Profiles in courage

The ones that love us, never leave us, they say. Director Fan Shiguang and fellow filmmaker Qin Bo have captured this spirit of eternal affection on lens, and in the process, created magic for the families of the departed.

Once Upon a Life is a documentary series that Fan, Qin and their camera crew shot between 2014 and 2019 at major hospitals in Shanghai, talking to family members of terminally ill patients.

The first season of the documentary was broadcast in 2016 and the second in 2019. Both seasons earned critical acclaim, scoring 9.7 and 9.5 points, respectively, on a scale of 10 on the popular review aggregator Douban.

Recently, the series has released a feature-length movie, also called Once Upon a Life, and screened across domestic theaters from Aug 19.

Director Fan was scouring the sick wards for a story to tell when he stumbled upon Ben Xiaomei, a resident of East China's Jiangsu province, sitting alone in the corridor at Shanghai General Hospital. Ben's teenage daughter had been diagnosed with malignant bone tumors.

"The mother was sobbing inconsolably and trembling when we met her. It seemed she needed someone to pour out her heart to," recalls Fan.

A middle school student, 14-year-old Wang Sirong complained of acute pain on her left leg on the eve of her final exams in June 2017. After the local clinic in their village and the nearest town hospital in Rugao failed to figure out what was wrong, Ben brought her daughter to Shanghai.

"The doctors in the city suggested amputation, as the tumors had already spread to the entire leg. Sirong was adamant against losing a limb; she said she would rather die. Her mother didn't know what to do," says Fan.

Through careful research, the doctors in Shanghai drafted an alternative, yet highly risky, plan. They decided to operate on her leg, get the infected bones out, remove the cancer cells and then reinstate the bones.

Unfortunately, the plan did not work because the cancer had metastasized and reached her lungs. Sirong chose to return to her hometown and spend her last days with her family. The documentary records the moment of her flashing a big smile as fireworks light up the night sky to mark the Spring Festival of 2018, which was her last Chinese Lunar New Year.

"I was in my 30s when I was making the documentary on her," says Fan, now the father of a toddler. "I remember the nights that I stayed in the office to edit the interview clips. It was difficult to hold back my tears."

Another protagonist of Once Upon a Life is Xu Lieying, a 35-year-old native of Fujian province whom Fan met at a Renji Hospital ward where critically ill pregnant women are treated.

The director was impressed by her sheer grit, the way she endured extreme pain to sit up through the night leaning against her bed, waiting for a cesarean section the next morning.

A mother who was going to deliver her second child, Xu was diagnosed with terminal liver cancer just before her due date. "The nurse told her that she could take an injection for pain relief. She refused the shot because she was worried it might affect her baby," recalls Fan.

The documentary records Xu's final days, leaving precious footage for the family, like the one where she writes a letter to her newborn son, wishing him to open and read it on his 18th birthday.

Director Qin, a classmate of Fan's from university, says they shot a total of 1,000 hours, covering 40 patients across 22 hospitals in Shanghai.

"Each episode of the two seasons spanned around 50 minutes. Hence, regrettably, the television series could not feature all their stories. Both Fan and I wished that our entire work would be screened at theaters, so we started making a feature-length movie in early 2019," Qin says.

"In the past three years, the world has changed a lot," the director says, explaining how they gained an in-depth understanding of life and death after traveling to Wuhan, Hubei province, to shoot the 2020 battle against the pandemic, and experiencing the Shanghai lockdown earlier this year.

"In 2019, we were more like onlookers. Today, I believe, most of us can relate to the stories in the documentary because we have all experienced confusion, stress, pain and loss," Qin adds.