Aftershock

Terrible timing , I know, but tonight  I found myself over at Theatre Clwyd  watching an Asian Earthquake disaster movie.  Aftershock is the most expensive Chinese Movie made to date, and concentrates its story on the 30 odd years AFTERMATH of a real life Earthquake, namely the Tangshan quake of 1976 which killed over 240.000 people.
Happy Chinese factory worker and mother Yung Ni (Fan Xu ) is caught outside her apartment block with her husband as the Earthquake flattens the city. Her husband is killed trying to save their twins Fang den and Fang da, who are buried under tons of rubble. As rescuers try to save the children,  Yung Ni is given the impossible decision of which child she wants saving, and which one has to be left to die...a decision that haunts her and her family for the next three decades.
Yes it's basically Sophie's Choice with special effects....and within a  few minutes the audience is literally catapulted into one of the most frightening, harrowing and "realistic" disaster scenarios ever captured on film.
Unfortunately the rest of the epic story of how mom, and the rest of the family deal with the aftershock of her terrible decision , doesn't quite live up to the first twenty five minutes.
Having said this, there are some cracking tear jerking scenes (Fan Xu is especially good) but the family drama post catastrophe, for me , just didn't work as well I hoped it would.

Which is a shame
7/10
It was lovely to get back in the cinema !

5 comments:

  1. How did you rate 'Chicken Run'?

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  2. It does sound like an interesting dilemma, having to choose which child shall live and which shall die. As you said, terrible timing - odd they showed it.

    Things just seem to be getting worse and worse for the people in Japan, those reactors.... DH says we, in America, have some of those same model here. Ack!

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  3. tom
    if you are serious
    I liked it!!!!!!

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  4. It must have been even more gripping knowing it is taking place in real life in Japan.

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