There could be no finer epitaph for the career of late Mainland producer-director Wu Tianming 吴天明 than Song of the Phoenix 百鸟朝凤, a seamless demonstration of classical film-making that’s also a timely reminder of the so-called Fourth Generation’s contribution to Mainland cinema’s evolution. Wu, who died on 4 Mar 2014, aged 74, was more influential as a producer, nurturing key figures of the Fifth Generation during the 1980s; but he also directed a clutch of notable movies, including Life 人生 (1984), Old Well 老井 (1987) and (his “comeback” after a spell in the US) The King of Masks 变脸 (1996). Like Masks, Phoenix celebrates such unfashionable screen virtues as duty and humanism through a master-pupil story centred on a traditional artistic form (here, the playing of the suona 唢呐, a wind instrument used at country weddings and funerals). The film has far less personal drama than Masks; in its stead is a marvellous mellowness and unhurried assuredness that are encapsulated in the lead performance by veteran Tao Zeru 陶泽如, 60, as the gnarly old master.

Based on a 2009 novella by Guizhou writer Xiao Jianghong 肖江虹, 34 – but relocated north to Wu’s beloved native province of Shaanxi, central northwest China – the film is solidly in the genre of those dealing with changes wrought by the country’s modernisation, here via a story, from 1982 to the mid-1990s, in which a boy studies the suona only to find it in declining use when he takes over from his master. The latter development, however, only makes up the final half-hour of the movie; the bulk is devoted to the boy’s training under the tough but kindly master, his competitive friendship with a fellow pupil, and how both are taught that the true art of suona player requires emotional commitment and harmony with the sounds of nature asmuch as rote technique.

Without becoming purely decorative, the widescreen photography by Wang Tianlin 王天麟 (Judge Archer 箭士柳白猿, 2012) – his most striking to date – underscores the natural setting, while music by Zhang Dalong 张大龙 (The Wooden Man’s Bride 五魁, 1993) picks up and develops the title melody in an affecting way. The film keeps its focus firmly on the central relationships, as the boy first earns the respect of his teacher and is then faced with carrying on his legacy: hardly polemic, and in no way progressive, Phoenix is content to let the subject and performances speak for themselves.

Recalling the master of veteran actor Zhu Xu 朱旭 in Masks, Tao is wonderful as the grumpy master who’s spent a lifetime devoted to his art but realises everyone has to pass on the baton sooner or later. His scenes with the expressive Zheng Wei 郑伟, 13, as the boy, are the most successful; later ones with Li Mincheng 李岷城, 27, as the adult, suffer from the same lack of personality Li showed in the love story Crossing the Border 非常之恋 (2012) by Zhang Zeming 张泽鸣. However, supporting performances by the rest of the cast – especially Chi Peng 迟蓬 as the master’s understanding wife and Zhang Xiqian 张喜前 as the boy’s tough father who invests his own dreams in his son – are strong enough to compensate for this one weakness.

The reedy suona, a kind of Chinese oboe, figures in many rural films set in northern China. It also has a central role in a now-forgotten minor gem of New Taiwan Cinema, the 45-minute featurette The Suona Player 吹鼓吹 (1988, aka Sound of the Suona), directed by critic/documentarian Li Daoming 李道明 and starring Lin Xiuling 林秀玲 as a village girl married off to a simpleton. Its simplicity and beauty are mirrored in many of Phoenix‘s early scenes.

The title, translated here as “Song of the Phoenix”, is a four-character idiom that literally means “All Birds Pay Their Respects to the Phoenix” and by extension means the concept of a harmonious society under a wise ruler. The film was shot around Heyang county, Weinan prefecture, Shaanxi province, northeast of Xi’an, in summer 2012.