Back to 1942 (2012)

Okay, first off, how can this rate 6.9 when by far the majority were 8 and higher...? Guess I could check my math but... gosh...Next,a capsule statement: This is Chinese culture. This is something you'll never truly understand. But you should really try...I have lived here in China a fair number of years (I'm Canadian). I'm still fumbling with understanding the culture. I mean a deep understanding, not Western superficiality. Try and recall, it's a culture of 5000 years, give or take. Western culture is sliver in comparison. Why? Because we in the West do not now live like the Greeks nor the Romans. Why? Because those cultures died. Sure, there are remnants, but sorry, they are freaking gone. But, the Chinese remain, contiguous, continuous, they never died. No one seems to 'get this'...The world's oldest continuous culture. The West can't comprehend this.Old culture is like 1970...Moving on, it appears to me most professional reviewers (I use the term lightly) continue to judge Chinese movies in the context of Western cultural perspective. I suppose they believe that having thought theydeciphered French and German cinema, they now know the Chinese. Wrong again. No surprise frankly.Chinese culture is so vast and so unfathomably deep, most will never truly understand unless you are born Chinese. It's called genetics.It's called nature and nurture. It's called socialization of the human psyche. And it's very very very old... Western civilization is an infant in comparison.But -- this is the greatest thing! It's called 'mystery'. It's roaming into a land undiscovered by yourself. Completely foreign. And then trying to piece together the meaning. It's like a treasure hunt.Frankly, I've watched a lot of Chinese movies, sub-titled and not, old and modern. And these have frustrated me beyond belief. Even angered me. Why were they so damn depressing was my first argument. At the end I felt like crap. But also, it made me keep thinking, wondering, exploring this conundrum. It angered me, but it made me feel. It made me feel something I hadn't ever felt before. And I know foreign cinema.This was different.It made me think. A lot. About history, about China, about human nature, about cultural differences, about art. About everything; about existence, life. Its essentials, its irony, travesty, betrayal, joy, hope, good, evil. The complex mess we call human. (I use the term loosely.) I just saw this movie for the first time, shame on me. I have worked and lived in China for seven years off and on... Anyway, I had to give it a 10 due to the 'other guy' (euphemism of for dork) gave it a '2' because it wasn't a 'leisure' film. I think this pretty much sums up the problems in today's world. It's called 'narrow-minded'. And that's another euphemism for a word I prefer not to write, being a gentleman an all.So, back to the point, another classical Chinese movie plot done with modern artistic verve. Classical as in almost everyone dies, anyone you thought was the hero dies, and no happy ending in the true sense. And yet done with a modern cinematic panache.And as I said, a deep-thinker's movie, with many unanswered questions.About life and living. About the true mysteries.Take a chance and give your brain a cultural work-out. I'm still out here on the playing field trying to learn. See you there...

I had no idea of what was going on in China during WWII until I saw this film. This movie enlighten me on the dark facts of starvation and just how far people will go to survive. Although it is in Chinese and subtitled in English, please don't let that keep you from seeing this film. Out of the few movies that really makes you feel, that makes you rethink everything you know about anything, Back to 1942 defiantly ranks top ten in my opinion. I'm not going to give anything away, but the end of this movie left my jaw hanging open and my mind scrambling to understand all that had happen in the two hours and thirty minutes of pure devastation. If you are looking for a movie that shows the sad reality of this world, I urge you to see this film.

