Well this was my 3rd time seeing this film, and it is still powerful and candid. It's always good discuss the subject matter in class, and then see the film afterward. Hopefully you picked up on the many things in the film that we have talked about this week. Did you notice the prominent use of the backyard furnaces for example during the Great Leap Forward? Of course, the ending, centered around the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution is still devastating for me. For the 20 of you all that came today, what did you think of the film? Discuss...Oh, and don't forget, Persepolis is Friday!
16 comments:
that was a pretty good movie. it was sad at some times but showed the confliction in china.
wow. I knew the "teenage revolution" was getting rid of the doctors and teachers and such, but I didn't think that they were trying to replace them. What a mess.
I noticed that the puppet shows were done by flame until the communist revolution, when he started doing it by lightbulb. Did electricity become more available due to Mao's modernization policy or just as time passed and technology was more accessable? I'm assuming a little of both.
I was surprised that children were working at school in making more steal. Not just at home.
I also didn't know that they created places to get food to the people, we mentioned it in class but that's not really how I pictured it. So they really tried to get rid of the famine, war on birds wasn't the only attempt.
Even better after learning the history of the time period! Such a great movie, but I don't remember it ending so quickly. It went by much faster this time.
Anyway, this is a movie to watch many times. It is so beautiful and so emotional, it will be a great movie every time I watch it. I hope some others post some positve comments here!
Wow that was an amazing movie. It shows how lucky we are to live the way we do. I cant imagine how devastating it would be to lose a child. Two and the only two they had would be twice as devastating. The daughter's death was definitely hard to watch because it was a result of the students and the lack of experience they had to deliver a child. They had no idea how to solve the bleeding issue... the sad thing is that these kinds of things happened and to im sure more than one person. Also they didnt thin about it but many of those people supported Mao and all of the changes that came with him. They didnt realize until they personally went through a tragedy, that the things he was for wasnt completely what they wanted. There son's death was tragic as well. He would constantly work in order to help make a living and to satisfy the govt as part of the class. He didnt have sleep in 3 days. This shows how the GReat Leap Backward is true. Once again, it was a Fantastic movie cause it gave great insight into how Mao changed things and how a family has to survive.
i luved it!!!!! it was so sad! i actually cried (but apparantly no one else did). it was also very funny, the puppet show.
Wow that was a really depressing movie. Even when the dad tried to do something right it seemed to backfire. I can't say that if I was in their position I would have had as much spirit to keep living as they had. And I mean the kids working in the hospital? That is just crazy I mean even being a teenager I wouldn't want to take over everything. I think that it did a really great job at showing how China truly was though. I liked it (:
I agree with Greg, though it was long it went by fast. Too fast, what happens to Little Bun next? This viewing i picked up the last line included "trains and airplanes will make our life better and better". This shows Fugui's change of view of communism. The Cultural Revolution is very frightening, no one was unaffected it seems. This is especially displayed well when the village leader is charged with being a capitalist. The movie illustrates everything we went over in class. The fear of being charged as a reactionary is seen in the character Fugui's actions. His gambling incident ironically saved him.
follow the party forever~
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HGmtbpGp_T8&feature=related
song by Tan Jing on CCTV
wrong link
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Trs78Z9WjDs&feature=related
this is the right one
wow. that was one of the best movies i've seen in a while. the funeral scene after the son died was heartwrenching, especially when you find out that the man that Fugui made such a good relationship with, Chungsheng, was the one that killed his son. And he was genuinely sorry. It broke my heart. All in all i would recommend it to anyone. It also got me how the doctors were taken away, and so Fengxia died in labor because some stupid 15 year old girls weren't properly trained for this. I mean, i sorta liked the Mao thought until it got to the Great Proletariot Cultural Revolution. I mean the Great Leap Forward sucked too, but it just got me mad. I felt for Fugui. he had so much death envelop his life. Definitely one of my all time favorites.
The whole movie was filled with irony that reflects the irony of the situations that communism created in China... such as that the backyard furnaces helped create a lot of steel, but it was really poor quality and no one bought it, so that failed. And Fugui's son was trying to help smelt steel, and because Fugui woke him up and sent him to school so that he could keep doing that and help China and communism, Fugui's son died.
i heard this movie was really good! i wish i could have watched it... why must u show movies on wednesdays??
even though you told us all about what was happening, i don't think i really understood the extent of what it was really like until watching this. they seemed to be obsessed with Mao and communism (in the beginning until the doctor thing happened)
and then there was tht revolution where a bunch of kids were trying to be doctors, what was Mao thinking? i wanted to smack those girls in the hospital...
i loved how throughout the movie different characters were right. like when the dad wouldn't stop gambling and that saved their family or when the mom wanted their son to stay home from school the day he died... it was soooo good.
wow...great film. I was actually going to watch this during the summer, but I couldn't manage to get my hands on a copy. One of my favorite aspects of the movie is the fact that Chungsheng is responsible for Little Bun's death. In the beginning of the movie, Chungsheng remarks that he is eager to learn how to drive. He gets into an army vehicle and pretends to drive. Fugui laughs it off. But later on, Chungsheng kills Fugui's son in a driving accident. The movie's writer does a good job of making a sad scene more touching. It is interesting to place yourself in Fugui's shoes. Your best friend whom you haven't seen in a long time finally meets you, at your son's funeral, whose death is caused because of your friend. It is almost worse to have someone you like and respect responsible for the death of a loved one. You want to be able to hate the person who kills your son, because through hate, people find an object to blame and vilify, reducing the pain of losing someone. It is less easy to view someone you know and are friends with as a horrible murderer.
OHMYGOSH! I absolutely loved this movie! I think it's the best movie that I've seen yet. While we were watching this movie, I really thought about what we learned in class and I knew that everything in the movie had to be a realization of the things that people were really going through in China. I didnt know that teenagers of this world would be able to take over the country like that. I always thought that the teenagers were the most powerless in this world. It's amazing how age really didnt seem to matter at that time period; the elders were disrespected in every single way you could imagine, and they didnt care! That really got me angry.
This movie was my first Chinese film, & I'm glad it was.
It changed my view on so many things in this world!(:
I really hate to comment on an old post, but I'd like to adress some additional thoughts about the film.
Definitely some dark comedy at the end when the doctor ate too quickly. Mixed emotions are felt when you see this guy just scarfing down bread while Fengxia is bleeding to death. Yimou is displaying this scene with a comical viewpoint of the doctor, and at the same time, the Xu's only child left is dying because of the removal of doctors and, ironically, there's a doctor 20 feet from Fengxia's room. Poor old Fugui just can't catch a break.
Lora pointed out something that I hadn't realized. The puppet shows were lit by electricity later in the film! I can't believe I never caught that before.
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