Interview: Chicago’s Asian Pop-Up Cinema Features ‘The Enigma of Arrival’ on Sept. 19, 2019

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CHICAGO – Season Nine of Chicago’s Asian Pop-Up Cinema (APUC), continues on Thursday, September 19th, 2019, with the North American Premiere of China’s “The Enigma of Arrival.” Director Song Wen will appear on behalf of the film, moderated by Jennifer Dorothy Lee of the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. at AMC River East 21 in downtown Chicago. For more details and tickets, click here.

“The Enigma of Arrival” involves a group of teenage friends who reunite after college after many years. They’ve not seen each other since the disappearance of DongDong (Gu Xuan), a girl that all of them had a crush on. The circumstances of her disappearance was the cause that ended their friendships initially, and a lot had remained unsaid between them. Until now.

Enigma
APUC Season Nine Continues with ‘The Enigma of Arrival’ from China
Photo credit: AsianPopUpCinema.org

This North American Premiere will be part of the program-packed Season Nine of APUC, as their new format (multiple films per week) highlights a different Asian country or theme every week. Next week, Japan will be in the spotlight. APUC is facilitated by founder and veteran film programmer Sophia Wong Bocchio, and Season Nine features films from South Korea, China, Japan, Thailand, the Phillippines, and Hong Kong, among others. The films mainly screen at Chicago’s AMC River East 21, with various other locations throughout the season (click link below at the end of the article for more details).

Patrick McDonald of HollywoodChicago.com talked to director Song Wen through an interpreter for a preview of the September 19th screening. “The Enigma of Arrival” is Song Wen’s directorial debut.

HollywoodChicago.com: How did you develop the chemistry of the group of men who played their characters in two different points in their lives … as teenagers and later as older post college graduates?

Song Wen: I actually had a scene when they were all kids in the original script, but eventually cut it. [laughs] The actors who played the group had to bond as teenagers, and act like they were mad at each other when they reunited, because of the incident with Dongdong, their female friend. So there were two different types of chemistry and I had to make sure they felt both of them.

HollywoodChicago.com: What type of female energy did you want for mysterious character of Dongdong, and how did actress Gu Xuan provide it?

Des2
Director Song Wen in Chicago
Photo credit: AsianPopUpCinema.org

Song Wen: I began the process in of this story in 2013, when I spent some time in Los Angeles. I reflected on growing up, and what I became when I actually did ‘grow up.’ So that was the idea, and then I kept at the theme of growing up. For two years, I indulged in a mindset male fantasy of being young and coming to the rescue of a woman, and making life better for her. 



I tell this as a set up because the whole group of men had that mindset for the character of Dongdong. Each of the friends thought that they saved her, and somebody else did her harm, which propelled the story. She is a mystery, an illusion, almost a fantasy and a symbol for these men. Gu Xuan had the right look, she could sing the Hong Kong pop of the era and she had the natural appeal that drove them all crazy. [laughs]

HollywoodChicago.com: Since this was a theme in the film, what do you think is most difficult about being a man in China today?

Song Wen: I can only talk about my experience. The men in the film were the ones I was used to, we used to talk tough and fight a lot. It was rough on the street, we were always hungry, and there wasn’t the money there is now. The Chinese men today in their twenties are much softer. He fights on his video game console.

HollywoodChicago.com: You run a major film festival in China. How would you assess the state of independent voices in Chinese film in the present day.

Song Wen: Independent film has developed significantly recently, it had no space in Chinese cinema only ten years ago. In the last five years, there has been more financial support for indie filmmakers.

I did some surveys and collected some statistics from the latest edition of the film festival, which 30,000 people attended, and found out that 77% of the audience want to have more films about the economic inequality that has developed in China, and more about different regions in the country that are rural and poorer … plus the dignity of the people who live there. Other topics include the environment, the diversity of the immigrant population and even LGBTQ stories.

HollywoodChicago.com: So as a cultural influencer and film artist what keeps you optimistic about the future of China?

Song Wen: I’m very optimistic through my work, and I also see international awareness and progress through what the audience in China want in films … and how they react positively to the new ideas within them.

Season Nine of Asian Pop-Up Cinema continues with “The Enigma of Arrival” on Thursday September 19th, 2019 (7pm), at the AMC River East 21, 322 East Illinois Street, Chicago. Director Song Wen will make an appearance on behalf of the film, moderated by Jennifer Dorothy Lee of the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. For a complete overview on Chicago’s Asian Pop-Up Cinema click here.

HollywoodChicago.com senior staff writer Patrick McDonald

By PATRICK McDONALD
Editor and Film Writer
HollywoodChicago.com
pat@hollywoodchicago.com

© 2019 Patrick McDonald, HollywoodChicago.com

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