I love this movie so much

Expected more

Excellent but underrated film

This is a tender, generous movie that likes its characters and presents them as real people, full of flaws and strengths.

Review: This is an epic and interesting movie about the famine in a place called Henan during the 1942 Japanese war which took 3 million people's life's. It follows a wealthy family who are forced to flee Henan with the rest of the many families who struggle to reach a better place, which will supply them with food and shelter. The journey takes its toll on the many families and the lack of food and freezing weather takes many of there life's. There's a lot of political issues connected to the reasons why they are forced out Henan, which are addressed in the movie but it's the touching story of the family which really made the movie for me. The acting is great from all of the cast and I really can't imagine how it must have been for the real people that were forced into this gruesome situation. I would have liked it dubbed in English so I could have concentrated on the emotional scenes but thats just me being picky. Although the subject matter is quite deep and the storyline was pretty interesting, I did get bored in some parts and it did seem to drag after a while. With that aside, the true story is amazing and I'm surprised that this epic journey about the people of Henan and there search for a better life, wasn't told earlier. Watchable!Round-Up: This is another one of those films were they put the big names on the poster and there not really in the film. In this case the people are Adrien Brody and Tim Robbins who only had small parts in the movie. To be honest, they were the reason why I rented the movie because I was wondering how they were involved in this epic tale but they wasn't the main characters in the film. Brody did play a massive role in getting the aid to the starving people who took part in this amazing journey but I didn't really see the point in Tim Robbins role. Anyway, I personally enjoy movies were you actually learn something and in this case, it's a piece of Chinese history which I hadn't heard about before. Its a shame that it didn't get the big Hollywood treatment because I'm sure that a lot of people will be shocked when they see what these individuals had to go through. They ended up thinking that dying was a blessing because the journey became too much for the people of Henan and the ones that survived, had to live with the fact that they lost there families and loved ones in such a terrible way.I recommend this movie to people who are into their epic dramas about the famine in Henan and there epic journey to find a better life, which took 3 million people's life's. 6/10

The epic of a disaster: a whole province in central China caught by drought, the people having no choice but leaving their households, taking the large road toward unknown, toward some illusory place where they could find food. Winter 1942-43, war, the army looting the refugees, the enemy bombing army and civilians together, the mass of refugees becoming a mob, all moral values forgotten, episodes of cannibalism, the political leaders caught in a cobweb of petty politics, corruption, and ineffectiveness... the death toll being somewhere between one and three million.Other stories of war and famine will keep coming, repeating the same script, endlessly, going on nowadays and forever... and as always people around turning a deaf ear, pretending unawareness, if not taking advantage:The story of the Honan famine rolled into Chungking like tumbleweeds blown by the wind. "I heard from a man who was there …" "I saw in a letter from Loyang …" "In Sian they say that …" (Theodore H. White quoted in a site of the San Jose Stae Univ.)A survivor's grandchild would tell the story, and based on his novel this movie was made in 2012. A movie with epic breathe, shifting from the mob of refugees to the regional leaders to the national level, up to Generalissimo (Chang Kai-Shek), coming back to the victims, one of the heroes repeating the story of Job, among all atrocities around, nobody's innocent, nobody's evil, it's just our human condition here, it's about us, humans, in one of our worst moments.

A tamer version of my review in desensitized words: Good film, could've been a great film.A rather controlled and somber depiction of a dark chapter in modern history, subtly echoing another tragedy that happened 16 years later. Surprisingly un-judgmental and un-sentimental for a historical film recreating despair and lowest possible form of human existence.Feng presents the multiple layers of clues and facts that lead to the ultimate tolls almost as-matter-of-factly, leaving the audience putting together the puzzles and drawing their own conclusions, which is a rather clever way of avoiding censorship and engaging the audience.Could have been A LOT grittier and more affecting. The acting is powerful in this film. However for a film depicting a major famine that claimed over 3 million lives in recent history, not much huger is shown as visuals in the film, most of the lingering hunger is talked about/acted out (as opposed to being displayed visually) which reduces the general affecting power of the film.Xu Fan and Zhang Guo-Li are amazing in this film with their acting. Xu gives her most powerhouse performance yet, portraying the tough bottom- feeder hillbilly b*tch who would attempt anything/everything in defending her and her family's rights to live. However for a country woman who's been starving for over 100 days and more than willing to sell her bottom half for a couple of crackers, what's with her double- chin? (think Jennifer Lawrence's face in The Hunger Game – she can act all she wants but I'm sorry, girlfriend is just NOT that hungry) What TF happens to her makeup artist team and special visual effects people?!Adrien Brody is effectively engaging as a very eager T.H. White who's desperately trying to expose the truth, whether driven by his journalist instincts, Pulitzer, or a genuine sympathy for the poor and depraved. However don't even get me to start with Tim Robbins - why is he even in the film??? The couple of scenes he's in are cringe-inducing. Even if you edit them out altogether it would not affect the story's flow whatsoever.

Before I went to watch this movie, I thought it might be another attempt by another Chinese director to win western market. I thought it might be another hero, a weird martial arts movie that surprisingly pleased western market but not me, a Chinese who grew up with martial arts culture.How wrong I was, this movie was all about Chinese: government corruption, Chinese fighting Chinese, and bureaucratism, the movie showed them all, and more importantly, real. This movie does not only have the stunning visuals all the big budget Hollywood movies have, but it also has an amazing way of telling history. The movie showed the how cruel a war could be, by telling story of a rich family in Henan province at 1942, when there were a drought and a war threatening. The overall tone was serious, but you will be laughing at some little humors now and then.I would definitely suggest this movie to anyone who is interested in Chinese culture. For it displayed a real china, unpleasant, even sad, but its real.