Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress (2002) User Reviews

Beautifully understated

[j30bell · 7/10 · 17 March 2006]

This Sino-French film breaks no particular new ground, is not strong on action or drama, and is unlikely to move you either to great joy, or to tears. Despite this, there is something innately satisfying about watching it, which defies casual analysis.

The story centres on two young men, Ma and Luo. Coming from "reactionary bourgeois" families in the city, they are sent by the Chinese authorities for "re-education" to a beautiful yet achingly backward and isolated community in the mountains. There they undertake menial work, live in comparative squalor, but predictably find love in the form of the same woman – known throughout the film simply as "the little seamstress".

While "Balzac…" will win few originality awards, its strength lies in execution.

Sijie Dai manages to tell his story (which is semi-autobiographical) in a straightforward way. The local party chief is ignorant and officious without ever descending into malignancy. Ma and Luo are engaging without being overtly benevolent. The "peasants" are ignorant without being stupid. As love blossoms, the emotion of the film moves from repression to longing.

There are some wonderful, poignant moments in the film too, which underscore the mood. The local party chief exclaims early in the film "revolutionary peasants will never be corrupted by filthy bourgeois chicken"; Ma and Luo are sent to the cinema with instructions to tell the story to the village on their return; the little seamstress comments wistfully that she can "see planes flying overhead, and wonder to what far cities they are going" reminding us painfully that this is the 1960s not the 1860s.

Mostly, though, the audience is reminded of the futility of repression; the insatiable thirst for knowledge and new ideas, even among the villagers who are transfixed by the basic choices to be found in a city-boy's cookbook.

The cinematography is also wonderful. Apart from the flood sequence at the end, there is nothing flashy about it (and, given the scenery, it's possible that even I could do a fair job of making the film look pretty) but it is precisely the understated nature of the cinematography that I loved.

If the film has any particular weakness, its end (at least in terms of the Phoenix Mountain segment) is abrupt and seems not to follow logically from what has gone before. This is a small criticism though.

Many films today, even the good ones, seem to force their themes upon the audience by brute force, yet upon leaving the cinema, there seems little to talk about or ruminate over. "Balzac…", at least for me, was the opposite. Its light touch has worked its way into my unguarded consciousness. It is a welcome guest, and long may it stay.

Reading the French classics

[jotix100 · 8/10 · 19 September 2005]

Sijie Dai's wonderful novel, "Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress" was a joy to read. The author, who one thinks must live in France, made it possible for people that haven't read the book to see it as a motion picture that captures the spirit of the novel.

The action takes place in the China of the Red Brigades. As they swept the country, they wanted to rid of all foreign influence in their culture because it was perceived as a threat to the system. Among the people that fell prey to the hysteria of those days, two young city young men were apprehended and sent to a remote area by the magical Phoenix mountains to start work in one of the mines in the area as part of their reeducation, or brain washing process.

Young Luo and Ma, can't do without their beloved books and the violin that one of them played. Suddenly, these two young men are once again seen as a threat to their small community which is dominated by a man with a small mind who sees evil everywhere. The young men are appalled when they discover that most of the people around them are illiterate. Thus begins a series of readings from the classical books, mostly French, and the young men disguise as coming from another source.

When the tailor for the area arrives with his little assistant, both Luo and Ma can't help in falling in love for her. Only one of them will be successful in being loved back by the beautiful young woman.

The film is beautiful to watch. The impressive backdrop to the story serves as a distraction, at times, into this majestic area of China. The director has achieved a magic moment for the viewer by capturing beautiful images about a place at the end of the world.

very good. accurate, and beautifully done

[ViolentApathy · 8/10 · 17 December 2004]

this movie I watched only because I red the book first which is excellent. the movie is fairly loyal to the book. only 1 or 2 things are added, but other than that is is very accurate. the movie was created like it was taken right out of the book. the love story is charming and the characters are never annoying and never get tiresome. the atmosphere created in this movie is brilliant. a delight to watch. you could fall in love with The little seamstress just the way to protagonist and Luo do.the scenery is perfect, and makes you wish to be re-educated, although... not at all. just watch this movie. not a break through but certainly an enjoyable story.

A sentimental tone poem

[howard.schumann · 3 February 2003]

In 1971, Mao's Cultural Revolution swept over China, shutting down universities and banishing "reactionary intellectuals", meaning boys and girls who had graduated from high school, to the countryside to be re-educated by the poor peasants. Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress, France's nominee for Best Foreign Film at this year's Golden Globe Awards, is about re-education and is based on the experience of the director Dai Sijie who spent four years of his life in a similar program.

