Back to 1942 | |||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
![]() Film poster | |||||||
Chinese name | |||||||
Traditional Chinese | 一九四二 | ||||||
Simplified Chinese | 一九四二 | ||||||
| |||||||
Directed by | Feng Xiaogang | ||||||
Written by | Liu Zhenyun | ||||||
Produced by |
| ||||||
Starring | Zhang Guoli Chen Daoming Li Xuejian Zhang Hanyu Fan Wei Feng Yuanzheng Xu Fan Tim Robbins Adrien Brody | ||||||
Cinematography | Lü Yue | ||||||
Edited by | Xiao Yang | ||||||
Music by | Zhao Jiping | ||||||
Production company | |||||||
Release date |
| ||||||
Running time | 146 minutes | ||||||
Country | China | ||||||
Languages | Mandarin, English, Japanese | ||||||
Budget | ¥210 million | ||||||
Box office | ¥364 million [1] |
Back to 1942 is a 2012 Chinese historical film directed by Feng Xiaogang. [2] It is based on Liu Zhenyun's novel Remembering 1942, and is about a major famine in Henan, China, during the Second Sino-Japanese War. On 11 November 2012, the film premiered at the International Rome Film Festival. [3] The film was selected as the Chinese entry for the Best Foreign Language Film at the 86th Academy Awards, [4] but was not nominated.
The film is set in Henan, China in the winter of 1942, during the Second Sino-Japanese War. Master Fan is a wealthy landlord in a village in Henan. When the village is suffering from famine, Fan still has plenty of food to feed his family and the villagers. A group of bandits come and rob the village, eventually burning it down to the ground. Fan's son dies in the process of stopping the bandits.
Fan flees his hometown with his daughter, wife and daughter-in-law. They are accompanied by a servant, Shuanzhu. While they are fleeing to the west, they meet Xialu, a fellow villager, and the latter's family. They decide to travel together, but Fan's food supply and money are stolen by NRA soldiers amidst the chaos caused by Japanese bombing.
Brother Sim insists on preaching the Catholic faith in the starving province. After surviving a few Japanese bombings and witnessing many innocent people dying, he takes refuge under Father Megan but starts doubting the presence of God.
Meanwhile, Time correspondent Theodore H. White treks to Henan to investigate the famine. He discovers that while people are dying every day and some have even resorted to cannibalism, the Nationalist Government is still not doing anything to help the refugees. Chiang Kai-shek even wants to give up defending Henan, leaving the refugees to the Japanese. White's report is eventually published in the magazine, causing the Nationalist Government to make a U-turn on their policy. However, when relief supplies are being distributed in the province, the local officials and soldiers start fighting over who should receive a larger share.
The plight of Master Fan continues as his family members die one by one. He is eventually forced to sell his daughter into prostitution in return for food. Losing hope on life, he heads back to the east in the hope of dying somewhere near his home. On his way back, he meets a little girl who has just lost her mother. He adopts the girl as his granddaughter and they continue their journey.
Alec Su's scenes as T. V. Soong were deleted in the final cut of the film. [5]
Back to 1942 received mixed reviews. It has a 40% approval rating on the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, based on 10 reviews with an average rating of 5.2/10. [6] Metacritic gave the film a score of 41/100 based on six reviews. [7]
Xan Brooks of The Guardian wrote:
Back to 1942 ... gives us history written in banner headlines and trumpeted by bugles. If it could bring itself to quieten down, it might be more successful. [8]
Dan Fainaru of Screen Daily wrote:
An imposing, technically sophisticated achievement, Back To 1942 (Yi Jiu Si Er) covers a lot of ground and deals with a large cast of characters, but somehow, as if to confirm the old saying that one man dying is a tragedy but a million deaths is a statistic figure, it is rather the size of his film and the dexterity that went into its making which will affect Western audiences more than its contents. [9]
Giovanni Vimercati of the China Internet Information Center wrote:
Compared to your average CGI-inflated blockbuster, "Back to 1942" scores in its meticulous attention to detail — everything from costumes to make-up do not shy away from displaying its generous budget. However, despite investing considerable creative energy and capital in the representation of hunger and deprivation, the film fails to convey human suffering on an emotional level. It will be very interesting to see how the film performs on American screens since hunger, in Hollywood as well as in modern China, is a taboo almost on a par with sex. [10]
Daniel Eagan of Film Journal wrote:
Clearly a huge undertaking, the film is a relatively even-handed account of a famine which killed three million people. But the storytelling in Back to 1942 is so careful that it fails to build much interest or emotion. [11]
Neil Genzlinger of The New York Times wrote:
The film uses all the techniques familiar from other depictions of mass migration and suffering to try to bring the catastrophe down to a graspable scale, but it’s not terribly effective at humanizing its characters. It catalogs agony without making you feel it. [12]
The film won the A.I.C. Award for Best Cinematography during its premiere at the International Rome Film Festival in November 2012, and the Golden Butterfly Award. [13]
The movie won both Best Feature Film Award and Visual Effects Award at the 13th Beijing International Film Festival in 2013. [14]
It also won the Best Film of Mainland and Taiwan at the 32nd Hong Kong Film Awards in 2013. [15]
Assembly is a 2007 Chinese war film written by Liu Heng and directed by Feng Xiaogang. A co-production between China, Hong Kong and South Korea, the film starred Zhang Hanyu, Deng Chao, Yuan Wenkang, Tang Yan, Wang Baoqiang, Liao Fan, Hu Jun, Ren Quan and Li Naiwen. The film, ostensibly portraying an anti-war theme, was first released on 20 December 2007. It won the 2008 Hundred Flowers Awards and the 2009 Golden Rooster Awards for Best Film.
