Chris Knipp Writing: Movies, Politics, Art


Forum locked This topic is locked, you cannot edit posts or make further replies.  [ 1 post ] 
Author Message
PostPosted: Fri Apr 10, 2015 6:51 am 
Offline
Site Admin

Joined: Sat Mar 08, 2003 1:50 pm
Posts: 4859
Location: California/NYC
Image

PREVIEW. Full review will come with US release.

A child lost and found in China

Peter Chan's Dearest, an intermittently interesting but poorly organized film about lost and abducted children, follows Tian (Huang Bo) and Lu (Hao Lei), a divorced couple whose three-year-old son Pengpeng has wandered off and been stolen after Lu, who's remarried, has left him off at Tian's little Internet cafe. They join a lost-child support group that goes out tracking down child abductors and, alone among the group's numerous members, they actually do find their child. Then, mid-way, the story turns from button-pushing child-abduction tear jerker to questioning essay. The adoptive mother appears, who has raised the child innocently, not knowing he was abducted. Since she has had the boy as long as Tian and Lu, isn't it cruel to pluck the boy from her? Who is the real parent, the birth parent, or the adopted one that the child has come to love? This is an interesting dilemma. But the film shifts focus often, and has structural problems.

Dearest, 128 mins., debuted at Venice 2014, also showing at Toronto; over a dozen other international festivals, and screened for this review as part of the San Francisco International Film Festival, May 2015.

_________________
©Chris Knipp. Blog: http://chrisknipp.blogspot.com/.


Top
 Profile  
 
Display posts from previous:  Sort by  
Forum locked This topic is locked, you cannot edit posts or make further replies.  [ 1 post ] 

All times are UTC - 8 hours


Who is online

Users browsing this forum: Google [Bot] and 136 guests


You cannot post new topics in this forum
You cannot reply to topics in this forum
You cannot edit your posts in this forum
You cannot delete your posts in this forum
You cannot post attachments in this forum

Search for:
Jump to:  
cron
Powered by phpBB® Forum Software © phpBB Group