Le cerf-volant bleu

Due to the subject matter, it was impossible to make this a happy movie. The counter-revolutions that followed the ascendancy of the Chinese Communist government were brutal and senseless--destructive just for the sake of being destructive. So naturally, this isn't a "feel good" movie. I liked how honest the movie was in giving a no holds barred look at this period of time--stretching from about 1953 to 1968.

The negatives about the movie really depend on your frame of reference. For the Chinese audience, much of what was occurring on screen would be easy to follow and keeping track of who is who isn't a problem. However, for Western audiences, this can be quite a chore. I had an easier time than most because I am a history teacher and was acquainted with what was occurring--but the average viewer will most likely get lost from time to time. And, unfortunately, MOST Chinese haven't even gotten the chance to view it as it was banned by their government when it premiered in the early 1990s! So, apart from those Chinese people living in Taiwan or elsewhere abroad, the audience may be rather limited. Because of this, I would love to see the movie along with a documentary explaining the time and events--especially because ignorance about this traumatic time is partly due to the Chinese government's attempts in the past to hide the counter-revolution's excesses.

FYI--although NOT made clear in the movie, the scene where the people were out killing sparrows needs some explanation. Chairman Mao ordered EVERYONE across the nation to beat drums and make a huge racket in order to terrify the birds and keep them flying until they exhausted themselves to death. Perhaps billions of these birds were killed in an attempt to increase crop production (aparently the birds were "capitalist reactionaries" or at least enemies of the state). However, the little grain the birds consumed was NOT a real problem but the insects that the birds ate were. So, as a result of the destruction of the birds, bug populations SKYROCKETED and the crops were decimated. That is why several scenes later people are complaining that there were 3 years of famine.

Also, it seemed to me that it was implied that the reason the one lady quit the army (where she was an actress for propaganda plays) was because she was expected to "put out" for officers. She chose to quit instead and shortly afterwards she was sent to a "re-education camp" as punishment for this.

This brilliant film should be seen by anyone who appreciates great movie-making. Covering similar ground as 'Farewell, My Concubine', this time the story of China's political upheavals is told from the point of view of a simple family trying desperately to survive, as told from the point of view of the son. Lu Liping is amazing as the mother. A performance worthy of her contemporary Gong Li. Give me any of these performances over the theatrical machinations of a Meryl Streep or a Glenn Close any day. This is real acting at its finest. One warning: the ending will rip your heart out.

According to some sort of reason, I didn't know this movie until these days. After watching it, I cannot stop thinking this might not be true, but I know it is a real story. Or I'd rather say "they are real" because this kind of story almost happened in every Chinese family.It might be fortunate that I'v got a complete family, but I can imagine what would happen if they, my parents, were not so lucky.

Everything in the story are as real as they might be. To stigmatize and to be stigmatized, to live and to die, to resist and to be resisted, to beat and to be beaten while life was still going on. Attacking the rightists, perish the four vermins, big lunge, making steel, disasters of 3 years... all these things were filled in the daily conversations of Chinese nowadays.

but I don't think we'v paid enough attention to this period of Chinese history. Especially young people do not even know it. This movie is still forbidden in China. Willing to see its public show.

I had to add a review of this movie, mainly because of certain reviewers choosing to criticize the politics instead of the actual film. To all of you budding western Mao-apologists...before you debate the merits of this story and the veracity of its presentation of life, you should consider learning Chinese, going to China, and talking to people. You will learn two things: 1)this period of time was hidden from an entire generation and is only now being discussed, re-examined and virtually condemned by China. 2)The culture of fear, paranoia and brutality among ordinary citizens is very real and its memory, and vestiges of it, still exist in those old enough to remember that era. Understanding this film is key to understanding the century of virtual trauma that China underwent, at the hands of others and then at the hands of its corrupt, megalomaniacal leaders and even its own people. And if one finds the tone a bit dark, remember: at the time of this film, the Tianamen square crackdown (that still is largely unknown in China...none of my college or high school students had ever heard about it...) was only 4 years old. China today is full of hope and looking forward, but still afraid to speak about the past.

This film is up there with the best of them; equal to The Horse Thief and the King of Masks , my other two favorite Chinese films. These films are generally superior to Hollywood films in every respect except bod office receipts; and that is an important exception. Movies are generally made for money, and this one did not make a lot of money. You can pretty much mark that up to massive Western ignorance of good Chinese cinema. Very few, if any, films about China illustrate the initiation of collectivism in the early days of the CCP. Then, without effort, the film glides to the elimination of private property and businesses, and then on to Hundred Flowers Campaign, which, to put it in simple terms for uninitiated Westerners, is like someone asking you for your honest opinion, and then putting you in jail after you give it. People who differed with the CCP during this period were known as rightests and counter-revolutionaries. In reality, the vast majority of people who rendered opinions, were merely rendering their opinions. For this, they were sent to work farms, prisons, and other places far away from home. This impacted on the most sacred part of Chinese tradition; the family. Unbelievably, the upheaval got worse with the Great Leap Forward, which was more like a great leap up and down without going anywhere. Needlessly killing sparrows for some obscure reason, and tryin to make steel from ordinary household items that contained only fragments of iron. It was as if an idiot was in charge of the country giving idiotic orders. After 20 years of chaos and labeling people things they were not even remotely guilty of, things actually got worse; The Cultural Revolution caused three times as many deaths as the Jewish Holocaust in Europe, yet, in the West, only one of a hundred Westerners knows anything about it. What could be worse than stating that schools and books were useless? Leaving young gangs roving the streets to commit horrendous crimes. Replacing all parts of society's leaders with inexperienced youth. Brilliant. Hospitals struggling with doctors and nurses and replacing them with clueless students, who allowed millions to die because they didnt know what to do. No education, health care or business was tolerated. Brilliant. All this ended with Deng Xiaopeng in 1978, and now you know why he ran over the students in Tiananmen Square in 1989. No more Cultural Revolutions would be tolerated in China. No more student takeovers. China had learned its lesson, but the West condemned Tiananmen Square because they were totally ignorant of Chinese History. The film shows all of these events up to 1968, and does it with the greatest of ease. Great directing and cast.