User Reviews

For anyone who was around back in 1970, esp. in Germany, this movie is a real nostalgia bomb. The star is the boy singer Heintje, who was a big pop star back then, at least in Europe. I don't think he ever caught on in the U.S.

At the time it was released, it was a kids movie. Now, it is camp. I mean that in a good way. It was fun to see it after all these years, and though the full blown orchestral production of the songs Heintje sings in the movie seem odd (riding in a convertible, he opens his mouth and a full music studio sound comes out) it is just the way they did it in those movies. Think Elvis in any number of movies, you get the idea.

Also some nice views of the French Riviera back then. Cool.

It's a children's musical movie. Similiar style is "Sound of Music", of course, latter one was more well known and well made. :P (Interesting fact, apparently sound of music is not widely known in Austria). Except that there is no dancing and this movie is actually in German.

Plot: Teenager Heintje's mother died, father wrongly accused of financial fraud and arrested. Heintje moved in with his maternal grandpa, who was a rich/stingy man with bad temper and didn't like the marriage of Heintje's parents, and thus didn't care for Heintje. 90 minutes of comedy/singing/car-chasing later, justice served, ppl fell in love, stone cried...

I watched this when I was growing up in China when I was kid (80's). Now one of my childhood friends, who is depressed and become sentimental and nostalgic (listening to light FM now, yuck!), want me to find it for him because he think it is therapeutic. This is quite a task because we only know its chinese names. I searched chinese web site to get director's name "Han Hai-En-Lee-Chie", and guessed Heinrich ...

The reason I mention this is, I guess this movie made a kid recall it 20 years later, maybe it's actually good, or maybe that kid was a retard. :) For kid under 14, okay, maybe under 10 only.

I was shocked to see that this movie's rating is so low.

In case you don't know, this movie was super popular when it was played in China during the early 80's. I was still a teenager myself. It left me a good memory. Therefore, I felt the need to give it a 10 and write a comment, since there was only one comment left on this page.

Anyway, back to China, at that time, China didn't have a lot of money to import big Hollywood movies, and the government itself was very strict on which movies were allowed to be imported. So Chinese people had little choices. And at the same time, not many people had TVs at their homes, and there were only a few TV stations in every city. Further, the entertainment industry was only in the early stage. DVD players were not even invented at that time. VCR was probably very expensive, and not many people can afford to buy those tapes, either. So in conclusion, there were not many things people can do for fun.

Movie tickets were cheap at that time, and watching a movie at a movie theater was a big part of people's life, I suppose. Then there came this German movie, it didn't involve any politics, and it was just about an innocent good looking boy with a nice voice who can sing some really beautiful songs. And the story line was not too bad at all.

Unlike the foreign movies played in the US, almost all foreign movies were dubbed in China. So common people can watch the movie easily. The songs were innocent, and not too "capitalist." So those songs were also very popular. Many young kids including myself actually learned how to sing that song "Kleine Kinder,kleine Sorgen" in Chinese. Even today, I still remember how to sing it. And because of that movie, I even searched online for a quite long time, even ordered a CD sang by Heintje all the way from Germany. =) And that is my story about this movie.

In the west,this film may be easily neglected as time goes by.But amazingly,HEINTJE would definitely be crowned as one of the memorable western films on Chinese screen even from today's perspective.Although filmed in 1960s,the film wasn't available in red China until earlier 1980s.When the film was introduced,it was given a Chinese title HANDSOME BOY.

Actually,HEINTJE conforms with Chinese traditional values to great extend,such as parental and grand parental love,the theme of harmonious family,main character's righteous and courageous virtue.All of which seem pretty familiar and quite acceptable to Chinese point of view.What's more,the songs performed by little HEINTJE SIMONS also contributes a lot to the popularity of the film in China.

Without any exaggerating,the film is a household name among those middle-aged and well-educated. And Chinese versions of THE LAST ROSE IN SUMMER and LITTLE CHILD,LITTLE SORROW,TWO LITTLE STARS,BIRTHDAY SONG have become the classics.

