Shui jiao huang hou

This is the kind of movie where you know beat-for-beat what to expect, just looking at the poster and title.

That's not necessarily a bad thing, and the movie does deliver our expectations in a nice and comfortable way.

The performances are good, the sets look great, and the movie delivers the beats you already saw coming in the right way.

Westerners may not understand some of the reactions people have in this movie, since they might not fully grasp the cultural background.

As a Chinese live overseas more than 20 yrs, I understand something like this definitely could happened in 1970-80s, but her success cannot be duplicated , as it is a totally different world now. People won't help and support each other like in those old days anymore.

However it's still a very inspiring and touching film which is based on a real story.

Music and supporting actors/and actress are very good too, I hope Ma Li wins Best Actress at the next coming awards!

Westerners may not understand some of the reactions people have in this movie, since they might not fully grasp the cultural background.

As a Chinese live overseas more than 20 yrs, I understand something like this definitely could happened in 1970-80s, but her success cannot be duplicated , as it is a totally different world now. People won't help and support each other like in those old days anymore.

However it's still a very inspiring and touching film which is based on a real story.

Music and supporting actors/and actress are very good too, I hope Ma Li wins Best Actress at the next coming awards!

This movie has believable performances and has many moments of character interactions that I enjoyed. The story spends most of the movie putting the main character, a single mother, through one challenge after another as she tries to take care of her daughters and make a life for herself where she relies on no one else, especially a husband. Towards the end of the movie she finds more and more business success, but I couldn't help but feel that her life was profoundly sad and empty as she seemed to give everything for her work and her daughters and didn't take time to relax and deepen her relationships. The one big complaint I have of this movie is the music which is much too happy and reassuring at all times, much like a Hallmark movie. As an American, I'm sure there is much I don't understand of Chinese culture so I enjoyed the film but I did feel overall that some realism was missing. The part of the movie that touched me most was seeing the mom struggle and facing life with fearlessness and courage.