In this French/Chinese collaboration, two teenage boys, Ma (Ye Liu), a stand-in for Sijie, and Luo (Kun Chen), are sent to live on the remote mountain known as Phoenix in the Sky. Sijie describes the setting in his autobiographical novel of the same name, "The Phoenix of the Sky comprised some twenty villages scattered along the single serpentine footpath or hidden in the depths of gloomy valleys. Usually each village took in five or six young people from the city. But our village, perched on the summit and the poorest of them all, could only afford two: Luo and me. We were assigned quarters in the very house on stilts where the village headman had inspected my violin. This building was village property, and had not been constructed with habitation in mind. Underneath, in the space between the wooden props supporting the floor, was a pigsty occupied by a large, plump sow-likewise common property. The structure itself was made of rough wooden planks, the walls were unpainted and the beams exposed; it was more like a barn for the storage of maize, rice and tools in need of repair."

In the early part of the film, the boys have to use their wits to stay one step ahead of the authorities. In one incident, when the village chief wants to confiscate their violin because he thinks it is a bourgeois toy, they save their instrument by telling him they will play a sonata called "Mozart is Thinking of Mao". In another episode, the chief burns a cookbook, the only book the boys have brought with them, because "Revolutionary peasants will never be corrupted by a filthy bourgeois chicken." Ma and Luo seek to avoid the heavy work that takes its toll by reading books and enjoying music. They steal "subversive" novels of Honore de Balzac, Flaubert, Dostoevsky, and Gogol from a student named Four-Eyes and read them to the granddaughter of the local tailor, known only as the Little Chinese Seamstress (Xun Zhou,). While reading, both boys fall in love with the girl, and, through Balzac, discover "awakening desire, passion, impulsive action, love, all the subjects that had, until then, been hidden". The unsophisticated girl is deeply affected and feels herself "carried away in a dream". Inspired by the literature, she seeks to escape from the limitations of her present life. By the time the end credits roll around, her biggest influence has been, not Chairman Mao or the Village Chief, but Balzac himself. Talk about a Cultural Revolution.

While the acting is strong, Xun Zhou looks more like a model from a Beijing studio than a naïve mountain seamstress and the boys seem more like symbols of the power of art than real people undergoing a difficult and painful experience. Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress wants to tell an important story, but comes across as a bit too precious, trivializing its material in a sentimental tone poem that ultimately fails to satisfy. It may, however, succeed in stimulating a revival of Pere Goriot.

a wonderful tale of love found and lost

[Ihad · 7/10 · 6 August 2004]

This movie is most memorable for its beautiful scenery and while the story itself is told with skill and ambition it still lacks proper pace at times. Less would have been more here.

Also it seems that as the movie nears its end the writers had a hard time thinking of a artistically pleasing ending and by doing so overdid it just a bit. The underwater scene at the end, while having a melancholic touch, did come across as rather forced for an otherwise "natural" film.

The characters are all believable, amicable, intriguing and make you all the more interested in the story, which takes place during the Chinese cultural revolution. Do not expect historic facts since this is no documentary but a tale of love found and lost. A wonderfully poetic one, too.

A highlight of independent film making. 7/10

Adorable Poetic Love Story in Times of Changing

[claudio_carvalho · 10/10 · 24 October 2005]

In 1971, in the China of Mao Tse Tung, the two university students Luo (Kun Chen) and Ma (Ye Liu) are sent to a mountain mining village with very ignorant peasants and also a Maoist rehabilitation camp, to be reeducated. Both fall in love for the illiterate granddaughter of the local tailor, called "little seamstress". They become friends, and Luo and Ma steal forbidden books of western literature, and while they read the books and teach the little seamstress, they also tell the story to the community and play classical music in the violin, developing and improving their lives.

What a magnificent and beautiful movie is "Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress". In a wonderful landscape with stunning scenery, this revolutionary love story about the importance of books to improve the life of people is very believable and I am not sure whether it is based on a true story. I regret that the DVD released in Brazil by Europa distributor has interviews with the cast and director spoken in Mandarin and without subtitles. My vote is ten.