This movie is a rare gem in the Chinese movie industry that's seeing crappy movies bringing big revenues. After all, talent is talent. Talent refuses to be swamped by the toxic environment. The movie is shocking to watch. It's so realistic, dramatic and sad, that the weight is almost unbearable. It looked at a historical event with a new lens, a modern Chinese view. It calls Chinese people to rethink patriotism. In a time when your life is in grave danger and would vanish at any moment, your government sits there doing nothing and kicks you around as baggage and throws you to the enemy, and the enemy gives you food that saves you life. Do you pledge patriotism to the government? Do you blame the people who avert to work for the invader? What does patriotism mean when our government doesn't care about your life? Chinese history is full of sad stories, and the movie is one of the first that tells those stories in a realistic way, such as the irony that the moral of situation all falls on a foreign reporter.The acting is respectable, especially in all the male characters. Some of the female actors are not well selected (including Xu Fan), and not well situated in settings. Overall, a great movie for Chinese to relive a dark time, to rethink about many fundamental questions about Chinese culture and society. It is probably good for foreign viewers who have some knowledge of Chinese history and culture to appreciate the movie.

I chosen the film is 'Back to 1942' that is an epic film about a horrible famine of Henan province in China. Feng Xiaogang is the director of the film, and the film was released on Thursday, November 29th, 2012. Feng Xiaogang who is a famous director in China, he graduated from The National Academy of Chinese Theatre Arts, and is good at directing the comedy film. However, 'Back to 1942' is a breakthrough of him again. In this film, there are not only many famous Chinese such as Zhang Guoli, Chen Daoming, Xu Fan and Zhang Hanyu, but also have two American actors namely Tim Robbins and Adrien Brody. Obviously, 'Back to 1942' is expected to have influence at the international marketplace, not just for domestic marketplace.'Back to 1942' tells the story about more than 30 million of Henan's people began a 1012 km fled in order to survive from hunger, which lasted 106 days and approximately 3 millions people died. A terrible drought and locusts lead to this horrible famine, and the war between Japan and China makes it worse. The film' plot structure is unique. There are three main story lines, the first one is that civilians fled from famine, the second one is the behavior of the Chiang Kai- shek's government, and the third one is Theodore H. White who is an American journalist reported the situation for Time magazine and his rescue operations. These three clues bonded together by tragic fate of millions of victims that made the film express a distinctive dramatic tension. The color of the film is gray, it can accurate convey the emotion of the film which is people suffering in famine and death. Indeed, the film shows that people have changed during unprecedented hunger. Specifically, sexual, physical, and even personal freedom becomes tools to exchange for food, and the traditional Confucian and even basic family ethics is abandoned, such as the husband sale his wife, father peddle their children and so forth. There are several plots that shock me. The first, rich property owner Fan and his family also are on the road in order to survive. However, during this period time, his daughter-in-law give birth to a child. The puerperal is very weak and no milk for child, because she did not eat anything for few days. Fan deiced to cook a cat for a soup, which is company her daughter all the way, in order to supplement nutrition for his daughter-in-law, so that the grandchildren can survive. But, his daughter Xing Xing love her cat so much, she often feeds her cat using her own food. When Fan want to explain to his daughter about cooking her cat, his daughter ask him that want to eat the cat soup. There is no any sadness in her eyes. People have been changed by extreme hunger, and the life instinct defeat all emotions. The second, during the famine time, every thing could happen, for example, a few liters of millet can buy a person. Xing Xing which is Fan's daughter, want to exchange self for millet, but Fan does not allow. She explain to her father that she cannot stand hunger, if sold her, her family not only can get some millet, but also she can live. When Xing Xing was selected, there even is a smile appearing on Fan's face that is unimaginable in the present age. Therefore, the value of millet is over the value of gold or a person in the famine time. The third, Fan takes a train with his grandson into the Shaanxi province, and others of his family's members went away or dead. Fan told to his grandson, "There are only us". However, he found that his grandson was already dead. He feels helpless and hopelessness. Hence, he made a decision that came back to Henan and he already does not think about how to live, he just want to die closer to home. These plot express the despair of losing all family members that give me a big shock, because he already lose the life instinct when he lose his family and he even does not affair the death anymore. To sum up, I think 'Back to 1942' is a great movie, and it almost reflects the damage caused by the famine. It also makes me to think about what is the most important things when people face the disaster.