Aftershock
(PG)- Release Date: 29th July 2010 (Showtimes)
- Language: Mandarin
- Running Time: 135 mins
- Genre: Drama
- Director: Feng Xiaogang
- Cast: Guoqiang Zhang, Daoming Chen, JingChu Zhang, Fan Xu, Jin Chen. (Full Cast)
- Local Distributor: Golden Village Pictures
Based on the Tangshan Earthquake in 1976, Li Ni returns home only to find out that her 7-year-old twins are buried under the debris. She's left with a dilemma on deciding whom she chooses to save, her son, Fonda or her daughter, Fan Teng. She chooses to save her son in the end without knowing that Fan Teng overheard the decision being made. Miraculously, she manages to survive but suffers from the painful memory of her mother's decision. Later, a young couple adopts her but she remains traumatised by this childhood experience.
Latest Review
Aftershock
What I loved most: The best of motherly love and filial piety rolled in one.
What I really hated: Tangshan accent
Amidst all the high tech 3D craze, here's a movie that goes back to basics- basic human emotion of love, motherly love. Extremely touching movie spanning 3 generations. The mother's acting is fantastic, oscar winning performance. If you're the type who likes to cry your hearts out, this movie is it. Motherly love, filial piety, cherishing the ones you love- Great family movie, brings families closer. A must see.
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Aftershock
What I loved most: The best of motherly love and filial piety rolled in one.
What I really hated: Tangshan accent
Amidst all the high tech 3D craze, here's a movie that goes back to basics- basic human emotion of love, motherly love. Extremely touching movie spanning 3 generations. The mother's acting is fantastic, oscar winning performance. If you're the type who likes to cry your hearts out, this movie is it. Motherly love, filial piety, cherishing the ones you love- Great family movie, brings...More
Amidst all the high tech 3D craze, here's a movie that goes back to basics- basic human emotion of love, motherly love. Extremely touching movie spanning 3 generations. The mother's acting is fantastic, oscar winning performance. If you're the type who likes to cry your hearts out, this movie is it. Motherly love, filial piety, cherishing the ones you love- Great family movie, brings families closer. A must see.
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Act of Forgiveness and Reconciliation
I was a little skeptical before viewing this film as to whether director Feng Xiao Gang could pull off a theme that literally begs to be a Hollywood spectacle of special effects. I had the impression they would add surround speakers all around the theatre to give us that sensurround earth shaking experience. Feng did none of that. Instead, he gives us a masterfully crafted story of a...More
I was a little skeptical before viewing this film as to whether director Feng Xiao Gang could pull off a theme that literally begs to be a Hollywood spectacle of special effects. I had the impression they would add surround speakers all around the theatre to give us that sensurround earth shaking experience. Feng did none of that. Instead, he gives us a masterfully crafted story of a mother's love torn between saving only one of her twin son or daughter, trapped under the same pillar during the devastating earthquake of Tangshan in 1976. She chooses to save her son, and she tearfully hugs her daughter that she thinks is already dead in an emotional farewell before leaving with her son for a safe shelter. The repercussion of that fateful decision has a profound emotional effect on the mother and her siblings. Unable to overcome the guilty conscience of her decision, the remorseful mother lives a life of self-imposed solitude in a small house in Tangshan, afraid to move out because she thinks her daughter's soul may not find her again. Meanwhile, her daughter, given up for dead and lying beside her dead father, wakes up from her unconscious coma state, and is adopted by a kind couple from the army. Visibly upset, angry and bitter, she grows up without any intention of ever looking for her mother again. Many years later in 2008, the Sichuan earthquake produces another tragedy on a massive scale. Brother and sister are there as volunteers. There, at a rest point, she hears a man recounting his mother's anguish about having to choose between saving either son or daughter in the Tangshan earthquake. It is then that she realizes that her mother feels equally painful about losing her than she is bitter about being given up in favour of her brother. The act of reconciliation and forgiveness between mother and daughter comes at the end in a highly charged emotional scene. Tears never flowed so easily from my eyes. This act of forgiveness reminds me of a sermon just last week by a South African preacher. He recounted how a black mother who lost her son through a terrible act of murder during the apartheid era chose to forgive her son's murderer by adopting him as her son so that he could come to her house and understand what a wonderful son she once had. It is this kind of act of forgiveness that touches hearts everywhere.
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Heart Wrenching Movie
What I loved most: Love for Family
What I really hated: Nil
It is a movie of love, hate, forgiveness, regrets and remorse. A movie that will make you cry throughout. The plot may be simple but it is a movie which makes you feel throughout because it is realistic. Life is full of choices and with that, we are forced to make many different sort of decisions everyday. Big or small, simple or difficult. Some choices place you in a dilemma. This is a movie...More
It is a movie of love, hate, forgiveness, regrets and remorse. A movie that will make you cry throughout. The plot may be simple but it is a movie which makes you feel throughout because it is realistic. Life is full of choices and with that, we are forced to make many different sort of decisions everyday. Big or small, simple or difficult. Some choices place you in a dilemma. This is a movie about Decisions and dilemmas of life. Decisions which are hard to make and worse, there is NO TIME to think. Life or Death, Love or Hate, to Save or to Abandon. It is a movie which reveals the good nature of humans through a Common Disaster. The care for a stranger. The heart of unity. You'll not regret watching. Watch it, coz it is worth your money, even if you watch it on a weekend. Watch it or regret it.
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Most memorable movie ever
It has been a long time since I watched a stunning movie, and Aftershock, without doubt, earned all the credits it deserves. Behind one of the most catastrophic calamities of mankind, this movie unfolds the touching moments of human relationships. Massive earthquakes not only tear houses apart, but leave behind scores of heartbroken survivors mourning for the loss of their loved ones. Just when...More
It has been a long time since I watched a stunning movie, and Aftershock, without doubt, earned all the credits it deserves. Behind one of the most catastrophic calamities of mankind, this movie unfolds the touching moments of human relationships. Massive earthquakes not only tear houses apart, but leave behind scores of heartbroken survivors mourning for the loss of their loved ones. Just when all thought that time would heal a broken heart, the plot reveals a misunderstood motherly love that turned into hatred even after many years. With a twist of fate, all the years of bad feelings, guilt and misunderstanding seemed to resolve in a touching ending. A very good movie indeed.
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Drawing from the 1976 Great Tangshan earthquake that had a death toll which is controversially contested up until today to be anything from 200,000 lives to three times that, "Aftershock" is a fictionalised story set during a real-life event (like "Titanic" 1997) and benefits from the unflinching powerhouse portrayal of the filmmaker's actress wife Xu Fan ("One Foot Off The Ground" 2006, "The Founding Of A Republic" 2009) as a mother who had to painfully choose between saving her son or saving her daughter during the atrocities of natural disaster. It is a strong, textured drama with very decent CGI work that doesn't detract from the primary focus of building on themes of guilt, abandonment, closure and redemption - essentially a film all of the Chinese diaspora worldwide can relate to.
Sparing you of a more detailed synopsis is probably the best idea considering its epic landscape of a story that encompasses events such as Mao Zedong's death. It can however be disclosed that the five-star performances in "Aftershock" (including Zhang Jing Chu's role as the adult daughter) are a definitely highlight, not to mention it's high entertainment value in balancing drama and action, just like "Assembly".
One can only hope that movies such as this, despite the fiction, serve to remind people the importance of family and just how much emotional resonance is left behind by natural disasters. "Aftershock" is a first grade tearful testament to that.
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