Children find their destiny

New film shows Mongolian families willingly reach out to orphans buffeted by winds of fate, Xu Fan reports.

Even for a gifted linguist, it would be a seemingly impossible mission to learn the film script of a different language in about two weeks. However, actress Ma Su agreed to such a challenge without a moment's hesitation when she received an invitation from Derek Yee Tung-sing, a prestigious Hong Kong director, who was seeking the lead for his movie, In Search of Lost Time.

Based on real-life stories, the movie, which was released domestically in early September, revisits a heartbreaking chapter of New China's early history: Thousands of undernourished children from orphanages in Shanghai and surrounding southern provinces were adopted by local herders in the Inner Mongolia autonomous region between the late 1950s and early 1960s.

During this extremely harsh time when most of China's southern regions were stricken by lengthy droughts and severe food shortages, many starving parents, the majority from Zhejiang, Anhui and Jiangsu provinces, left their children — some were even babies or toddlers — at orphanages in Shanghai, hoping the big city would provide them with a better chance of survival.

However, Shanghai was also suffering food shortages. Following the instructions from then-premier Zhou Enlai to Ulanfu, at the time chairman of Inner Mongolia, these children took trains to travel north to Inner Mongolia, where the region's vast grasslands ensured nutritious supplies, such as mutton and milk.

For Ma, a veteran actress from Northeast China's Heilongjiang province, she had known a bit of the historical story from several previous movies and TV series, such as The Silent Aimin River (2000) and Mother (2010).

After confirming and accepting to play the role of an ethnic Mongolian mother in the movie, she quickly started to collect more details from the internet and published materials, besides learning Mongolian, as she was requested to master her 100-plus lines in two weeks.

"I read a book about the Shanghai orphans who were sent to live with their foster parents in Inner Mongolia. Most stories are very touching. I still remember that a female herder led a very frugal life to raise six adopted children from the south, and a foster family persisted over years to seek the best available medical services to treat their foster son, who walked with a pronounced limp," says Ma.

Also starring actor Chen Baoguo and ethnic Mongolian singer-actor Ayanga, the 124-minute movie unfolds with two parallel plots respectively set in recent times and the late 1950s. Chen plays Du Sihan, a retired shutterbug, who travels to Inner Mongolia seeking his lost younger sister, who is left in a Shanghai orphanage, as a redemption journey to remedy the family's decadeslong anguish.

Interwoven with flashbacks, the tale reveals the bitter yet touching past, chronicling how his sister is adopted by the ethnic Mongolian mother — played by actress Ma — whose selfless love mends the young girl's injured heart.

To better translate her role, the first time in her two-decade-long acting career that she is speaking ethnic Mongolian throughout a movie, Ma traveled to Ulgai Prairie in the northeast of Xiliin Gol League in late May last year, learning Mongolian and ethnic customs from herding families before the four-month-long shooting.

"I have learned that Mongolians worship fire, so they never fall asleep with their feet facing the stove. Besides, they treat guests with cut mutton but will pay attention to keep the knife pointing toward themselves," recalls Ma.

The shooting has also shaped a beautiful memory with the vast grassland and clear sky, as well as herds of cattle and sheep, a sight to banish the noisy hustle and bustle of stressful metropolitan life.

"We often needed to drive for around half an hour from one household to another. The tranquil and peaceful life in the grassland makes people more open and inclusive, hence also stirring me to think that's perhaps why the herding families selflessly fostered children from the southern regions," she says.

Many consider children and animals challenging subjects to shoot. The movie features wolves, horses, sheep, and hundreds of young children, including some babies and toddlers. They became the biggest "stars", and the cast and crew members waited patiently for them to get into the right frame of mind for filming.

"When one child started to cry, the emotion would soon become contagious. Interestingly, I remember that we had to hug and comfort the young children most of the time," recalls Ma.

A bit more trained or tamed, the horses were transported from Beijing, and the wolves are the offspring of the titular animal "actors" in French director Jean-Jacques Annaud's 2015 blockbuster Wolf Totem, which is about an educated Beijing young man's fascination with prairie wolves during the late 1960s.

Earlier this year, the movie was selected as the opening film for the 12th Beijing International Film Festival, currently obtaining 7.2 points out of 10 on the popular review aggregator Douban. The movie has extended its theatrical screening to Oct 29, around 20 days longer than previously scheduled.