CHAPTER FOUR Reading Page 60&61
FATHER AND SON
Most films these days are easy to describe
because they fit into types such as martial arts films or love stories.
But Father and Son is different.
It is a film about the love and conflict between a father and his son.
It is a film about real Hong Kong people.
The film is set in Hong Kong in the recent past.
It shows us the life of the Law family during the 1960s,
when they were living in a squatter area,
and then in the 1970s,when they were living in a resettlement estate.
3.The two main characters are the father,Mr Law,and his son,Law Ka Hing.
Mr Law is a low paid clerk in an office.
He cannot get promotion because of his lack of qualifications.
Therefore,he is determined that his only son,Ka Hing,
should get good exam results.
Ka Hing,however,is not very interested in school work.
His only ambition is to make films.
4.The film starts with the tragic ending to the story.
Old Mr Law opens a letter from his son and his face lights up.
'At last,'he says.He rushes up the stairs of his resettlement block,
but he is so excited that he suffers a heart attack and falls down the stairs
A piece of paper drops from his hand and floats down to where he is lying.
It is his son's graduation certificate.
Just as he has achieved his life's ambition,he dies.
After this sad opening,the film goes back about 15 years,
to show us the early relationship between father and son.
The Law family is very poor,and the father works hard to support them.
Ka Hing's sisters do well in school
but their father is mainly interested in Ka Hing since he is the only son.
7.Ka Hing is fascinated by the cinema.
He always wants to watch films or to make his own.
He has such a strong love of films that it distracts him from his studies.
As a result,he finally fails his'A'Levels.
Because of this failure,Mr Law decides that Ka Hing must go to America to study
To pay for this,he forces one daughter to marry a wealthy husband,
and the other to give up college and get a job.
Their loyalty is so strong that they accept his wishes.
Ka Hing is reluctant to go to America.
But finally he sees that his father will be heartbroken if he disobeys,
and thus he agrees to go.
The film is sad because it is partly based on the life of its brilliant director
Fong Yuk Ping.
Fong also had a difficult relationship with his father,
and studied film in America.
Tragically,Fong's own father and his mother were killed in a plane crash as they flew to America for his graduation ceremony
The film is always interesting to watch as it is very realistic.
The director's use of little details of everyday life is very good.
For example,we see Ka Hing (as a young boy) making a simple toy cinema
with a candle and a box,to show his interest in films.
This film shows us many things about Hong Kong family life
and problems which we can all understand.
It is a serious film,but it is also very entertaining and often very funny.
I would definitely recommend it.
INTEGRATED SKILLS
Page 65 and 66
B Combining information(1)
SPEAKING
Page 71
A Consonant clusters with I and r
1 play,pray fly,fry,climb,crimb,bled,bread,glass,grass
2.conflict,clerk,floats,flew
3 promotion,distracts,heart,broken,crash
4 a block of flats,a graduation ceremony,their strong loyalty,serious problems
5 The pilot flew the broken plane brilliantly,landing on the green grass.Frequent robberies lead to a career in crime and probably prison.
Gary promised Glenda frequent promotion to an appropriate level.
MORE LANGUAGE INPUT
ReadingPage 74
Love Norrows The Gap As children approach adulthood,
they often Find that they think differently from their parents on a number of issues
beliefs and values,family and friends,work and study,
career and life goals and so on.
'Generation gap'is a term coined by sociologists
in the 1960s to describe such differences between young adults and their parents.
The generation gap is not limited to modern times.
Documents from Ancient Roman times
show that parents were concerned about their children not following traditionsHowever,the gap is not always negative.
Very often,the gap can help people realize their own problems,e.g.
lack of respect,lack of communication,
lack of tolerance of imperfection,and so on.
Through efforts generated by love and understanding between parents and their offspring,
problems get solved,personalities change,
conflicts turn into harmony and the family thrives.
In the development of human history,the generation gap is a very natural thing.
A positive attitude and communication between parents and children
will help close the gap.
Listening
page 75
Listen to some statements about the brief history of films and TV.Supply the missing information
1 Moving images have always been popular.
There were'shadow play'.years ago in.
2.became possible in the middle of.
when projection and photography came together.
3 The film industry started in the.,
when.picture's were invented.
4.pictures first appeared in.
5.Millions of people went to the cinema due to the introduction of.films in.
6.because very popular in the.
By the early'50s,weekly cinema audience had been cut in half to.
7 By the mid01960s,.of the households in the U.S
had at least one TV set,and.had two or more sets.
8 In the.,films were still.because of the common use of video recorders.
People enjoyed rending films to watch at home or recording films from the TV.
9 Today.of all box office tickets are sold to people between the ages of.
10 It is said that modem films have.lives instead of one.
First they appear in the.,then on.,and finally they are shown on.