For a three hour film you really REALLY need a GREAT story. I know there are exceptions to this rule but all great stories are told chronologically, from A to Z.

SO LONG, MY SON has an okay story. To artificially make it seem better, the writer/director Wang Xiao Shuai decided to tell it out of sequence. What this does is turn many simple events in this story into fake 'reveals', creating an artificial tension.

An analogy. Everyone knows the alphabet, right? A, B, C, D, E, F... and so forth. Great writer/directors take the very familiar alphabet and make it compelling. Just the way any Christmas tree starts plain and dull but can be decorated into something lovely.

Writer/Director Wang Xiao Shuai decided that simply moving the letters around -- A, E, B, D, C, F is far more interesting.

But not really. All it does is make the story a little difficult to follow. This trick also hides the fact that the sequential story turns are tepid instead of clever. I believe someone should edit this story back into chronology so that you'd see it isn't really a masterpiece but just a long okay story shot beautifully.

You'd also see that despite 3 hours they did very little with the actors. I had just finished LUOYANG and was desperate to see more of Yong Mei. Here she was the female lead and I was waited and waited to see her skills in action. But because the film lacked compelling dialog exchanges Yong Mei was wasted as basically a 'prop' sitting in rooms or disappearing into walls.

The direction, the photography, lighting, OST -- were all the stuff of a possible masterpiece. But the story wasn't as emotional and dynamic and COHERENT enough to justify its length. Wang Xiao Shuai had everything but didn't do enough with it.

I will say this: the 2nd viewing will be less confusing and therefore I may be able to enjoy the story instead of wonder where the hell I am and which boy is which.