Title (Brazil): "Balzac e a Costureirinha Chinesa" ("Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress")

A Nostalgic Look at Young People Impacted by the Cultural Revolution

[noralee · 6/10 · 20 September 2005]

"Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress (Xiao cai feng)" raises the awkward situation of commenting on a semi-autobiographical story which was originally written, then adapted and directed by the person who lived it in the same, beautiful locations where the events that inspired Sijie Dai took place. How much is fiction and how much is docu-drama? And I haven't read the book so I don't know how much he changed.

The basics of the story would seem like a 1940's sci fi allegory of a totalitarian, anti-intellectual society if the Cultural Revolution under the here ubiquitously revered ruler Mao Tse Tung hadn't actually happened, with its anti-literate class-based revenge of kicking the children of the perceived elite out of the cities to rural areas for re-education at rigorous manual labor. In outline, his story is like a real life "Fahrenheit 451" and "the Little Seamstress," the teen ager, played charmingly by Xun Zhou, who gets caught up in a triangle between the out-of-towners, like "Ninotchka." She, startlingly, has far more ambition than the loyal peasant girl in "The Road Home."

So it's hard to tell if the strong condescension in the tone to the local peasantry is what the two young men finally learn to overcome or is somewhat shown to be just as endemic in the Communist Party as is seen at the end they were suppressing the beauty of local traditions almost as much as intellectual influences. Because the premise that transforming aesthetics can only come from outside influences through movies, fashion and Western literature and music just seems anthropologically naive as they poke fun at and trick the locals. We do see that the peasants appreciate story telling, sewing and songs - but only of the most earthy kind until the re-educated sneak in their experiences, disguised as homages to Lenin or Mao. For example, with the almost universality of stringed instruments in human culture, it's hard to believe that peasants would be that skeptical when first exposed to a violin.

The film is at its strongest, and loveliest, when it sticks to the personal relationships that result from contacts with the locals, as human nature is more powerful than ideology and youth is simply irrepressible and non-Orwellian. The romantic triangle plays out beautifully and gently demonstrates male instincts for Pygmalion control, irrespective of politics. The story affirms the Law of Unintended Consequences, heavily symbolized at the end with the coming of a dam on the river that will have the same effect on these towns as the TVA had on now forgotten communities in Appalachia.

This tender and poignant nostalgia is a chronological and thematic prequel to the less optimistic "The World (Shijie)" in showing the impact of globalization on China and its people.

a beautiful movie about friendship and how experiences change people

[bradleyelfman · 9/10 · 20 November 2005]

I was really moved by the portrayal of the friendship of the Little Seamstress, Ma, and Luo, and how their lives were changed by their experience in the mountains in this brief span of time. The mountains were beautiful, the re-educators were not presented as monsters, and the acting, esp Xun Zho as Little Seamstress and Ye Liu as Ma was really good. Xun Zho reminded me of the young Gong Li in Red Sorghum. Most importantly, I rediscovered how lucky I am to be able to read and watch what I want when I want, and how I am almost obligated to take advantage of my freedom to read and watch movies.

For me, the filming was never as strong as the better Asian movies but once the movie got going the filming became stronger as did the movie.

The character of the harshness of the cultural revolution in China in the 60's was shown thru a politically soft-focus lens, but I did not mind this as there are more than enough Chinese movies that have leaned in the other direction, and for me, this was a movie about friendship and love in a political and cultural setting, not the other way around which matches my own personal preferences.

It sure looks ironic to need a movie, to remind you that a world without books is a prison for your mind.

[arneweber · 6/10 · 19 January 2004]

Balzac and the little Chinese seamstress is one of those movies, you're glad you caught at your local cinema, even though you never originally planned to see it. Because it's one of those movies that remind you there's more to cinema than just Hollywood-Blockbuster formula stuff, and if you already knew that, than there's even more than your usual 'trying to hard to be arthouse cinema' stuff.

Sounds like high praise? Don't get me wrong here. I gave it a 6 out of 10 (though it pushes hard for a 7). The story is based on a book of a Chinese author, living in France. And maybe that is, why it worked. On the one side you have a Chinese setting, Chinese actors and a the background of Chinese communism in the seventies, on the other side you have a story you can culturally relate to without being Chinese (or even knowing much about Chinese history or culture (and that doesn't leave a universal love story as the only option you sugarcoated romance freaks)). Take both together and you have an utterly satisfying movie-experience.

The one thing, that's strange though is the fact that it's about the value of books. It sure looks ironic to need a movie, to remind you that a world without books is a prison for your mind. Hmmm! Okay, maybe I'll change my vote to a 7. And now let me continue to read...

