Peter Chan returns to realist drama with Alzheimer's story

Peter Chan's new realist drama "The Road Not Taken" held its Asian premiere at the 2026 China Golden Rooster and Hundred Flowers Film Festival on Nov. 6 in Xiamen, Fujian province.

Actor Wang Xiao, director Peter Chan and actor Zhou Xun speak with the audience after a screening of "The Road Not Taken" at the 2026 China Golden Rooster and Hundred Flowers Film Festival in Xiamen, Fujian province, Nov. 6, 2026. [Photo/China.org.cn]

Chan, along with lead actors Zhou Xun and Wang Xiao, attended a post-screening event and later presented the film during the opening ceremony's segment introducing new films.

The film is Chan's third collaboration with Zhou, who stars as Shen Jia, a successful TV talk show host whose marriage ends in divorce as she struggles with a long-absent husband, an estranged daughter and a stubborn father battling a hereditary disease. When she is diagnosed with early-onset Alzheimer's, she must find her way back to herself and her family as her memories slip away.

It marks Chan's return to realist themes after films such as "Leap," "Dearest" and "American Dreams in China." Speaking at the premiere, Chan said making the film, which focuses on the emotional dilemmas and life choices of ordinary people, brought him back to his original aspirations. "It is a Chinese story, and it is also a world story, so audiences everywhere can understand it," he said.

He noted that the film's English title, "The Road Not Taken," comes from Robert Frost's poem of the same name. He said people face many forks in the road in life and, when making choices, always feel the other path might be better. What matters, he said, is how one walks the chosen path and makes it better.

Before filming, Chan and the cast researched the disease through multiple visits to care facilities and consulted doctors to make the film more authentic. Zhou said every patient presents differently, and she built her performance by observing patients at care facilities and watching documentaries and online videos.

Zhou said her character finds the confidence to start again with her family's support, and she hopes the film can give audiences the strength to keep going. She also spoke about the creative process, saying Chan gave the actors the trust and space to take risks.

She said overseas audiences responded warmly at the film's world premiere at the 2026 Toronto International Film Festival in September. "As long as the emotions and the story are sincere, they will have the power to cross languages and move different audiences," she said.

Wang revealed that while filming with Zhou, he improvised a rendition of the classic song "Past Events Can Only Be Reminisced," which made the final cut. He described the relationship between the divorced couple in the film as one where "tacit understanding and distance coexist," noting that the struggle and reluctance to let go are what make the characters real.