THE second human-trafficking drama to come out of China in just under six months, “Lost and Love” will open this weekend in China.

    Also opening in Australia, New Zealand and North America, it will be a day-and-date release, allowing audiences in both parts of the world to experience the film in the same weekend as Chinese audiences.

    Written and directed by popular novelist Peng Sanyuan and starring Hong Kong actor Andy Lau, the film tells the true story about a rural father’s search for his long-lost son after a suspected child abduction. After losing his 2-year-old son, Lei Zekuan begins a 14-year-long quest in search of his missing child. During the journey, he meets a young man who claims to have been abducted when he was 4. The two then go together to look for their lost relatives and develop a father-and-son friendship.

    The film also stars mainland heartthrob Jing Boran and features special appearances by Sandra Ng and Tony Leung Ka-fai.

    More downbeat than Peter Chan’s out-of-competition Venice title “Dearest,” “Lost and Love” opts for a different approach in tackling the much-reported but hard-to-tackle issue of child-trafficking in China. While the main character remains a grieving parent, attention is shifted here to the confused young victims.

    This plays to Peng’s strength as a trained educational psychologist: through Jing’s character, the small-town auto-mechanic Zeng Shuai, the writer-director manages to outline both the bureaucratic problems faced by illegally raised children (his lack of a proper identity barring him from schooling, work and even train travel) and also how all this yields a personality fraught with angst and arrogance.

    While their efforts — Peng with her directorial debut, and Lau in perhaps his most grungy role ever — are admirable, the film’s truly winning elements are Mark Lee’s breathtaking cinematography capturing Chinese landscapes.

    The movie is mainly in Mandarin with various dialects and has English subtitles.(SD-Agencies)