AFTERSHOCK [China, 2010][Uncut Special Edition]
- Trailer
- Interview (English Subtitled)
- “Making Of” Documentary
- Deleted Scenes
Based on the Tangshan Earthquake in 1976 which killed more than 200,000 people. Li Yuanni returns home to find out that her 7-year-old twins are buried under the debris. The rescue team explains to her that freeing either child will almost certainly result in the death of the other. Left with this dilemma, she chooses to save her son without knowing that Fang Deng overheard the decision being made. Miraculously, she manages to survive but suffers from the painful memory of her mother’s decision…
This edition includes a high bit-rate transfer of the film on a dual-layer DVD. The feature’s English subtitles are perfect and are removable. Special features include the original trailer, interviews, a “Making Of” Documentary, and Deleted Scenes. The special features may not all be subtitled in English.
List Price: $ 12.95
Price: $ 12.95
a movie I feel, more about betrayal than about disaster,
This is a superb movie, about what happened shortly before and after a big earthquake in China, back in 1976.
But this movie to me is more about betrayal, that the daughter treated her mom very well, when the brother wanted to get the wind from the electric fan, she said, mom should get the wind first, because mom is very hot for cooking the meal. When there was one tomato left, the mother will give it to the son, and the daughter said she wanted one too.
Then when it is the choice whether to save the son or the daughter, the mom reluctantly chose the son. The daughter then felt betrayed, and even when there were opportunities for her to go back to find the mother and the brother, she didn’t do that.
In her words, it is “It is not that I cannot remember, but that I cannot forget”.
After these 23 seconds of the earthquake, the next 32 years of the life of the daughter changed. But what I see in this movie, is more about betrayal than anything else. What shocked the daughter, was the feeling of human betrayal, even more so than the earthquake itself.
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|An emotional masterpiece,
To understand the scale of what happened in Tangshan in 1976, if you consider that the two atomic bombs detonated detonated over Hiroshima and Nagasaki between them killed 220,000 people.
The Tangshan earthquake lasted slightly less than a minute, killed 250,000 people. Before the earthquake fish jumped out of aquariums. 89% of the buildings in Tangshan were reduced to rubble, and a million people were left homeless. Aftershock tracks the story of one family, and its effect on them.
A young mother is faced with a crushing dilemma. Both her six year old twin children are trapped under a huge concrete beam. One cannot be rescued without the other being crushed to death. We don’t know if another aftershock will kill both of them at any moment. She decides to save her son. She lays the daughter next to the body of her husband believing her dead. However, the daughter regains consciousness, and is adopted by a soldier and his wife. The mother, believing her daughter dead has to live with the consequences of her decision. The daughter faded in and out of consciousness during the rescue, we don’t know how much she heard of rescue attempt. However, her subsequent behavior offers clues.
So we follow their lives from then to the present day. We understand their suffering because it makes sense, there are mysteries within the movie, such as will daughter and mother ever be reunited, or will the twin siblings ever be reunited. We hope that for the sake of the story it will happen, but the fact that the daughter marries and moves to Canada seems to indicate otherwise.
Aftershock, is cinematic storytelling at its best. We don’t have understand Chinese to fell gripped by the emotions that are unfolding onscreen. Our own humanity abd abillty to feel bridges any language barrier. I feel that Afershock is truly an emotional masterpiece, and the director Xiaogang Feng is the James Cameron of China, and this movie is China’s Titanic.
I believe this movie is a very important milestone in Chinese filmmaking history, as much if not more than the better known movies such as Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. I am very impressed with the quality of foreign movies this year particularly the Girl with the Dragon Tattoo series, which challenge Hollywood to improve its own standards of storytelling. Foreign moviemakers are now regularly making movies as good as anything being made in Hoillywood, and that’s a very good thing.
Aftershock is one of the best foreign movies I have ever seen. I hope you will experience it too. I think you will love it.
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|A TRULY REMARKABLE, TOUCHING FILM,
THIS IS THE STORY OF THE TRAGIC EARTHQUAKE IN CHINA DURING 1976 THAT CLAIMED 240,000 LIVES. IT REVOLVES AROUND A SET OF TWINS [BOY+GIRL] TRAPPED BENEATH THE RUBBLE. WHEN THE MOTHER IS TOLD BY RESCUE WORKERS THEY CAN ONLY SAVE ONE BECAUSE OF AN IMMINENT COLLAPSE THE MOTHER GETS HYSTERICAL + UNABLE TO MAKE A CHOICE. THEY TELL HER BOTH WILL DIE IN MOMENTS UNLESS SHE CHOOSES, SO SHE CHOOSES THE BOY UNAWARE THE GIRL HEARD HER DECISION. MIRACULOUSLY THE GIRL SURVIVES AND IS LATER ADOPTED BUT IS DEVASTATED BY HER MOTHER’S DECISION. THE STORY FOLLOWS THE LIVES OF THE GIRL + HER ADOPTIVE PARENTS AND ALSO HER MOTHER AND BROTHER, WHO ARE UNAWARE OF HER SURVIVAL, OVER A 30 YEAR SPAN. THIS FILM IS BOTH WARM AND DRAMATIC AND FEATURES SOME GREAT ACTING AND WRITING THAT THE VIEWER WON’T EASILY FORGET
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