Plus fort que le silence

Sun Liying, played by Li Gong, plays a single mother dealing with supporting her young son in a very lifelike and hopeless environment. Her deaf son, Zheng Da, is dealing with this and trying to learn enough to get into school. Liying must make enough to support her young son, and pay for his new hearing aid. These are not cheap, costing over $5000, with her making only $5, and her divorced husband not helping. This film did very well at the Berlin film festival. This is really a slice of life film, going through the basic actions of one struggling mom. This is not at all the type of film I personally like. I can understand how it is appreciated by critics, but it was a little too slow for my tastes. I have never been a fan of the extreme basic, or the struggles that are present in daily life, such as getting money from ones' ex-husband. It's all too bland for my taste. That's the main theme of the story though, that there is hope, even without excitement, love money. But for me, it's 2/10.

Sure, I can appreciate a drama about a single mom's struggle to support, feed and take care of her partially deaf child. But when the movie turns out to be that she faces hardship at virtually every aspect of the movie, then it becomes a bit too much - too forced and too scripted in order to tap into the sympathy of the audience.

It was a shame that director Zhou Sun opted to go that way with this movie, because "Breaking the Silence" (aka "Piao liang ma ma") really had all the right ingredients to be a rather beautiful and outstanding movie. But it was just executed in a way too forced manner, and it was so blatantly obvious that the director wanted to press every issue to make the audience sympathize for the struggling mother.

The movie is not all bad though, mind you. Just look past the scripted nature of the movie, and there are some really nice aspects to the "Breaking the Silence". The story and the concept is very nice, and it is a moving story that will sink right into the heart. And the story is nicely paced and does take the audience along through a somewhat turbulent ride throughout the lives of Sun Liying and Zheng Da.

What makes "Breaking the Silence" stand out is the performances put on by the two lead talents, that being Li Gong (playing Sun Liying) and Xin Gao (playing Zheng Da). They really carried the movie so nicely, and they had a lot of weight to pull as everything was essentially riding on how well they performed. They both stepped up and proved their worth.

While "Breaking the Silence" is a beautiful movie, it is smothered by the overzealous attempts of director Zhou Sun. This was a shame, because it hindered the movie from achieving the greatness that it had potential for.

I am rating "Breaking the Silence" six out of ten stars. It is worth watching if you enjoy Chinese cinema.

This film is a good film but not a great film. This film is maybe too much melodramatic to me, and the soundtrack is really bad. But some details save this pretty film : Gong Li and the directing. Gong Li did as usual good work. And the director is quite good.

Moreover this film enables people to understand the social situation of China.

OK. So the title Piao Liang Ma Ma means 'Beautiful Mother'. The show is about a single mother from the village living with her hearing-impaired son in the city. She struggles with his condition. Disabled children in China aren't exactly given the best of the best.

After an attempted rape on her by one of her employers, she deems that all men are..you know. BAD.

One day, her son manages to pronounce a word that he has been taking so long to learn. Her hope rises.

Well, I'm not gonna tell you the rest. You just have to watch the movie.

---Rating: 8/10

I saw this movie on a poor-quality VCD but the quality of the movie still came through. Gong Li is usually more outstanding in the beauty department than in the acting department, but this time she played a great film in dowdy clothes and almost no makeup.