From Chinese perspective,the film is 9 out of 10.

I was 16 when I saw this movie and you wouldn't expect a 16 yr old male to like it but I did. In the midst of all my teenage angst, I liked the movie because Heintje was clean, simple, happy and systematic as opposed to his father's fuzziness - all the characteristics I would have liked to be instead of being rebellious, dark and moody. His music was the typical oompahpah as compared with Black Sabbath and Led Zeppelin I was listening to and now I find myself watching Heintje on You Tube and wondering about the early 70s. We were only 1 year apart but we had two very different lives. My sister bought his American LP Heintje and we played it over and over. I see that Heintje is still alive and still singing as Hein Simons. I'm happy for him and I thank him for his music and golden voice. I wish him all the best,

river

Don't remember if I had watched the movie. But the songs in the movie bring me back for 30 years, after a friend of mine forwarded the songs to a group chat.

Like other reviewers from China, we were all lived in a 'forbidden' country ruled by communist for a time when beautiful music is so rare, like ration foods that you couldn't choose.

Heintje's movie and songs like the fresh spring air breezing into China ...

Having had grown up and lived in China through 1980's, I share the sentiment for the movie by several reviewers of the Chinese origin. I don't know a single person then who didn't love the handsome, caring, optimistic and courageous boy with a golden voice. For my daughter who grew up in the U.S. to study Chinese, I took some trouble to find the movie (dubbed in Chinese) and she loves it, too. We watched it together many times. Having seen so many great movies from the east and the west by now, I sometimes wonder if I love the movie out of nostalgia or its true value? The answer is always the latter.

Now onto the movie. In the movie, the boy, growing up with his widower father, runs the simple and happy household with love and humor. When the ill fate throws him into the house of his estranged, ill-temped and rich maternal grandfather, he melts the old man's heart after a series of unexpected events.

I saw the movie when I was still a young kid (younger than Heintje in the movie) in China and honestly couldn't remember much other than it's a nice movie. But the song "Kleine Kinder, kleine Sorgen" from this movie was my favorite. So beautiful and pure, its rhythms always makes me happy. On my 9th birthday, my parents called the local radio station for the song as my birthday present - still the most memorable birthday present I've ever received. So many years had passed and I sometimes wish I am still the "kleine Kinder" that I used to be, with "kleine Sorgen". They really should make more beautiful, loving, non-violent movies for today's children. It seems that most people commenting on the movie are Chinese. Was it popular in Germany when it was released in the 70's?

I watched it when I was a college student in China in the early 80s. As the Chinese culture was devastated in the Cultural Revolution, we the mainlanders sang a lot of foreign songs in those years---songs from "Sound of Music," songs by Deng Lijun, the famous Taiwanese singer, songs from some Indian movies and the songs from this movie which is translated into Chinese as "Ying1 Jun4 Shao4 Nian2" (The Handsome Young Man). One of the songs in the movie is "The Last Rose of Summer" which older people at that time who were exposed to British/American culture before the "liberation" (communist take-over in 1949) found very nostalgically beautiful. Now, more than 20 years after I first saw it, these songs are also a nostalgic beauty to me.

A high quality musical movie. A charming story with five beautiful songs by the childhood star - Heintje, the little hero who is playing the role of a detective after his father is innocently thrown into jail. It was very popular in China during 1980s, and affected not only one generation - both my mother and I like it very much. Since the move was totally dubbed, few people in China knows it's original name (It's Chinese name is Handsom Child), nor the name of Heintje. It took me three for searching this movie on the net, and finally found it by the lyric of the sound track...

Enjoy the memorable songs: Little child, little sorrow Two little stars The last rose in the summer

I watched the movie twice. Today, I watch it for the third time. Wow, I'm surprised to watched it again and still be interested in it. It isn't the sort of movies you will never watch again. The music in the movie < the last rose in summer > polish up the movie. All in all, It's my cup of tea.