My Father’s Choice (2017)

Directed by: Yan Ting Yuen | 79 minutes | documentary

Filmmaker Yan Ting Yuen asks a number of interesting questions in ‘My father’s choice’ (2017): ‘Who or what determines the choices in our lives? Are we ourselves, or do we just think so? Was my father in control of his own destiny, or was he, and are we all, just a plaything of history?’ Big questions with a metaphysical undertone to which you can’t expect a bite-sized answer. Yuen uses them to excite, and to give her documentary about her father a weighty motive. Unfortunately, the latter doesn’t work in the film’s favor.

‘My Father’s Choice’ is a family story told through the recent turbulent history of China and Hong Kong, and how it influenced the life of her father (Chak Man Yuen). The famine and orgy of violence that resulted from Mao’s disastrous attempt to turn China into a socialist economy, known as the Great Leap Forward, resulted in tens of millions of deaths. Around this time, Chak Man lost his parents and he and his brother grew up with their aunts. Ten years later, the Cultural Revolution also left a mark on his life and that of his brother. ‘What if’ questions are regularly raised: what would have happened if her father had been sold as a child instead of growing up with his aunt; and whether he might have held a high spot in the Communist Party if his family hadn’t prevented him from returning from Hong Kong.

In Hong Kong, her father manages to build a good life as a taxi driver with his own taxi. He earns extra well from risky rides around the curfew imposed by the British government in response to attacks and riots by pro-Communist demonstrators. Yet he, and thousands of Chinese with him, let himself be tempted to look for a better life in the West. He leaves for the Netherlands with his wife and child and starts a restaurant in Maastricht. Decades later, he and his wife return to Hong Kong as an elderly couple. Daughter Yang Ting stays in the Netherlands, working as a filmmaker; somewhat complainingly, her family remarks that with such a profession you cannot support your parents. Has the European adventure worked out in their favor, or would they have been happier if they had stayed in Hong Kong?

Yuen beautifully packaged this story about her father. Photographic Hong Kong with its imposing but gloomy residential towers is depicted in tight, sometimes extreme, cut-outs. They are interspersed with well-chosen archive material that brings China and Hong Kong of the 1950s and 1960s to life. Yuen adds a few tricks to this, which, although not original, do enhance the nostalgic character: images are projected on top of other images, and moments from Chak Man’s life are portrayed as a silent play.

Visually, ‘My father’s choice’ is very strong and the story manages to take the viewer along. Still, it’s a bit of a squeeze: it’s a pity that Yuen pays practically no attention to the life of her parents in the Netherlands. As a result, the contrast with which the ‘choice’ from the title would be given more weight is missing. Because what exactly was the impact of that ‘choice’? Would he have been happier if he had stayed in Hong Kong? In any case, the answer does not come from her father, he is so wise to answer that we will never know, after all, it did not happen. He reveals little to nothing about his feelings, and Yuen is unable to find out about it anyway. Other scenes are very personal and intimate, but do not clarify anything in the context of the larger connections that Yuen evokes. That’s a shame, ‘My father’s choice’ is a nice tribute, but it lacks any relevance because of this.