Is the ending as straightforward as it seems?

[pt_spam_free · 9/10 · 19 May 2007]

We showed this film to an audience of 30 at our Community Cinema here in Shrsophire, and were astonished at its wholehearted power and pleasure. The average rating was just over 9.

**** spoiler *** But what about the ending? None of us had read the novel, so were able only to make our judgements based on what we saw. Another IMDb commentator tells us that the seamstress's re-education via Balzac was life enhancing and that she was saved from a state of ignorance and isolation by it. And that is what most of us saw - but a couple of days later, I began to think again - such a message would hardly have seemed likely to get today's Chinese State's support, so would they allow it to be made within their territory? So,was she a fulfilled young woman, made "better" by Balzac? Which girl left the village before the valley was flooded - she did, but which one was happy and smiling, and even about being moved to a new site in the near future? Not the seamstress - she'd left with no goodbyes, no smile, no security, no company, no long hair, no money, no virginity, no baby and no pride. We heard no more about her than that she'd been sought out by one of the young men, who'd learned that she may have gone to Hong Kong. As what, though? We are not told. As a happy-as-Larry top class clothes designer perhaps, or as a sewing machine sales-person - or as a "lost soul" prostitute? I wonder if someone's got the definitive answer?

A different way of life

[GwydionMW · 7/10 · 1 February 2005]

Avoiding clichés, the movie shows a way of life where most people are thinking in a different way from the West.

You see dissidents exercising a lot of ingenuity against the controls of the Cultural Revolution. A piece of Western music is renamed 'Mozart Loves Chairman Mao' to get it accepted.

It also shows you why Chinese Communism didn't collapse in 1989 and is in no danger of such a collapse. You see a degree of niceness and trust among ordinary people that is seriously eroded over here. (See Peter Hessler's 'River Town' for another much-praised example.) The film also ends with a question-mark. The 'Little Seamstress' goes off to a big city and later moves on to Hong Kong. Doing what is not specified, but she got the idea from Balzac, apparently.

Not subtle, but still enjoyable

[Red-125 · 9/10 · 10 November 2003]

Balzac et la petite tailleuse chinoise (2002)(shown in the U.S. as

"Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress" is a movie that is pleasant to watch, but that doesn't provide much to think about later.

This film,directed by Sijie Dai, is a French-Chinese coproduction.

The basic story line is not subtle. Two educated young Chinese men are sent to a remote part of the country for "re-education." This was a time in China where everyone with possible ties to the West was suspected of being an enemy of the people. To remove these tendencies, educated, cultured people were sent to the remote countryside and forced to do physical labor, and attend educational sessions, until they had been successfully rehabilitated.

Two friends--Luo and Ma--are young and healthy, and able to withstand the physical labor. However, they certainly have finer values in mind: music and especially literature. Luckily, through a ruse, one of the men is able to keep his violin. They also manage to find books of translations of great literature--including Balzac.

A young woman is added to the equation--the Little Seamstress of the title. The actor Xun Zhou plays this role. Predictably, she is lovely and charming, and both of the young men are smitten.

Most of the remainder of the movie describes incidents at the re-education site. Some are humorous, some are sad, some are romantic. At the very end of the film, we are brought into present-day China, so that we learn the fate of the characters we see as young people. (Other people attending the movie had read the book, and told us that this ending was tacked onto the film, which lessened the emotional impact.)

In any event, I enjoyed this movie, and learned something more about history and also the social structure of China. However, this is clearly a romance, not a documentary, and should be viewed with that caveat in mind.

Delicate, poised story of romance that does well not to trivialise an oppressive era, instead tells an involving love story.

[johnnyboyz · 7/10 · 28 October 2011]

At the core of 2003's Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress, a film directed by a man adapting his own novel, is a bond shared between two men at a time of oppression and punishment - something which is threatened into disintegration on account of a young woman seemingly coming between them. Much later on, when one half of this masculine double-act embraces the titular Chinese seamstress, his long-time friend peers through slats in a nearby shack at their lonely coming together up on a rock beside a stretch of water - itself a highly romanticised image within a film about nastiness at a time of political and cultural strife. As he looks on, there is a looming sense of whatever little fondness the film infers he has for her is clashing with the fact she is coming between him and his friend; in spite of the fact the film is somewhat of a love story, this sense of men and males bonding in harsh circumstances takes centre stage - Dai Sijie's film deceptively about the fondness two people share for a member of the opposite sex and more-so about the understanding two of the same gender have with one another; those around them and their predicament.

