Aftershock

Drama

Peoples Republic of China

R4

Pinnacle Films

Chinese, English subtitles

At 4 a.m. on July 28, 1976 a massive earthquake destroyed the city of Tangshan in northern China. Estimates vary but over 240,000 people died – perhaps the highest death toll of any known earthquake. Thirty two years later the government of the rebuilt city asked Director Xiaogang Feng to commemorate the tragedy on film, as a tribute to the dead and injured. He based the film on a book by Zang Ling. The result is a truly epic and memorable film about the aftermath of this great tragedy.

If you are expecting the conventional American disaster epic you will be disappointed. The earthquake itself only takes a few minutes at the start of the film. The rest is dedicated to showing the anguish of the survivors and the tremendous social upheaval such an event causes. In particular, we follow the story of one little girl, one of the 4,200 left orphaned by the quake.

The girl’s mother, Ni Yuan, finds her husband dead after the quake and her twin children, the girl Fang Deng and the boy Fang Da, trapped by a fallen slab of concrete. The rescuers tell her that lifting the slab to save one child will crush the remaining child. She is faced with the dreadful dilemma – the choice of life and death for her children. Hysterical, she chooses to have the boy saved. He will need to have his arm amputated but is otherwise OK. His sister hears her mother make the decision. The body of little Fang Deng is later removed from the rubble and placed with other bodies for burial. In the rain, she revives from her comatose state with a severe memory loss.

The Peoples Liberation Army quickly moves in to save the living. They had been warned by seismologists of an impending earthquake and were ready to go. Ni Yuan and Fang Da are sent to the city where Ni Yuan’s mother lives. Fang Deng, separated from them, is regarded as an orphan. She is adopted by a kindly couple from the Army whose son has died, and gradually as her memory returns she comes to regard the loving couple as her new father and mother. She also remembers her mother’s decision and makes no effort to track down Ni Yuan. She goes to college intending to become a doctor but just before her final year she falls pregnant to another student. Eventually she marries a Canadian man and moves to Canada.

Meanwhile the boy Fang Da is growing up with the handicap of only one arm. His mother is insistent that he should get an education but Fang Da has a strong independent streak and moves to a major city in a make-or-break effort to forge a life for himself. Ni Yuan, mentally broken, is supporting herself by dressmaking but it is a lonely life. Fang Da succeeds in business and meets a girl he wants to marry. Ni Yuan’s happiness increases but she is still haunted by the death of her husband and daughter. She visits their grave every year and tells their spirits where she now lives so they will be able to find their way back to her.

In 2008 another major earthquake hits Szechuan province. Fang Da rushes to the area, where a number of the Tangshan survivors have united to form a rescue party. Fang Deng leaves her comfortable life and family in Canada to help as well. She is astounded one evening to hear a man nearby describing to his friend the circumstances of his injury in Tangshan. She realises this young man is her brother. The two are reunited but making peace with her mother’s rejection is a different matter. It is only when she sees a woman trying desperately to recover her family from under the rubble that she comes to understand what a decision her mother had to make.

Despite taking some liberties with the book’s plot, Xiaogang Feng’s plot is credible and all too human. He doesn’t rely on the CGI effects – his story is about the people. There is not a bad actor or actress in the film, even though some are not given much opportunity to show their talents. One I particularly liked is the actor who plays Fang Deng’s adoptive Army officer father. I can’t work out his name but his quiet, supportive understanding of Fang Deng’s problems is the pivot around which her later life revolves.

Despite it not being a blockbuster in the traditional style the film now holds the record for the highest grossing Chinese film, taking over $100 million so far. It deserves the same success on DVD.

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