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China Cry on DVD

China Cry cover art
Average rating: 52%
201012212
2.5
from 23 members
 
Starring: Julia Nickson-Soul, Russell Wong, James Shigeta, France Nuyen, Philip Tan
Director: James F. Collier
Studio: BOULEVARD ENTERTAIMENT
Run time: 101 mins
Certificate: 15
Genres: Drama
Languages: English
Released: 07/02/2005

Brief synopsis of China Cry

This dramatic tale follows a woman named Nora from her adoption at an early age by a wealthy Shanghai family in 1941, through her later persecution by Communist officials. CHINA CRY is a story about personal, familial, and religious conflicts. Nora endures all of these struggles and becomes a deeply courageous person as a result. A tale of love, miracles, and religious salvation, CHINA CRY also provides viewers with a window into a turbulent period of Chinese history.

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Critics Reviews

Rating of 3 stars out of 5 Radio Times

China's cultural upheaval in the 1950s meant no culture and a great deal of repression. This devotedly earnest retelling of a true story shows how a privileged girl witnessed some of Chairman Mao's atrocities before she escaped to Hong Kong, moving from there to the United States, where she has now settled. Julia Nickson Soul portrays the girl as more than just a passive spectator, but the film remains too aloof from a nation's anguish for it to be anything more than just a harrowing tale that's moderately well-told.

Halliwell's Film Guide

An interesting story of a spoilt child maturing through the experience of war and injustice, but so flatly told that it makes little emotional impact.

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Members Reviews

Reviews Voted Most Helpful

Rated - 5 starsChina Cry - Powerful and True

Shirley Mckendry from England , 05/07/2006

With a tense script and strong acting, this film beautifully unveils the changing world of China in the 1950's.

It is an excellent dramatisation of the life of a Chinese woman, Nora Lam, from her idylic Shanghi childhood to the catastrophe of the Communist iron fist.

An amazing story,as gripping as it is true, it demonstrates the fierce strength of human love and the miraculous power of God.

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Rated - 2 starsChina Cry

Johnfao from London , 21/09/2008

Beautifully acted, but the plot seemed like a CIA propaganda film against China. Without giving anything away, we saw the communists closing down brothels and churches (anything wrong about that?), and trying to re-educate their political prisoners by getting them to write and re-write their autobiography. Compared to what happens in American gaols now, this seems a pretty humane and reasonable way to deal with your opponents. The heroine is motivated by her Christian belief without any awareness of the privileged life she led before 1949, or the hardship suffered by the majority of people which the communists, at least at the beginning, did a great deal to alleviate. The emphasis on church and family, rather than on all society, seemed very American.

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