A New Old Play () is a 2021 epic film directed and written by Qiu Jiongjiong. As Qiu's seventh film, it marks his first fictional feature. A co-production between Hong Kong's Uluka Productions and France's Hippocampe Productions, the film stars Yi Sicheng as Qiu Fu, a recently deceased Sichuan opera actor, alongside Guan Nan, Qiu Zhimin, Gu Tao, and Xue Xuchun. The story chronicles Qiu Fu's life and career in China from the 1920s to the 1980s through his remembrances during his journey into the netherworld, featuring events such as the Second Sino-Japanese War, the Chinese Civil War, the Great Chinese Famine, and the Cultural Revolution.
Qiu Jiongjiong conceived of the project in 2017 after illustrating the biography for his grandfather and Sichuan opera actor Qiu Fu. Inspired to tell the story with film, Qiu based the protagonist on his grandfather and began developing a screenplay from May 2017 to February 2018 under the working title The Neo-New Adventures. Production design spanned six months before principal photography began in August 2019 in Leshan, Sichuan over three months. Post-production took place in France, with French filmmaker involved in the editing. The film also marks the second film to be primarily in Sichuanese, after the 1962 film Conscription.
A New Old Play had its world premiere in competition for the Golden Leopard at the 74th Locarno Film Festival on 13 August 2021, where it received the Special Jury Prize. It also garnered various accolades and received positive reviews from critics, with praises particularly on its themes, narrative style and complexities, and production design. Due to censorship in China, only single-time private screenings were held worldwide from 2021 to 2022. The film received its first wide release in France on 30 April 2025.
Plot Qiu Fu, a renowned Sichuan opera actor, meets his demise. Ox-Head and Horse-Face are sent to escort him into the netherworld to perform for Yanluo Wang. Qiu refuses to accept his fate and tries to flee, much to the envoys' confusion as they ask him how he, who has been an artiste since the age of eight, does not embrace death. Qiu retorts that he began his opera journey at seven and starts to reminisce about his life.
During the Warlord Era, an operaphile Pocky rises through the ranks to become a military commander. He uses his newfound power to form an opera troupe called the New-New Theatre School. Early in its operation, Qiu Fu, a foundling of a famous opera actor who died performing on stage, is sent to the troupe by his mother, who abandons him to remarry. Qiu learns opera singing from the troupe's teachers, but his performances are unsatisfactory. One day, while practising, he encounters Pocky, who takes a liking to him and accepts him as an apprentice. After some training, Qiu debuts as an opera performer. The Second World War soon breaks out, and the troupe begins charity tours to raise funds against Japan's invasion. One night, Qiu is intoxicated after drinking a bowl of poisonous mushroom soup and dreams of flying across the city on a leaf, only to be bombed by a Japanese fighter jet.
In the netherworld, Qiu follows the envoys to the Naihe Bridge, where he encounters Crooky, a servant of the troupe who mysteriously disappeared decades ago. The envoys explain that they never received orders to take Crooky, but he keeps returning to the netherworld, trapping his soul between realms. He opens an inn at the Naihe Bridge to welcome both the deceased and demons. Qiu decides to reunite with Crooky and stays at the inn while watching his young apprentices perform rituals in the living world. Dissatisfied with their performances, he reminisces about his own early career.
By 1945, Qiu has established himself as an opera actor. However, Pocky, now a warlord, worries about his fate under Chiang Kai-shek's rule and loses interest in opera. Before the Civil War, he disbands the troupe to protect the actors and their families from his impending downfall. Unemployed, Qiu's life worsens even after the establishment of the People's Republic of China, when the troupe is reformed and renamed the People's Sichuan Opera Troupe. Qiu's daughter dies subsequently during the Great Chinese Famine, but his son Hei survives. One day, Qiu finds an abandoned infant girl on the street and, despite his meager living conditions, takes her in. He and his wife struggle to feed her and resort to stealing feces, only to be caught by cadres who accuse them of stealing state property. Qiu sings to the cadres, leveraging his fame as an actor to escape. They manage to cook the maggots found in the feces to feed the girl, sustaining her life. Later, the girl's mother returns, claiming she abandoned her only because her husband tried to eat the child. Though reluctant, Qiu's wife returns the baby. During the Cultural Revolution, the New-New troupe is labeled as feudal, facing persecution from the Red Guards. Hei, now a teenager, wishes to join the Big Link-up in Beijing but is locked up by his family. Desperate, he escapes through a window and flies across the city on a leaf. Years later, now a high-ranking Red Guard, Hei returns home and learns that Qiu is released from labor and assigned to minor roles in plays.