If one were to say that the sorts of films Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress feigns to be more often than not end with a heterosexual embrace, the final few scenes of this film display a muted mutual understanding of what two people of the same gender went through: thinking along the lines of 'we experienced all of that, lost it, but still have each other'. The characters we observe during the opening shots move in a very robotic manner; they lumber up steep hills to the backdrop of mountains but both the reasons they're there and the tasks they must carry out whilst there do not match up with the picturesque view on display. Where they are is a punishment camp in the nether-regions of early 1970s China, a nation undergoing change what with its cultural and political crises then-presently unfolding closer to the top - a nation deeming it worthy to send a man to one of these rural correctional facilities if it means they were a dentist who corrected a bad tooth for someone in support of the present government's opposition. Such a man is Luo (Chen), a young adult suffering through the same hardships with a good friend named Ma (Liu), of whom is a bit of a musician.

From robotic foundations comes the film about characters exploring books and music and other texts at the higher end of culture; items which touch the characters so much that they decide to print verses from their favourite banned material on their shirts so they may feel how they feel. Such a thing strikes us as being akin to people in our contemporary Western world walking around with song lyrics or images from their favourite movies on their T-shirts; we take it as a given, these people must hide their enthusiasm. The film is a piece about two, gently mutating into three, fellows broadening both their creativity and thinking whilst at the same time their feelings for one another. It begins with a finding of a small shed housing banned material, instruments and books by the eponymous Balzac among others. Ceturies old classical works by famous Austrain composers are allowed to be played by the likes of Ma, but only if it means successfully fobbing off the superior officer on guard with promises that it is in actual fact a recent tune promoting the regime.

It carries on with the arrival of Xun Zhou's character, an attractive young woman arriving at the camp to hear Ma play and coming to stick around a while longer when she discovers their illegal lust for such things matches that of hers. It progresses further still when Luo and the seamstress get closer than they perhaps should; their occupying of a police-governed and totalitarian state run nation, in which power-play and control plays a large role in factoring how people live; exist and behave, leads to a deep fondness when the seamstress is charged with flogging his back to cure his malaria – this symbolic occurrence of power exchange ultimately leading them to an embrace and affecting their own existence and behaviour. On the one hand, the film is a deftly played love story following three people deeply involved in what they've got themselves into, but it is an affecting dialogue driven drama that slides into believable tragedy as the circumstances they find themselves in, due to certain complications, befall the threesome. Its sense of advancing its characters, in having Ma and Luo enjoy sneaking up on the female population of the camp during the opening exchanges as they bathe nude in a natural spring, is prominent as they come to indulge the seamstress' presence and begin to understand women much more in that regard. The fondness characters develop for one another is believable, while Sijie, what with all the expectancy lumped onto him given it is his novel; his screenplay; his adaptation and his whole project, brings to life this vision's story with punch – the thing totalling up into a worthwhile experience.

The cultural revolution was never like this

[barlenon · 4/10 · 20 December 2007]

"Balzac and the little seamstress" is French made film which portrays the profound impact that illicit French literature has on a peasant Chinese village during the cultural revolution. Outsiders, two city boys sent from the big city for re-education, breezily deal with the hardship of peasant life and the disapproval of their bourgeois ways. Fortunately for them, they are saved by their discovery of the presence of a stash of cultured (mostly French) foreign literature. They then begin their own re-education project in an effort to bring civilization to object of their love, the cute little seamstress. Unfortunately the film becomes an unconvincing lesson in the enlightening impact of European and particularly French culture when presented to rural Sichuan peasants. The pretensions of this concept are bad enough. But even this half-baked concept becomes more laughable the hands of this ham-fisted director. Attempts at comedy fall flat and the character relationships are empty. Without this there is little of value in such a film except for the undeniably beautiful setting.

