It’s time to think about China and Guangzhou again as I’ll be in Hong Kong in two weeks and spending the next two months in Guangzhou making some particularly vile art. So, I was talking with Emile today about Chinese music because he really wants to check out the black metal scene there, and I thought about the podcast from chaile 拆了, with P.K.14, Re-TROS, 超级市场 (supermarket), and a couple of others. Then I saw today there’s a doco of P.K.14 on tour around China screening in Beijing, A Tour of the Public Kingdom.
“A Tour of the Public Kingdom ( Documentary )”
PK 14 Xun Hui
Director: David HarrisThis chronicle of Chinese rock band PK14’s 2004 nationwide tour is a window into China today. Their music: a new voice in an ancient country.
‘In Oct./Nov. 2004 Chinese band PK 14 embarked on their first nation wide tour of China. A Tour of the Public Kingdom is a chronicle of that tour.
The music of PK 14’s carries us through the Chinese countryside, through band-member’s hometowns, crossing paths with friends and other bands also on tour, finally returning to Beijing.
From impromptu gig’s at internet cafe’s, to larger ritzier live venue’s, we see rock music finding it’s place in a modern china of many contrasts and voices. At times the two coming together with more than a little friction!
Shot and recorded over the month long DIY tour, we follow the band riding trains, busses, trucks, vans, cabs. Lifting and lugging come what may, all for the love of playing their music. Interspersed with spoken extracts from concerts and interview’s for local T.V. and radio stations met along the way, we learn about the four band-members, their reasons for playing and touring and the meaning behind the music. And through the eye’s of the drummer, a foreigner, are fed a little of the more quirky side of the life in China today.
This is the first film by David Harris and another 30 minutes feature film which is the second film of David Harris will follow to screen on the same night.
