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Looking for Fun

1993 film by Ning Ying

Manuscripts, fine bindings, an engraving plate and preserved performance ephemera
Arts and lettersInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionSep 22, 2026
Entity authorityQ3186684
Source-derived summary

Looking for Fun, released as For Fun in the U.S., is a 1992 Chinese comedy film directed by Ning Ying, written by Ning Ying and her sister Ning Dai, and based on a novella of the same name by Zheng Jiangong (which was translated into English by Jeanne Tai in 1989). The film is about a group of retirees in Beijing who try to find some sense of belonging and purpose by organizing a Peking opera troupe.

Looking for Fun won the Gold Award at the 1993 Tokyo International Film Festival, the Golden Montgolfiere and Best Actor (Huang Zongluo) at the 1993 Nantes Three Continents Festival, Best Director and Best Actor (Huang) at the 1993 Thessaloniki Film Festival, and Best New Director at the 1993 San Sebastián International Film Festival.

References

Fox, Daniel (2003). "For Fun and The Killer: Directions in Chinese Cinema". Literature/Film Quarterly. 31 (2): 124–129. JSTOR 43797109.

Editorial summary

Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Looking for Fun” is 1993 film by Ning Ying. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Looking, film and Ning, not as a finished interpretation.

Editorial reviewA productive route into publication, performance and collection histories when the underlying object or edition remains clearly identified. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1992, 1989, 1993, 2003—that can be checked directly. The authority record carries competing date values—1993-01-01, 1995—which should remain separate until their references and qualifiers are resolved. For this dossier, Looking, film and Ning is the immediate research focus.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The phrase “1993 film by Ning Ying” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.

Evidence profile

Reception evidence should be dated and situated: later canonical status may differ sharply from the work’s initial circulation. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 22, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q3186684. 2 of 2 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1992, 1989, 1993 and 2003.

Critical limits

Rights, attribution and provenance may remain disputed even when a general reference summary presents a stable account. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Separate the work, its editions or performances, and its later reception. Catalogue records, publication histories and object files often preserve different parts of that story.

Best used for
  • Identifying works and editions
  • Tracing reception history
  • Finding collection records
Verify next

The original object or edition, catalogue raisonné, performance record, rights file and holding institution.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Looking for Fun”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Looking for Fun primary sources, Looking for Fun archive and Looking research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Looking for Fun”?
  2. Which edition, object, performance or recording is being described?
  3. Where is authorship, date or provenance documented?
Subject index

Search terms from this dossier

Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from Looking for Fun” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.