Yang ya ren jia (1965) User Reviews

The film depicts the dedication of a father and daughter to each other and their business of raising ducks.

[leiyue2 · 7/10 · 22 April 2011]

Together with Oyster Girl, Beautiful Duckling is a classic of healthy realism and promotes Confucian virtues of filial piety, loyalty and to a lesser extent friendship. The film depicts the dedication of a father and his adopted daughter to each other. Beautiful Duckling also celebrates honest labor and the business of duck raising then common in Taiwan (and is a follow up to the business of oyster raising in the earlier Oyster Girl in which the director Li Hsing also worked), the scenes of duck raising are romantically shot and look like Chinese peasant paintings. Despite it being a product of its time and its moral message, the film is not heavy handed or preachy, nor is it excessively melodramatic. Overall, it is beautifully shot, well acted and entertaining. Li Hsing's classic is marked by Chinese aesthetics and should be enjoyed by those interested in Taiwanese or Chinese cinema.