A reminder of why I like escapism

[mel2surf · 20 October 2003]

I wanted to see a few films at the recent Asian Film Festival here in San Diego. So I chose three films that seemed to grab my interest. "Balzac and The Little Chinese Seamstress" was one of them. So after seeing an ok film from Taiwan the night before,I headed down to the cool art theatre this night to catch "The Little Chinese Seamstress." Wow! Packed house...wow! one empty seat next to me,and an attractive Asian girl by herself sits down..wow! I was lost in the film,as was the rest of the audience(including the cute girl) This film took a wide eyed,but intelligent swipe at the upside down vision of Mao's Cultural Revolution,and asked us"What if?" The simple,humorous story,and the lead characters drew that whole audience in,and reminded me of why I like the movies. I like a good heavy drama as much as anyone,but as I sat there in the dark packed house that night flying over the most beautiful lush Chinese landscapes,and really being involved in the three characters plights,amid tears and sniffles scattered throughout the theatre(i got choked up a bit too) I realized that sometimes less is more in filmmaking,and it can mean the difference between connecting with the story and characters,and just being along for the ride du jour. This film plays like a classical piece of music you never want to end.

Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress

[walshthgrade · 7/10 · 13 May 2007]

Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress by Sijie Dai

The film was a very affectionate story right in between important events and right at the very end where it showed an important past of Luo(Kun Chen), Ma(Ye Liu), and The little seamstress(Xun Zhou) in the shed where they were re-educated and where Luo and Ma first feel in love with the Little Seamstress. I always thought that something would happen between Ma(Ye Liu) and Luo(Kun Chen) over the Little Seamstress(Xun Zhou) because Ma was always down about seeing Luo with The Seamstress, and i thought his jealousy would get in the way later on.

"Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress" is a passionate film that idealizes two guys who are in love with one girl and shows how determined the two guys were in trying to change the girl.

However the film lacks a more passionate ending like Luo should have tried to get Ma and try to look for the Little Seamstress even though she went so far, then i thought they would meet up in the end when they were older.

In the Story the Little Chinese Seamstress, Luo and Ma are two re-educated guys that both fall in love with a girl named the Little Chinese Seamstress. Luo and Ma both try to find a way to reform the Little Seamstress by using forbidden books. Luo falls in love with the Seamstress and Ma tries to not fall in love with the Little Seamstress for Luo.

One element of the film i liked is how Ye Liu takes out his violin and plays Mozart. Ye Liu showed a very good additional theme to the story by playing a song with such a soft melody symbolizing harmony and peace. It somewhat showed how Ye Liu's character is and how it might shape him in the future in the film as Ma. One element of the film i really didn't like was when Kun Chen's character Luo wanted to change the Little Seamstress so that she would match up to him. Luo was a bit selfish but when it happened Luo fell in love with her anyways.

The film was directed by Sijie Dai, who used the books and Concepts of Balzac, who is an author and introduces the New form of the Little Seamstress as time went by. Each one of the books that were read to the Little Seamstress by Ma and Luo gave the Little Seamstress that certain reason to leave and find something new in the city. The characters find themselves in that certain place, the place in memory where it all began, in that certain shed, where they had discovered one thing in particular, Balzac.

Review by :geoffrey c. 5/13/07

Trancelike Story Of Chinese Beauty

[eveworth · 10/10 · 4 September 2005]

This is the Chinese Jules et Jim...so beautiful in its misty mountains...it's hard truths about communism and political harshness. Unbelievable in its many awful truths. But ultimately, one of the most beauteous of all films...especially in the way it deals with the entry into the imagination of beauty through reading, which was forbidden to these peasants...but they took a risk anyway in order to experience those pleasures.

I will always remember this film and its transforming power over my rational mind. I believe the power of this film is the human spirit which sounds like blah blah blah but I really mean it. The human spirit soars from beginning to end in the story. The film captures every moment.

Failed Ending

[cloudsponge · 6/10 · 10 June 2013]

I thoroughly enjoyed this movie up until the ending. There was a fourth major character whose vital importance to the ending was ignored, a character who intruded into their menage a trois: the gynecologist/abortionist. It was extraordinarily difficult for him to make that long trip deep into the mountains. Why would he do it, and risk all? Why? Because he found an attractive 18-year-old woman who was a known goer able to keep a secret whom he wanted to make into his mistress. He bought and took away one thing Ma had that most seduced the seamstress: Ma's violin. Did the doctor also buy all the books, or maybe just the Balzacs? Without these the two boys would be less attractive, less interesting, boring even, to the dishonest little seamstress (dishonest? Whose idea was it to steal four-eyes' valise of books?). When she left the mountains at the end the seamstress' statement to Luo that her leaving was due to Balzac was not necessarily entirely true. People do not always tell everyone the truth all of the time. In her case what was she going to tell her ex-lover, that she had fallen for the sweet talk of a more worldly man? What letters she and the doctor may have exchanged, or even further meetings they may have had after the abortion we don't know. But yes, the seduction of her by the words of Balzac led to her pregnancy, and that led to her leaving.

