Quitting

Chinese B-movie “thug idol” Jia Hongsheng emerged as a star in the late 1980s. In the early 1990s, he became a heroin addict, was tormented by depression and hallucinations, quit acting, cut himself off from his friends and fantasized that he might be the son of The Beatles’ John Lennon. His father and mother moved into his Beijing flat in an attempt to save him from his inner demons, an act of unconditional love that led to conflicts with their son and his eventual hospitalization. All the characters in Yang Zhang’s exploration of stardom, addiction, family devotion and recovery, from Hongsheng and his family to peripheral doctors and mental-health patients, are played by the real people who were a part of Hongsheng’s life and recovery. Yang uses an intriguing combination of dramatization and talking-head testimonial, theater and cinema to convey the fragility of the human condition and the effort it takes at times to persevere.