Tian Zhuangzhuang’s Springtime in a Small Town is a quaint little piece of cinema set in China during the post 2nd world war period, a brief, uneasy intermission between the end of the Japanese invasion and the Communist Takeover. In a small, derelict war torn town in Southern China, a doctor ( Zhang Zhichen ) from Shanghai pays an unexpected visit to his old school friend Dai Liyan, whose wife ( Yuwen ) he now recognizes as the woman he had a brief but passionate affair ten years ago. No longer in close proximity with his husband because of his poor health and temper, while still bearing feelings for her former beau, the arrival of the guest sets off an uneasy tension amidst the small household, complicated more by Liyan’s younger sister who also takes a liking for doctor.

Springtime is one of those films I’ve come to recognized ( together with a few others like the Korean Take Care of my Cat and One Fine Spring Day ) where seemingly nothing important seems to happen and the narrative justs drags on ceaselessly, certain anathema to Hollywooders and many other moviegoers, but whose real value lies in a small conscious effort on the viewer’s part to invest alittle patience or even better, a second viewing, where they’d be greatly rewarded.

Beautifully shot in slow, deliberate takes through the shadowy corridors of the old house, it evokes the same aesthetics last felt in Wong Kar Wai’s In the Mood for Love, no stranger because of DP Li Pingbin, who worked together with Doyle.

Highly recommended, but Hollywooders *yawns heard*, you’ve been so caveated.