The Economist.
It is the end of the year and as the holidays approach,
we are launching the first session of our Drum Tower Film Club.
And for some reason I was allowed to pick the first one,
so I chose an absolute classic, Farewell My Concubine by Chen Kaige.
Ah, Farewell My Concubine, also known as Bàwáng Bié Jī.
It is a classic movie but I actually hadn't seen it in full,
so thank you David for giving me an excuse to watch it.
I'm glad. So look, you don't win any prizes for originality for suggesting Farewell My Concubine.
It is an extremely famous film, but it really is also a must-see film.
And the plot follows two young boys who are training to become Beijing Opera performers,
starting all the way back in 1924, in that chaotic era just after the fall of the last imperial dynasty.
The movie is a tale of friendship and unrequited love that spans 50 years.
It takes viewers all the way through from the 1920s to the 1960s,
and you see all the turbulent changes that happened in China.
That's right. You literally see the Japanese invading Beijing.
You see the Chinese Civil War and the communist armies arriving in the Chinese capital,
and then you see the Cultural Revolution, that most brutal moment of the Mao years.
And if you want one film that helps you really sort of experience that journey through chaos,
Farewell My Concubine is a very good place to start.