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Canadian surgeon Norman Bethune, 1890-1939, (Donald Sutherland) journeys 1500 miles into China to reach Mao Zedong's eighth route army in the Wu Tai mountains where he will build hospitals, provide care, and train medics. Flashbacks narrate the earlier events of his life: a bout with tuberculosis at the Trudeau sanatorium; the self-administration of an experimental pneumothorax; the invention of operative instruments; his fascination with socialism; a journey into medical Russia; and the founding of a mobile plasma transfusion unit in war-torn Spain. Bethune twice married and twice divorced his wife, Frances (Helen Mirren) who chooses abortion over child-rearing in her unstable marriage. By 1939, Bethune had been dismissed from his Montreal Hospital for taking unconventional risks and from his volunteer position in Spain for his chronic problems of drinking and womanizing. As his friend states: "China was all that was left." Even there, Bethune confidently ignores the advice of ... Written by
Duffin, Jacalyn
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The life and times of Norman Bethune represent the stuff great epic movies are made of. Unfortunately, the creators of this film missed the opportunity and spoiled everything they could. The time line is unnecessarily disordered, psychology and camera unengaging, props are fake (e.g. brand new uniforms of the Chinese soldiers). I do not comment about the politics or ideology of the film, but as art, it is overwhelmingly disappointing.