The HKFA then spent seven years restoring the print, which was finally screened to modern audiences at the 33rd Hong Kong International Film Festival in April 2009.

[1] The film depicts Confucius's later life, as he traveled across a China divided by war and strife in an ultimately futile effort to teach various warlords and kings his particular philosophy.

While earlier films had been marked by fluidity, Confucius was consciously slow-moving and the images often symmetrical, a style that reflected contemporaries such as Sergei Eisenstein and Kenji Mizoguchi[4] Fei hoped the film, with its philosophical message, would appeal to a war-ravaged populace.

A working print screened at the 33rd Hong Kong International Film Festival in April 2009.

[1] It is believed that the copy received by the HKFA was of the recut version from 1948, and restoration efforts are ongoing in an attempt to integrate fragments of Fei Mu's original vision from 1940.