The 2011 Cambridge Film Festival is now over, come back soon for details of next year's festival

EMPIRE OF SILVER offers us a detailed and often spectacular portrait of the world of a family of Chinese merchant bankers, set at the end of the 19th century. China is suffering a period of immense social and political change and the whole system of finance and monetary exchange is in a state of flux. Although the underlying theme is based around the bankers' need to decide whether to benefit their own interests or those of the nation as a whole; threading through the narrative is the more intimate story of unrequited love, between the chosen son and his stepmother, and the relationship between him and his father at a time when ancient and accepted codes of behaviour are changing.
His powerful father, Lord Kang, is determined to prepare mold him in to a man befitting the head of a financial empire. The father-son relationship sours over differing business ethics, but is further complicated by his love for his stepmother, his first and only love.

Embarking on a journey, the man must decide whether to follow his father's path or find his own. Greed, deception, and jealousy surface under the pressures of war and tides of financial change?