# Taking Father Home (背鸭子的男孩)
**Taking Father Home** (背鸭子的男孩) is a 2005 Chinese independent feature film, the debut of director Ying Liang (应亮), about a 17-year-old village boy who travels to the city of Zigong in Sichuan province to find the father who abandoned his family six years earlier.[1](https://chinaindiefilm.com/films/taking-father-home/) • [2](https://www.newyorker.com/video/watch/taking-father-home) It was made for under 30,000 yuan (about $5,000) on a borrowed DV camera with a cast of nonprofessional actors, yet it won festival prizes at Tokyo FILMeX, San Francisco, Hong Kong, and Singapore.[3](https://www.hammertonail.com/reviews/drama/taking-father-home-film-review/) • [4](https://bc.cinema.com.hk/adhoc/hkaff_2012/booklet/HKAFF_booklet.pdf)
| Key fact | Detail |
|---|---|
| Director / year | Ying Liang's first feature, 2005, 100 minutes, fiction[1](https://chinaindiefilm.com/films/taking-father-home/) |
| Budget and method | Under 30,000 yuan (about $5,000); borrowed DV camera; friends and nonprofessionals as unpaid cast[3](https://www.hammertonail.com/reviews/drama/taking-father-home-film-review/) • [5](https://dennisschwartzreviews.com/takingfatherhome/) |
| Premise | Xu Yun, 17, leaves his Sichuan village for Zigong with two ducks as his only currency, seeking his father, gone six years[2](https://www.newyorker.com/video/watch/taking-father-home) • [6](https://fipresci.org/report/taking-father-home-an-indie-chinese-film-subversive-and-heartbreaking-by-lim-fong-wei/) |
| Awards | Special Jury Prize, Tokyo FILMeX 2005; Skyy Prize for First Narrative Feature, San Francisco 2006; Golden Digital Award, Hong Kong 2006; NETPAC and FIPRESCI prizes, Singapore 2006[4](https://bc.cinema.com.hk/adhoc/hkaff_2012/booklet/HKAFF_booklet.pdf) |
| Language | Sichuan dialect, with Chinese and English subtitles[4](https://bc.cinema.com.hk/adhoc/hkaff_2012/booklet/HKAFF_booklet.pdf) |
| Writing and production | Co-written by Ying Liang and Peng Shan, who also produced[5](https://dennisschwartzreviews.com/takingfatherhome/) |
## Spoilers
- **Ending:** The boy finds his father living with a new family and kills him, a patricide that shocked festival audiences[6](https://fipresci.org/report/taking-father-home-an-indie-chinese-film-subversive-and-heartbreaking-by-lim-fong-wei/)
### Story
Xu Yun lives with his mother in a village in Sichuan province that the government is about to redevelop, in one account as an industrial zone and in another as part of a river-dam project requiring relocation.[7](https://www.fx361.com/page/2019/0329/4913767.shtml) • [8](https://www.jigsawlounge.co.uk/film/reviews/the-searcher-ying-liang-s-taking-father-home-8-10/) His father left for the city six years earlier and has broken off contact, though he has regularly sent money home; a remittance with an address gives Xu Yun his only lead.[5](https://dennisschwartzreviews.com/takingfatherhome/) • [9](https://m.fx361.com/news/2015/1012/869717.html) His mother opposes the trip. Xu Yun sets out for Zigong with no money, a small knife, and two ducks carried in a basket on his back, his only assets and a link to the rural life he is leaving.[8](https://www.jigsawlounge.co.uk/film/reviews/the-searcher-ying-liang-s-taking-father-home-8-10/) • [9](https://m.fx361.com/news/2015/1012/869717.html)
In the city he meets two surrogate father figures: a scar-faced street criminal called Scar, who cheats him out of his money but also shelters him and teaches him "the man's way" to eat watermelon, and a paternalistic policeman who helps him search.[6](https://fipresci.org/report/taking-father-home-an-indie-chinese-film-subversive-and-heartbreaking-by-lim-fong-wei/) • [8](https://www.jigsawlounge.co.uk/film/reviews/the-searcher-ying-liang-s-taking-father-home-8-10/) When Xu Yun finally finds his father, the man is bankrupt, struggling with creditors, living with another woman and a young daughter, and has no intention of returning.[5](https://dennisschwartzreviews.com/takingfatherhome/) The confrontation ends with the son killing his father, first saving him in hope and then, in despair, killing him.[9](https://m.fx361.com/news/2015/1012/869717.html) Critics at the Singapore festival reported audiences disturbed by the patricide, which overturns the [filial piety](https://www.edgepedia.org/filial-piety) central to Chinese social convention.[6](https://fipresci.org/report/taking-father-home-an-indie-chinese-film-subversive-and-heartbreaking-by-lim-fong-wei/)
