User Reviews

and that piece of paradise is the soul of a little kid.

In the violent political turmoil, people's morale and ethnics are twisted and the only clean soul that was unpolluted by the nasty political turmoil could only exist in the hearts of little kids. For anyone who suffered through that era, it is extremely difficult not to be touched by this movie.

It is not a sign of weakness that you have tears in your eyes when watching this movie, it is a sign that you have a heart. However, do not be feel bad if you do not have tears in your eyes because such tragedy would never happen in west, and hopefully, never again in China either.

This movie details the story of an intellectual family living through the cultural revolution in China. It portrays the terrible cost wrought on the intellectual and cultural life of one family in particular during this revolution, synechdochic of the Chinese population at large.

Against the bleak back-drop of revolutionary China, where schooling has been reduced to mathematics and learning quotations from Chairman Mao, a mother secretly nurtures her only daughter on ancient Chinese tales and legends, since outlawed by the party as backwards confucianist garbage. Through the mother's recounting of these tales, the audience learns as much as the daughter; that beauty can exist in an otherwise bleak world. But like all great traditional tales, the lessons in them are two-fold. Children's stories for adults. We are not only enchanted by beautiful tales, we witness the triumph of literature which is able, in this woman's greatest time of need, to say something which resonates deeply with her humanity, and saves her soul from being crushed from the brutal communist regime.

This is a very powerful movie, one to see if you are taking for granted culture or literature's importance in society.