There were lot of running and chasing in this movie. For the story itself, the contents were not that much, just tried to tell you how tough the Chinese people had to deal with during the Culture Revolution. The time frame background of this movie was about the last two or three years of the long 10 years long purgatory-like life and living in a remote and poor village. The Chinese under the iron-clad control of the Chinese Communist Party were suffering but already tamed thoroughly by Chairman Mao and his peers with forceful brain-washing feed. The story itself was actually not that complicated and by modern day standard, actually quite boring, a single and direct line of the development and, well, very very slow.
Two flaws that immediately caught by my eyes:
1) Too many almost looked new bicycles. It's totally absurd during that poor era. And all the bikes not only looked quite new, well maintained, looked like manufactured by the same bike factory.
2) The little brother of Sissy Liu was a wrong cast. Just like those bikes, he not only not looked a bit similar to his older sister but simply looked like a modern day kid attending private school.
I could also tell that the director and the screenplay writers were very very careful not to step on the red lines stipulated by CCP's censorship.
They only feather-touched the unfair injustice when any person could be damned as a criminal and suffered so many years in hard labor and imprisonment.
The song sang by the leading young actress after the movie was not only not good but also very unnecessary.
Watchable, but not especially outstanding.
