Dearest (2014)

This film follows the story of two divorced parents searching for their abducted child. One of the most interesting aspects of this film to me was the fact that there was very little character development throughout the story. The film focused a lot more on the actual plot and extreme minutia than the characters themselves. All we really know about the father of the abducted child, PengPeng, was the fact that he worked at an internet cafe. The mother? she worked in some nice building. The wife of the abductor was a farmer who became very attached to the children. We don't even meet the abductor in the film because he supposedly died. The plot line however, gets pretty complex and deep. The foster mother of PengPeng and another girl is a farmer who thinks she is infertile, because her husband told her that she was as an excuse to go sleep with other women. PengPeng's parents find him and take him back. PengPeng, his birth parents, the farmer, and the other girl are in the police station when the decision is made to give PengPeng back to his real parents. They put the girl in an orphanage and the farmer woman is determined to get her back. She manages to find a lawyer and fights PengPeng's birth mother over custody. The end of the movie is very interesting and leaves many questions unanswered. The court decision hasn't been made because PengPeng's mother is mid divorce and the farmer is believed to not be legally able to adopt a child based on income, etc. We also find out that the farmer ends up getting pregnant after sleeping with a construction worker, proving that she was indeed fertile all along and that her husband lied to her. In general, the plot was pretty confusing and hard to follow. Also, the fact that the movie was 2h15m long didn't necessarily help

I learned a lot from watching this Chinese film. I had never really heard about child abduction in China, since we do not hear about that problem there, but not only does it happen there, but it can happen anywhere. This film was unique in that, it was about a real story and events, but some parts of the film were added. This film is about a couple who lose their child, and find out that he was abducted. Peng-Peng(the little boy ) decided to wander off on his own after playing with a few of his friends, and saw his mother in the car driving away, as soon as that happened he was taken. Once Peng-Peng's dad found out that his son was abducted he panicked, and Peng-Peng's mother felt guilty, which is later explained in the film. Both of Peng-Peng's parents decided to join a group that involved people who have gone through the same situation, and they try to help families by making them feel better about their current loss, and also find ways to find the children of the families, by disguising themselves as a tour group, but often times it did not work out. It takes a while for Peng-Peng to be found, but when he is he did not recognize his parents, since he was very little when he was abducted, therefore he wanted to go back to the woman who abducted him. The only thing I did not like about this film was the end. It seemed to be very unclear and was a bit confusing. Based on this reasoning, I would rate this film a 4/5.

Dearest was a great, but depressing film which kept the viewer intrigued on what was going to happen throughout. The two main characters, the husband and wife, were constantly fighting while they had their son, but once he was kidnapped, they had to get along again in order to find him. This movie did a great job of sending the viewer on an emotional roller-coaster. A really touching and awkward scene was when they were in the missing child support group, and the wife mentioned that she saw Peng Peng running behind her car. I really sympathized for her in that moment, because I do not know the amount of guilt I would feel if I could have stopped my son from being kidnapped. Another aspect of this movie that I enjoyed was getting to know the abductor's wife. At first I hated her because she was part of the family that took Peng Peng, but as the movie progresses, you begin to realize that she is fairly innocent, and her husband was the only real bad guy in this situation. This movie left the viewer on a cliff for many of the topics which I wish were closed. The main topics that I wanted to see closed were whether the girl in the orphanage was adopted, if the main characters got remarried, and what happened to the abductor's wife's baby. Overall, I enjoyed this movie and it kept me engaged throughout.

Since 2004, most of Peter Chan's films were big-budget production, co-produced with China, such as Perhaps Love, Wu Xia, but lost the precious spirit he had. For Dearest, Peter Chan recovers his credit. Not only The watchable Dearest doesn't become the propaganda as most of mainland films like, but also refuse to be anti-govern picture. Dearest honestly focus on lost and return. The screenplay is good writing, but a little weak in the second part, thankfully, upgrading by unimaginable Chiu Mei (aka Zhao Wei). Additionally, Editing and Cinematography are perfect.Chen should thank to his great ensemble cast. Huang Bo proves he is not only the best comedy actor, but also an intelligent drama performer. Hao, who played Lu Xiaojuan, has the most wonderful character, a ex-wife who had cheated her ex-husband, an ill-mannered lady who destroyed her current marriage, a victim who facing the foster mother, and the heart breaking mother whose child has forget her. However, she wast the best role of the film, Hao excelled one dimension of the lost child mother. It's easy to feel sympathy for the role, however, frail it is. Surprisingly, Zhang Yi remarkable portray steal the sense. At Pangpang's birthday party, his helpless and depression should be his award moment.Undoubtedly, the greatest performance from Zhao, an underrated actress in China. Granted, she has less scenes than Huang and Hao, and the poor support by script of her part, but she control the gravity of the whole film. Zhao shows a complex and paradox humanity in a simple, low- educated personality. Her restrained and spell-blinding acting style would establish her as Chinese Ellen Burstyn.