So this is the ending that should have been: A scene of her reaching town, being met in the darkness of night by the doctor and ensconced in some third-rate hovel where she would commence her temporary life as his secret mistress. Another quick scene or two showing either him or her, or both tiring of the situation and her going on to some factory in Shenzen. Then from there (different hair style and clothing) to Hong Kong. She could become a bar hostess at a Bar called Champs Elysees and, there, meet some French guy who takes her to Paris.

It is beautiful irony that the money paid to Ma for his violin went to pay for the sneakers she used to walk to the doctor and her "new-and-exciting urban" life. ("Don't worry. I'll be fine in town," she said to Luo with complete confidence. Confident that there would be someone there waiting for her to make sure she was alright.).

An invaluably sad but exceptionally beautiful work of art

[jkujo · 10/10 · 15 July 2009]

An invaluably sad but exceptionally beautiful work of art realistically depicting instability and mutability of all things in modern life. It's inevitably fluid like nature of human evolution between one époque to another. I can feel ethereal touch of Author's filial love to his mother country china. It is easy to see that the Author was torn between his deep seated love for China and Ambition of prosperity on his chosen land (France) at the moment of his life time decision making. This is something that not many understand unless you are forced to leave from your homeland and love ones for a cause. I have left Japan , Kyoto and a noble born beloved fiancé along with almost all things I perceived exquisite at that time for an ambitious cause.

Augmented by an outstanding soundtracks with his genius touch in a perfect synchronization with emotion portrayed in screenplay. Since I have played harpsichord continuo part for Haendel's tragic opera such as Alcina, Otone and Radamisto for student soprano singers during rehearsals in the past, I can readily feel Author's masterful quality of refined artistic mind in every scene.

This is a second film that I bought for my collection of Dai Sijie's works. I must admit that he is a genius of screenplay when it comes to depicting moments of painful separation. Who else can reproduce so vividly on the screen with such poetic touch today? Julien Kujo, Palo Alto, California

lack of ups and downs and emotional scenes.

[Hunky Stud · 7/10 · 26 March 2006]

overall, this is a good movie. the scenery is very nice to look at, so out of this world. I found two mistakes. 1. both them speak with dialects. Then when one of the guy were talking to a local folksong singer, all of sudden, he started to talk in perfect mandarin which doesn't make sense. 2. At the end of the movie, the guy actually jumped into the water, and searched for the dead person's name among all those paper boats which seem to be fake. He could have just asked people about it.

The markup artists are great. They were able to change those two young men into middle age men without any obvious fake decorations.

I didn't think that it was necessary for those two characters to speak heavy dialects at all. If they are from the city, they should know how to speak the national language - Mandarin. It is so hard to understand those people, I had to read the English subtitles.

I also like the ending which seems like a copy from Titanic. It was well done.

That period of time was a tragic time. This movie could have a little more tear jerking moment, etc. It doesn't have any. And it also did not show us any dark side of the communist party, the craziness people get into.

Shame about the comment used on imdb "front page"

[zoelat · 10/10 · 2 November 2003]

Having seen this movie today, I can only feel sorry that the user comments used on the main page is so negative....the viewer must have been having a bad day or been in a restless mood, because the movie I saw, with two other filmgoers, was thought by all of us to have been excellent......poignant, moving and enthralling, but NEVER dull, let alone "painfully dull". I shall be watching out for a dvd of it.

Interesting Chinese movie, yet somewhat elitist

[Andy-296 · 7/10 · 5 June 2007]

This Chinese movie, set in 1971, is about two university students that in the middle of the Cultural revolution, are sent to a mountain village for reeducation, in order to "learn from the peasants". Amid the menial work they are forced to do and the stifling stupidity of the villagers, the pair manages some solace by seducing the young seamstress granddaughter of a local tailor, when they introduce her to a secret cache of forbidden books (including a tome by Honore de Balzac referred in the movie's title). The movie is interesting to watch, yet a bit ugly in its contempt for peasants, who are seen as ugly brutes, basically. This sort of ugly snobbery makes one almost think that maybe Mao had a few points in sending the haughty intellectuals to the countryside for reeducation (of course, in real life, reeducation during the cultural revolution was a much more brutal affair than it is shown here).

An Excellent Movie!

