Very very predictable, including the post credit scene !!!

The performances transcend the film's tropes, grounding it in characters that feel more complete than this subgenre often produces.

Fun premise, good actors, bad writing. This film seemed to have potential at the beginning but it quickly devolves into a trite action film. Ultimately it's very boring.

Actress is magnificent and exudes a hypnotic screen presence in this affecting drama.

all the knee-jerk reviewers with their banal, namby pamby comments used all the high ratings up. Get real people, she wants "nothing more than to have the village elder apologize to her husband". NO. She wants the apology for herself. How many people like this do I know? People who've never accomplished much of anything in their lives, but they run around like the Queen of Sheba, demanding the world listen to them above all else. "bureaucratic nightmare"?!?! She gets treated better than Americans do by both their government and most of the commercial organizations which we pay for service! "a completely convoluted and impregnable" system "totally devoid of compassion and understanding"? The system is open to her, even saying "you have a right to be suspicious, we might make mistakes" & then prompting her to take it to the next level. The system UNDERSTANDS that systems cannot make people APOLOGIZE. Systems can throw people in jail, fine them, etc. An apology is an emotion, not a system event. Her problem is she doesn't understand what things are worth & worth fighting for. She's always haggling over money in the film. What are things worth? What is an "I'm sorry" spoken by someone with a gun held to their head WORTH? Get real people. "the Chinese are quiet, gentle people"!?!? Yeah, tell that to all the victims of the Cultural Revolution, Tiananmen Square, etc. They are PEOPLE, some good, some bad, some gentle, some psychotic killers more interested in their own good time & fortune than in other people's next breath. Get real. "Oh, it shows the real Chinese countryside." It was made IN the Chinese countryside by Chinese! Were you expecting to be reminded of Coal Miner's Daughter & the Appalachians perhaps?All in all, fine acting and a fine Rorschach of a story. It drags quite a bit in the "local color" scenes, but for anyone who has never strayed more than 500 miles from their birthplace, there's the local color.

Zhang Yimou's "The Story of Qiu Ju" is not a masterpiece as is his film "Raise the Red Lantern." It doesn't have the epic qualities of "To Live" nor is it as visually stunning as "The Road Home." But "Qiu Ju" may well be Yimou's most thought provoking film, leaving you pondering the messages a long time after the film has ended.Qiu Ju's husband has been kicked ("where it counts") by the village chief. The only bit of justice Qiu Ju wants is an apology. It seems to be a simple enough request, but her search for the apology proves to be elusive as she encounters a legal system more interested in its own red tape than in the needs of ordinary people.But this is not "Erin Brockovich" where the sides of "good" and "bad" are easily defined. The people in the legal system Qiu Ju encounters are genuinely decent folks. They are also, unfortunately, a bit clueless. And Qiu Ju is not beyond reproach herself. At the conclusion of the film even she is realizing that she has pushed the matter too far.Just how far should one go to seek justice in this world? Even if you are totally in the right, does there come a time when you must let the matter rest for your own sake as well as everybody else's? There are no easy answers.This is another great performance by Gong Li in the title role. She may be one of the most beautiful women in the world, but here she is not above playing "dowdy." And as usual, Zhang Yimou is nearly flawless in his direction. He gives a wonderful tip of the hat to the late French director Francois Truffaut in the end, echoing that famous final shot of Truffaut's "The 400 Blows."But this is a film that will stick with you well past that last shot.

A simply story about a village woman seeking justice for the maltreatment of her husband by the Village chief. At first you wonder "so what!" but the unveiling of the Chinese system & the woman's determination rewards you for your time and patients.

Really enjoyed this one. Qiu Ju is the wife of a man who has been kicked by a neighbor, his village chief. She presses for an apology, largely (if subtitles do it justice) because, even though his chest is what hurts longer, he's been kicked in the "privates" and she wants more than one child. She takes her quest for the apology up the chain of officialdom.I couldn't get enough of the scenery - houses, city, carts, clothes, painted paper banners, dried peppers and corn - and the faces of people. As other viewers noted positively, the people in it didn't seem to be actors but real people, caught up in daily affairs and catching us up, too. The nearby village is somewhat familiar to her, but her trip to the city may have been her first. Watching her trying to find her way around, haggling for fair rates and help from a produce buyer, a bike-cart driver, a letter writer, a hotelier, and a lawyer was a lot of fun. Her trips seemed like a great introduction to the culture.One of the things I loved was how the families and neighbors kept having complex interactions with each other throughout the ordeal. And the social roles in this were interesting: Farm/village chief to farmer, sister to sister, daughter-in-law to her in-laws, Party officials to their hierarchy and to citizens, country to city, women's role in general (as in what sex babies are preferred) and the strong stance of a specific woman like Qiu Ju, who seemed to be empowered as much as frustrated by the system and by her family and neighbors.I read reviews of this as a negative comment on bureaucracy. If so, it showed a remarkably humane one. Flaws were on display but the overall tone was of acceptance.The sudden ending left me feeling for the main characters. I seemed to see a judgment in it, but wasn't sure what that judgment was. I wanted to know how the story was interpreted in China, so I came to IMDB to at least see how others took it.