masses of the people from 1921 to the present through film criticism and guided tours, showing the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation. "Tribute to the Centenary - Using Film to Tell the History of the Party and Reminiscing about 1921" is jointly planned by the Shanghai International Film Festival and the Film Art Research Center of the Shanghai Theater Academy, and specially invited to write by the Film Art Research Center of Fudan University.