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.
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.