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In Hou Hsiao Hsien's improvisatory style of "Flight of the Red Balloon," Song Fang is Song, hired to take care of the lead character's son, Simon, who is played by Simon Iteanu.
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Flight of the Red Balloon
Rating: 
Not a remake, and not a children's movie either, Flight of the Red Balloon nonetheless takes its inspiration from Albert Lamorisse's 1956 classic short, "The Red Balloon," about a scrappy kid and the mysterious, helium-filled orb that dogs him around rundown, post-war Paris.
Directed by the Taiwanese great Hou Hsiao Hsien in a loose, improvisatory style that captures the multicultural buzz of contemporary Paris, Flight stars Juliette Binoche - blond and harried - as a single mom juggling her job (a voice actress and puppeteer) and her parenting responsibilities. Griping about her ex, about her flaky downstairs neighbor, and rushing to work with a Chinese puppet theater master, Binoche's Suzanne recruits a Taiwanese film student - played by Song Fang - to take care of her son.
Much of Flight, then, tracks the nanny and her charge as they perambulate around Paris, that red balloon darting and flitting nearby. A meditation on art, life, loneliness and the links between friends and strangers, the movie has a grace and humor that's wonderfully inviting. Hou gives Binoche free rein, and there are patches in which the actress' rambling, exercised speeches and anxious physicality become a little too much.
But just a little, and then the sublime poetry of Hou's film kicks in again. - Steven Rea