(Ecns.cn)--Screened during the interval between the domestic star-studded film "Beginning of The Great Revival" and the Hollywood blockbuster "Transformers 3," "The Piano in a Factory," a low cost Chinese film with an investment of only five million yuan ($776,699), turned out to be a dark horse in the summer movie market.
Set during the early 1990s in Anshan, Liaoning Province, the film is a whimsical tale of a laid-off father, Chen Guilin (Wang Qianyuan) whose life is turned upside down after his estranged wife reappears, asking for a divorce and custody of their daughter.
Chen does not mind divorcing his wife, but he cannot bear to part with his daughter who he has worked hard to give a respectable life and taught his love of music to. But when asked if she'd rather stay with her father or go with her mother, the girl gives a practical, devastating answer: she'll go with whoever can provide her with a piano.
For an unemployed man, it is hard to afford a piano. So in order to secure custody of his daughter, Chen makes the unusual decision to build a piano with his friends and his girlfriend.
The story should have been sad and heart-tugging, but the writer-director Zhang Meng gave it an easy tone to soften any dreariness or harsh reality. The movie makes itself stand out from the blockbusters not only because it has promoted the leading actor Wang Qianyuan to win the Best Actor Award at the Tokyo International Film Festival and the Shanghai International Film Festival, but also for the stories behind it.
"The movie reminds viewers of a period, two decades ago, when many Chinese state-owned factories laid off workers in an unprecedented scale for economic reform," said Wu Xiaobo, a famous finance writer, after watching the movie in Hangzhou.
A disappearing class
Born and raised in a small industrial city in northeast China, the 36-year-old director Zhang Meng attaches the memory of his hometown to the movie, using a unique sense of humor to present to viewers a large group of people who were laid off during the 1990s.
Since the 1990s, the Chinese government has carried out reforms of state-owned enterprises which have involved the cutback of millions of workers, starting from northeast China which used to be the country's heavy industry base.
Only because of the reforms, over 20 million blameless workers who were employed by state-owned enterprises were forced to go home. "Almost overnight, jobs that used to be thought of as 'iron bowls' betrayed these workers," said Wu.
"In order to improve the working efficiency of these enterprises, this group of people was sacrificed. But they did nothing wrong. Some of these people protested the government's action. Yet they still had to bear the brunt of the reform's severe consequences, for only a few people could not change the government decision," said Wu.
About 20 years have passed. The passage of time and quick social development has made people forget about this group of people, but the movie once again brings these people in front of us.
According to some official counts, laid-off workers increased from 3 million in 1993 to 17.24 million in 1998 in northeast China. In some places like Tiexi, a district of Shenyang, all working people in some families were laid off.
Laid-off workers were only able to receive a small amount of money subsidized by the government. This was only enough to allow members of the family to live, but far from enough to let them go to the hospital or send their children to school.
"These sudden life pressures forced many people to commit suicide. In order to live or support their family, some even chose to do shabby jobs, like prostitution," recalled Wu who used to be a reporter and went to Tiexi to do research in 2002.
Though many live a hard life, facing the government decision, most people chose to understand the government. "Our factory used to be glorious, but now is not so anymore," said a man who was one of the laid-off workers of that period. "But we know that the government is also in a hard time."
From 2005, the Chinese government launched several programs to help laid-off workers learn new skills and find new jobs. Though people seldom mention that period in recent years, these people still exist.
