The Way

Together with a flood of Chinese immigrants, the 60-year-old Chinese Liu Zhixian has emigrated to Hungary in 1990. Like those tens of thousands other Chinese, he hoped for a better life there. In China Mr. Liu was a university professor, but for this anti-revolutionary the Cultural Revolution was a disaster. In Budapest he tries to forget not only the humiliations he had to endure, but also his loveless marriage to a country girl. Now, in Budapest he dreams of his great love. Through a personal ad in a Chinese paper he meets a girl in Beijing, whom he extensively interrogates. Back in China, he is also reunited with his son after a long time. The Hungarian director Ferenc Moldoványi draws a portrait of a man who has known precious little love during his life and who still wants to make up for that at an old age. But reversely he hardly seems to be able to give love himself. The conversations with his son are awkward, there are many uncomfortable pauses. His son feels neglected by him and he blames his father for having emigrated. ‘I haven‘t broken the Chinese or Hungarian laws’, Mr. Liu says at the end, ‘but I have betrayed my son.’