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Original Film Title: Taming the Fish
Director’s Name: Ding Jiancheng
Writer’s Name: Ding Jiancheng
Producer: Chunxue Zhang
Country of Origin: China
Country of Filming: China
Language: Chinese
Runtime: 1 hour 48 minutes
Film Description:
In the winter of 2001, in the village beside Luyang Lake, the pressures of working in the city and the persistent sense of not belonging finally led Desheng to return home and raise fish in his family’s pond. After getting married and having a child, his life seemed to settle into a peaceful harbor. When I first filmed Desheng, he was 29 years old and his daughter was three. The family lived with Desheng’s parents. I lived with them for several months and felt deeply that their home was full of happiness and contentment.
Twenty-four years later—I returned to film this family again. Desheng is 53 years old. Over the past 24 years, his life has undergone tremendous change. His parents passed away, one after another; his family has fallen apart. His wife has long since divorced him and left the village.
Today, Desheng still tends the fish pond and lives with his now-grown daughter.
“Taming the Fish“ evokes the ancient Chinese legend of “the carp leaping over the Dragon Gate,” in which a Yellow River carp, after leaping over the gate, transforms into a dragon.
But in the human world, isn’t he also a kind of “fish”? Unlike the fish he breeds, he is the one who once tried to leap over his own Dragon Gate—the untamed “fish.” He once left the small square pond of his hometown to swim toward a wider river and sea, only to return to the place where he was born and raised. Was Desheng “tamed” by fate?