[Sylviastel · 9/10 · 5 May 2011]

I haven't read the book but I have to say that this movie was almost perfect except for the ending. It's about two Chinese male teens sent to the Phoenix Mountains in China to be re-educated about Communism. There in the mountains, they meet an attractive Chinese little seamstress who they read books too like Balzac and others that are normally forbidden. It's a shame that in some parts of the world that censorship goes on but it does. In this movie, the storyline is neither simple nor too complex despite the subtitles. I found myself wanting to read the novel itself when I was done. I found the movie to be treasured and watched for years to come. I found the love story realistic and the ending was a bit vague as well. Regardless, the film showed the mountains of China during the 1970s, the hardship, the reality, and a way to escape their dreary lives.

Good but nothing special

[dbborroughs · 6/10 · 26 August 2007]

Two men are sent to a village in the mountains for re-education during Mao's cultural revolution. Both fall in love with a seamstress in the village to whom they read forbidden books to in stolen moments. Beautiful, but unevenly paced story about the power of literature and music to change the world and change ourselves. Mostly unremarkable, the film pretty much does what you think it will, and since the film wasn't made by Orwell the ending (or its type) is never really in doubt. I really enjoyed the interaction between the characters, the exchanges between them seem genuine and real but the plot line isn't gripping, this is a story about literature changing the world not a thriller with mad escapes. Admittedly watching this at 1230 in the morning didn't help my ability to remain focused, however I still think that I probably would have had my attention wander. That said worth a look, but not too late at night in the middle of a movie marathon

Set during the Cultural Revolution in Maoist China (late 1960s-early 70s), Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress follows a pair of young men, Luo and Ma

[Wwmbrd · 5/10 · 10 June 2016]

Set during the Cultural Revolution in Maoist China (late 1960s-early 70s), Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress follows a pair of young men, Luo and Ma, who have been sent from their homes in the city to the rural mountains in central China for the process of "re- education"- a Maoist program known as the "Down to the Countryside" movement. In short, the idea behind this was for the richer urban youth to "see how the other half lives", which instead served as a sort of exile of youth and their potentially revolutionary ideas: send them away, and they won't be a problem anymore. In what would later be recognized as one of the most culturally destructive events in Chinese history, ironically cast as being to remove "revisionists" (those who supported capitalistic ideas and western culture), the years of Mao's Cultural Revolution set the Chinese economy, social structure, education, and politics back irreparably.

The story revolves around these two teens and their interactions with the local peasant villagers- but particularly the beautiful granddaughter of the village's tailor. Illiterate, but with an open mind and desire to learn, the Little Seamstress beseeches Luo and Ma to teach her how to read and write, and they see her as a chance to use their "revolutionary ideas" and "corrupt" (redeem) even just one soul from the poisonous teachings of Mao. Of course, at this time, any kind of print material, television, film, or anything of cultural relevance that was deemed "revisionist" or "revolutionary" was strictly prohibited, and subject to confiscation and destruction- not to mention punishable by prison or worse for the offender found in possession of such contraband. Toeing the line, Luo and Ma seek out western books written purely for the pleasure of reading, such as Balzac's Ursule Mirouet and Alexander Dumas' Count of Monte Cristo, with which to teach the Little Seamstress to read, and at the same time to think for herself- a true re-education.

Luo and Ma grapple with their circumstances- being pushed into backbreaking labor mining and farming with the penniless villagers and their ignorance of the ways of modern medicine and thought. It's almost as if the people there were frightened to think- afraid of outside knowledge that might threaten their simple, but difficult existence on the mountain, and readily accepted the Maoist ideas that Luo and Ma were seeing right through. The culture of fear instilled in them by the government pervaded their thoughts to the point of near paranoia- the scene where the village chief nearly dies in a cave in attempting to save a portrait of Chairman Mao is the pinnacle of this irrational, fierce obsession. Another scene that really highlit a sense of desperation and tragedy in the movie was how the contraband western authors' books were used as a form of currency, in a sense. Something as simple as literature and knowledge were so dear to Luo and Ma, as an escape from their rough living conditions. Yet another scene that really spoke to me was when Ma contracted (what they thought was) malaria. Being that Luo and Ma were children of a dentist and doctor, respectively, they understood that with medicine and actual treatment that malaria was very curable- but Ma was subjected to all manner of primitive, ignorant, tribalistic medicine- like whipping and being thrown into the lake, and accepted it because he knew there was no way he'd be allowed to leave to seek proper treatment in a city.