O Sonho Azul

This film is right up there in educating the masses on a bold, but chilling truth. The first time I saw this movie it not only made me cry, but it haunted me for weeks. Exposing the truth has been a difficult endeavor when it comes to China, but this is one of those films that has done it with grace and style.

Superbly put together, this film gives an accurate portrayal of events during three revolutionary movements which make up some of the most appalling events that took place during the first thirty years of the People's Republic of China's existence.

Orocolorado's comments are tedious and naive; they betray a complete lack of understanding of what these periods of Chinese history were about, and what people living through those terrible times experienced and how they had to learn to cope with their circumstances.

It is a shame that these days we have been fed such a vast amount of exaggerated Hollywood material, that only that which is larger than life can be seen to be a true representation of anything.

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.

Beijing of the 1950s, as seen through the eyes of Tietou, a little boy. As a child, his father gives him a blue kite. The events of the day sweep the family into chaos, including the father, Lin, who becomes entangled in political intrigue with Mao's communists and winds up in a work camp. Hedies soon afterwords by a falling tree.

Tietou's widowed mother marries her dead husband's former colleague, Li, who tries his best to improve his wife and stepsons lives. The Great Leap Forward occurs and the wave of starvation claims Li as a victim.

The third husband is a party member with a relatively luxurious home at the time of the cultural revolution in China and they get caught up in the terrible violence of the Red Guard and I'll just say that no one lives happily ever after. The Blue Kite is a brutally honest look at China's interesting recent history; a sad but true tale.

This movie is great. It ends a bit abruptly but it is still a great movie. It sums up the way of life in China up until that part in a very poignant touching way without overdramatizing. I give it a ten. The sad part is that it was banned in china, only for telling the truth.