The film closes where it began, on a bus. Xu Yun, having absorbed the behavior of the exploitative figures he met, repeats Scar's exact words from the opening scene while taking money for returning a stolen wallet, a moment one critic called darker than the killing itself.[6](https://fipresci.org/report/taking-father-home-an-indie-chinese-film-subversive-and-heartbreaking-by-lim-fong-wei/)
## Themes and setting
The film sets a classic coming-of-age search inside the specifics of contemporary China: demolition and relocation of villages, urban construction sites, and a flood that threatens Zigong as water levels rise in the Fuxi river, with residents ordered to evacuate.[2](https://www.newyorker.com/video/watch/taking-father-home) • [8](https://www.jigsawlounge.co.uk/film/reviews/the-searcher-ying-liang-s-taking-father-home-8-10/) Radio broadcasts of official statements and government announcements run through the soundtrack, and the director incorporates documentary footage of the real disaster response alongside the fiction.[10](https://chinesefilmdatabase.wordpress.com/2014/02/16/96-bei-yazi-de-nanhai-taking-father-home/) • [2](https://www.newyorker.com/video/watch/taking-father-home) Richard Brody, film critic at [The New Yorker](https://www.edgepedia.org/the-new-yorker), reads the film as showing the catastrophic implications of heavy-handed authority, with the city's boom entailing the destruction of neighborhoods and the dispersal of families.[2](https://www.newyorker.com/video/watch/taking-father-home)
The critic Lim Fong Wei, writing for FIPRESCI, the International Federation of Film Critics, described the film as an anti-road movie in which redemption and self-empowerment do not arrive at the end of the road; instead the boy internalizes the dysfunctions he encounters as the model of adult life.[6](https://fipresci.org/report/taking-father-home-an-indie-chinese-film-subversive-and-heartbreaking-by-lim-fong-wei/) Ying Liang himself has said that for him the film is simply the story of a son from the country searching for his father in the city, with the political dimension residing in the situation and context rather than the plot.[11](https://www.sensesofcinema.com/2019/interviews/locarno-interview-ying-liang-and-his-family-tour/)
## Style and production
Ying Liang, born in Shanghai in 1977, studied film at Beijing Normal University and graduated from the Directing Department of the Film School of Chongqing University; his move between China's east and west informed the film's observation of regional difference.[1](https://chinaindiefilm.com/films/taking-father-home/) He shot the film on a borrowed camera with help from friends, without government permission, and performed the editing and, with Li Rongshen, the cinematography himself.[3](https://www.hammertonail.com/reviews/drama/taking-father-home-film-review/) • [12](https://letterboxd.com/film/taking-father-home/details/)
The DV format gave the film a washed-out, gritty look that several critics read as fitting its subject rather than merely a constraint.[6](https://fipresci.org/report/taking-father-home-an-indie-chinese-film-subversive-and-heartbreaking-by-lim-fong-wei/) Its signature devices are long takes of several minutes with a nearly static camera, key dramatic actions staged off-screen, and a documentary texture in the background of the compositions; reviewers placed the style in the lineage of Hou Hsiao-Hsien and [Jia Zhangke](https://www.edgepedia.org/jia-zhangke).[3](https://www.hammertonail.com/reviews/drama/taking-father-home-film-review/) • [10](https://chinesefilmdatabase.wordpress.com/2014/02/16/96-bei-yazi-de-nanhai-taking-father-home/) The New Yorker highlighted a five-minute long take in which the boy, expelled from a room he thought he had rented legitimately, wanders the streets at night with nowhere to go.[2](https://www.newyorker.com/video/watch/taking-father-home) Chinese-language analysis has emphasized the film's construction of spatial relationships, its use of the long take, and its mise-en-scène as the technical basis of its success despite the minimal budget.[7](https://www.fx361.com/page/2019/0329/4913767.shtml)
