The Smile of a tour guide = Nide Weixiao

Ms Chen is a local tour guide in the city of Suzhou. One day she meets a strange client who refuses to join the travel group for sightseeing and locks himself in the hotel room every day. Ms Chen gradually came to know that this special guest, Mr Song, left China to seek his fortune abroad when he was young. Now that Mr Song is getting old and has become a rich businessman, he wants to trace his memories of the past on this homebound trip. With Ms Chen’s patience and hospitality, the two become friends and Ms Chen shows Mr Song around the city. It happened that they came across the son of Mr Song’s old acquaintance’s, which made the old man extremely happy. Mr Song donated a valuable antique to the local government of Suzhou for his gratitude before he left. In another tour group, two World War II Japanese veterans came back to China with a sense of guilt for as they robbed two gold rings from the Chinese during the War. Now they wish to return them to the owners. Ms Chen has mixed feelings for the veterans as her grandfather was killed by the Japanese during the War. However, she tries all her best to help her Japanese guests. On another occasion, Ms Chen helped two young men from Hong Kong to quit drugs. Chen enjoys her work as a tour guide but feels lost when she is alone, because both she and her friend, Louise, are in love with a Chinese teacher. Louise ended up leaving the Chinese teacher, and Chen chose not to develop the relationship further. She continues to work as a tour guide, showing the beautiful scenery of Suzhou to guests from all over the world, with a smile always in her face.

The film was made in 1986, the International Year of Peace.While a lot of anti-Japanese war films deal with the cruelty of the Japanese invaders, this film represents the mutual understanding of the people from the two countries. Suzhou is a popular tourist city in China and the film shows the scenery of the city. (3 stars - Yuxing Zhou; May 21, 2010)