After reminiscing about his career, Qiu bids farewell to Crooky and shares one last drink with the envoys. Confused about how he will remember all his lines after drinking the Meng-po soup, he is reassured by the envoys that his artistic intuition will guide him. Qiu boards the boat and reaches the other side, queuing for the Meng-po soup before drinking it all. The camera pans to each of the other characters drinking the soup at various moments, then returns to Qiu's empty seat. The director, in modern attire, sits down and is served a bowl of Meng-po soup.
Cast Yi Sicheng as Qiu Fu, a renowned Sichuan opera actor of the New-New Theatre School Chen Haoyu as young Qiu Fu, a seven-year-old foundling who becomes an opera student Guan Nan as Tong Huafeng, Qiu's wife Qiu Zhimin as Pocky, a military commander, opera enthusiast, and the founder of the New-New Theatre School Gu Tao as Crooky, a servant at the New-New Theatre School who eventually becomes an inn owner in the netherworld Xue Xuchun as: Ah Hei, Qiu's son Chicken Foot, a cook at Pocky's inn
In addition, Liu Boyu and Huang Lingchao appear as Ox-Head and Horse-Face, the envoys of the netherworld, while director Qiu Jiongjiong made a cameo appearance as himself.
Production Conception
Qiu Fu, the grandfather of director Qiu Jiongjiong, was a Sichuan opera actor who gained fame for playing chou roles in the 1930s and 1940s throughout Sichuan. He died in 1987 when Qiu Jiongjiong was ten years old. Growing up in Leshan, Sichuan, Qiu Jiongjiong developed an interest in Sichuan opera influenced by his grandfather, which ultimately inspired him to pursue a career in filmmaking. He also described having a "close" relationship with his grandfather, who served as a "crucial figure in [his] artistic inspirations" for his artworks and films. After making the documentary film (2015), Qiu struggled with inspiration for several years despite still wanting to create films. In 2017, on the 30th anniversary of Qiu Fu's death, Qiu Jiongjiong's father began writing a biography to commemorate Qiu Fu and asked Qiu to illustrate for the book. After creating illustrations for all 15 chapters in two months, Qiu felt a sense of "incompleteness" and wanted to approach the subject of his grandfather "through the medium of film", which inspired him to start writing the screenplay that would become A New Old Play. It marks the second film produced by Qiu Jiongjiong featuring Qiu Fu, following the documentary short film Ode to Joy (2007), which depicted a stage performance in remembrance of the 20th anniversary of Qiu Fu's death and was cited by Qiu as a significant inspiration for A New Old Play focus on the lives of ordinary people.
Pre-production Qiu Jiongjiong began writing the screenplay in May 2017 and completed it in February 2018, taking about seven months to finish a script that exceeded 100,000 words. He based the story on his father's biography, along with some additional background research. It marks Qiu's seventh film and first fictional feature. Qiu described the story itself as "non-fictional", and he only aimed to create a sense of fiction through the film's aesthetics, drawing inspiration from both Chinese and Western stage plays. The screenplay features Qiu Fu's status as a chou, which Qiu Jiongjiong referred to as the "clown spirit", calling it the "core and quintessence of his cinematic grammar". He cited Federico Fellini's works as an inspiration on how circus clowns served as viewpoint characters in his films. In Sichuan opera, chou roles (clowns) are usually not essential to the storyline but serve as the focal point, which Qiu referred to as the "author's perspective". In addition to Qiu Fu, Qiu Jiongjiong also created other clown-like characters, such as Crooky and Chicken Foot. These characters exist beyond the chronological timeline and the boundaries of the living and the dead in the plot, allowing them to serve as narrators and storytellers. He utilised these characters to interject the narrative to create a distancing effect, but rather than directly breaking the fourth wall, Qiu aimed to re-examine the story naturally from the narrator and storyteller's perspectives.
Qiu drew inspiration from his personal experiences and Sichuanese culture for the portrayal of clowns, noting that Sichuanese people are known for their optimism and dark sense of humour despite facing fate and suffering, qualities he found resonant with clowns' modest demeanor and playful exterior. Qiu also referenced the Great Chinese Famine in the film, a topic often omitted in other epic films like Farewell My Concubine and The Blue Kite (both 1993), explaining that he included it because he based the story primarily on his grandfather's biography and aimed to restore the original narrative. However, he noted that there are limited records about his grandfather's life during the Cultural Revolution, and he had interviewed an elderly person knowledgeable about his grandfather's adoption of an infant girl for additional information. He concluded the screenplay with an anticlimax to reflect the daily lives of ordinary people, noting that while their stories may lack a climactic arc, they can still convey profound emotional depth. The project was presented at the Golden Horse Project Promotion in November 2017, where it won the CNC Prize from the Centre national du cinéma et de l'image animée. In May 2018, it received the Hubert Bals Fund at the International Film Festival Rotterdam, under the working title The Neo-New Adventures, named after the opera troupe established at the film's opening. The first table-read took place in the same month, and the cast was given a year to prepare for their characters.