The Lost singing = Shi qu de ge sheng

This film is about the impact of divorce families on kids. Liang Lili is a Year 4 student and has an excellent singing voice. She is selected for a competition by the Art Troupe of the Children’s Palace. Lili is excited to share the good news with her parents. But what awaits at home is her parents’ quarrelling. Lili’s dad moved out, Lili’s mum couldn’t cheer up, and Lili’s study was affected. One day, Lili saw her father with another woman and realized that the worst would happen. Her parents divorced and the smile in Lili’s face was gone. Lili’s mum relocated to another city and Lili’s dad moved back with the lady and her son. Lili hates the new “mum” and the “little brother”, who broke her piggy bank. The “hatred” between Lili and her new brother escalated, which worried their parents. One night, Lili and her brother were both lonely, each missing their own separated parent. The two kids started to feel sympathetic with each other as both suffered the same. In order to help her brother to go back to see his father, Lili saved money to buy a ticket for him. The two kids said good bye at the train station, and Lili decided to go and look for her mum.

Directed by a female director, the film shows that family melodrama is a recurring theme in Chinese cinema. Director Shi Wei began her career as an actress and acted in films such as Tracks in the Snowy Forrest, an extremely popular film of the 1960s.
Tianjin Film Studio was established in 1958.
The significance of the film lies in that it dealt with a less-discussed topic as divorce was very uncommon in the early 1980s in China. Not much background information about the film could be found. (3 stars - Yuxing Zhou; December 16, 2010)