As Thanksgiving was just yesterday, I got to thinking about the family I'm so grateful to have. This film also made me think about them, and just how blessed a life I've lived. I can't recommend this fascinating family tragedy highly enough - originally reviewed for dvdsnapshot.com.
Aftershock
Official Synopsis:
Tangshan, 1976. Two seven-year-old
twins are buried under the rubble of the deadliest earthquake of the
20th century. The rescue team explains to their mother
that freeing either child will almost certainly result in the death
of the other. Forced to make the most difficult decision of her life,
she finally chooses to save her son. Though left behind as dead, the
little girl miraculously survives, unbeknownst to her brother and
mother. Aftershock follows the family on their separate
journeys over the course of the next 32, years as they build their
lives forever shadowed by the traumatic experience of the earthquake
and eventually face each other – and the decisions of the past.
The acclaimed epic that broke all
box-office records in China, Aftershock features an all-star
cast including Zhang Jingchu (Rush Hour 3) and Chen Daoming
(Hero).
Our Take:
Reading the synopsis, one can jump to
the conclusion that, as an epic, Aftershock
could perhaps be a mass expression of communal grief. Reading up on
the sheer death and damage toll the Tangshan earthquake took, one
wonders how anyone who was alive to experience it could possibly ever
completely recover. Officially, 240,000 people died and the entire
city pretty much had to be rebuilt. According to Wikipedia (and, as
always, take of that what you will), experts think two to three times
that number may have died that day.
(How often did this film make me cry? Find out after the break...)
(How often did this film make me cry? Find out after the break...)
