BLOWN BY THE TYPHOON

Rong, the MC of a professional wedding planner lives to fool others, telling them that people's lives can always start anew. Nonetheless, she is facing an inescapable reality: being pregnant. Pengpeng, her best friend, is ready to start a new business in Shenzhen. She suggests that Rong should get an abortion and pretend nothing has happened, but Rong feels hesitant about this proposal.
Rong's boyfriend Kai is a slacker who takes refuge from his enemies in her house. Rong's father, Jiang, is an alcoholic and compulsive gambler who hardly gets out of the house. However Jiang is on good terms with Kai: together they drink, visit prostitutes, and scheme about the lottery. They also both follow the typhoon on the southeastern coast, hoping it will head their direction and relieve the drought in Sichuan.
Everybody, in fact, is busy with their own concerns.
Then, in a once-in-a-millennium event, the coastal typhoon makes its way into the Sichuan inland, bringing relief to the drought but also new complications.
Life starts anew, for real.

In this story, Rong, Kai and those around them live dull, tiresome lives. They feel trapped in their landlocked town, hoping for changes and new beginnings. In the end, the typhoon has wiped this western little town clean and life seems to glisten once again with a ray of light. Kai witnesses a typhoon, Rong has her abortion, and everyone around them looks as if their problems have faded away. But have they?
"Adults are hypocritical, they're always lying to themselves that life can start anew." I remember this line from Fruit Chan's Made in Hong Kong. Blown by the Typhoon is a story about how a group of people in a Chinese inland town "fool" themselves into having a new life.
This story unfolds in a restrained, tolerant manner, developing a concern for each character and the town throughout the narrative. It is imbued with purity and youthful romance, and enlivened with a dash of melancholic humour.