## Reception
The film won the Special Jury Prize at the 2005 Tokyo FILMeX festival, the Skyy Prize for First Narrative Feature at the 2006 San Francisco International Film Festival, the Golden Digital Award in the Asian Digital Competition at the 2006 Hong Kong International Film Festival, and the NETPAC and FIPRESCI awards at the 2006 Singapore International Film Festival.[4](https://bc.cinema.com.hk/adhoc/hkaff_2012/booklet/HKAFF_booklet.pdf) On Rotten Tomatoes it holds 89% among nine critics, with J. R. Jones of the Chicago Reader writing that rarely has a filmmaker done more with less.[13](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/bei-yazi-de-nanhai-taking-father-home) Reception was not uniformly positive: Matt Noller, reviewing in Slant Magazine, criticized the film's harsh view of humanity and its cheap DV visuals, scoring it 2 out of 4.[14](https://www.slantmagazine.com/film/taking-father-home/)
The film established the elements of Ying Liang's subsequent style, including amateur casts speaking local dialects, a detached camera, and endings in which signs of impending calamity break out violently; he followed it with *The Other Half* (2006) and *Good Cats* (2008).[10](https://chinesefilmdatabase.wordpress.com/2014/02/16/96-bei-yazi-de-nanhai-taking-father-home/) • [15](https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/2158244015603104) It is held in the Chinese Independent Film Archive, and a DVD release paired it with Ying's short film *The Missing House*, an early version of the same story.[16](https://chinaindiefilm.org/films/) • [17](https://www.yesasia.com/global/taking-father-home-dvd-hong-kong-version/1011017500-0-0-0-en/info.html)
## References
1. [Taking Father Home, Chinese Independent Film Archive](https://chinaindiefilm.com/films/taking-father-home/)
2. ["Taking Father Home", The Front Row, The New Yorker (Richard Brody)](https://www.newyorker.com/video/watch/taking-father-home)
3. [Taking Father Home, review by Cullen Gallagher, Hammer to Nail (2008)](https://www.hammertonail.com/reviews/drama/taking-father-home-film-review/)
4. [Hong Kong Asian Film Festival 2012 booklet, entry for Taking Father Home](https://bc.cinema.com.hk/adhoc/hkaff_2012/booklet/HKAFF_booklet.pdf)
5. [Taking Father Home, review by Dennis Schwartz](https://dennisschwartzreviews.com/takingfatherhome/)
6. ["Taking Father Home": An Indie Chinese Film, Subversive and Heartbreaking, by Lim Fong Wei, FIPRESCI](https://fipresci.org/report/taking-father-home-an-indie-chinese-film-subversive-and-heartbreaking-by-lim-fong-wei/)
7. [浅析电影《背鸭子的男孩》艺术技巧运用, 夏梦圆, 戏剧之家 2019年2期, 参考网](https://www.fx361.com/page/2019/0329/4913767.shtml)
8. [The Searcher: Ying Liang's Taking Father Home, Neil Young's Film Lounge](https://www.jigsawlounge.co.uk/film/reviews/the-searcher-ying-liang-s-taking-father-home-8-10/)
9. [导演艺术技巧分析之《背鸭子的男孩》, 刘学华, 青春岁月 2015年18期, 参考网](https://m.fx361.com/news/2015/1012/869717.html)
10. [Bei yazi de nanhai / Taking Father Home, Chinese Film Database](https://chinesefilmdatabase.wordpress.com/2014/02/16/96-bei-yazi-de-nanhai-taking-father-home/)
11. [Locarno Interview: Ying Liang and his Family Tour, Senses of Cinema](https://www.sensesofcinema.com/2019/interviews/locarno-interview-ying-liang-and-his-family-tour/)
12. [Taking Father Home (2005), Letterboxd credits](https://letterboxd.com/film/taking-father-home/details/)
13. [Bei yazi de nanhai (Taking Father Home), Rotten Tomatoes](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/bei-yazi-de-nanhai-taking-father-home)
14. [Review: Taking Father Home, by Matt Noller, Slant Magazine (2008)](https://www.slantmagazine.com/film/taking-father-home/)
15. [Regional Filmmaking After Jia Zhangke, Mei Yang, SAGE Open (2015)](https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/2158244015603104)
16. [Films, Chinese Independent Film Archive](https://chinaindiefilm.org/films/)
17. [Taking Father Home (DVD) (Hong Kong Version), YesAsia, including DVD Times review by Noel Megahey](https://www.yesasia.com/global/taking-father-home-dvd-hong-kong-version/1011017500-0-0-0-en/info.html)
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*Topic: Encyclopedia › Arts and culture › Screen and stage › Film and television › Films and standalone screen works › Individual films by title and year › Drama and biographical films (individual works) › Drama films 2000s › Biographical and historical drama films 2000s › Released 2006 to 2009*
*Initially written Oct 3, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 15, 2026; Oct 25, 2026; Nov 1, 2026 · Last review: Oct 25, 2026*
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License: Edgepedia Community License 1.0, https://www.edgepedia.org/edgepedia/license