Three Kingdoms is a 2010 Chinese television series based on the events in the late Eastern Han dynasty and the Three Kingdoms period. The plot is adapted from the 14th century historical novel Romance of the Three Kingdoms and other stories about the Three Kingdoms period. Directed by Gao Xixi, the series had a budget of over 160 million RMB and took five years of pre-production work. Shooting of the series commenced in October 2008, and it was released in China in May 2010.
Fan Wei is a Chinese skit, sitcom and film actor best known for his performances with Zhao Benshan and Gao Xiumin in CCTV New Year's Galas since 1995. In recent years, he has been featured in such films as Cell Phone, A World Without Thieves, If You Are the One and City of Life and Death. He has also acted in several television series produced in mainland China and is a member of the Fàn family.
The 2010 Shanghai International Film Festival is the 13th such festival devoted to international cinema to be held in Shanghai, China. It was held from June 12–20, 2010.
Aftershock is a 2010 Chinese disaster-drama film directed by Feng Xiaogang and produced by Huayi Brothers, starring Zhang Zifeng, Xu Fan, Zhang Jingchu, Chen Daoming, Lu Yi, Zhang Guoqiang and Li Chen. The film is based on a novella by Zhang Ling and depicts the aftermath of the 1976 Tangshan earthquake. It was released in China on 22 July 2010, and is the first "big commercial film" IMAX film created outside the United States. The film was a major box office success, and has grossed more than US$100 million at the Chinese box office.
1911 Revolution is a Chinese television series based on the events of the Xinhai Revolution, which brought an end to imperial rule in China in 1911. It was first broadcast on CCTV-1 during prime time on 27 September 2011. It was specially produced to mark the 100th anniversary of the Xinhai Revolution.
Liu Zhenyun is a Chinese novelist and screenwriter. He is best known for his novel Someone to Talk To as well as his involvement with the many film adaptions of his books. Among these is I Am Not Madame Bovary, produced in collaboration with director Feng Xiaogang, a frequent collaborator of Liu. He is married to noted human rights activist Guo Jianmei.
Tân bến thượng hải is a 2007 Chinese television series directed by Gao Xixi. It is a remake of the 1980 Hong Kong television series The Bund produced by TVB. The series stars Huang Xiaoming, Sun Li, Li Xuejian, Huang Haibo, Chen Shu and Sha Yi in the lead roles.
Heroes in Sui and Tang Dynasties is a Chinese television series based on Chu Renhuo's historical novel Sui Tang Yanyi, which romanticises the historical events leading to the fall of the Sui dynasty and the rise of the Tang dynasty. The series was first broadcast in mainland China on various television networks on 14 January 2013. It is not to be confused with Heroes of Sui and Tang Dynasties 1 & 2, a similar television series also based on the novel, but was released earlier in December 2012. Filming for the series started on 5 November 2011 at the Hengdian World Studios and wrapped up in May 2012.
Zhang Mo is a Chinese actor.
Chen Jin is a Chinese actress. Chen is noted for her roles as Wang Ruhui in the film Roaring Across the Horizon.
I Am Not Pan Jinlian, known in English as I Am Not Madame Bovary, is a 2016 Chinese comedy film directed by Feng Xiaogang and written by Liu Zhenyun, based on Liu's 2012 novel I Did Not Kill My Husband. The film stars Fan Bingbing, Zhang Jiayi, Yu Hewei, Dong Chengpeng and Guo Tao. It was selected to be screened in the Special Presentations section at the 2016 Toronto International Film Festival. and won the award for Best Achievement in Directing at the Asia Pacific Screen Awards. It was released in China on 18 November 2016.
Events from the year 1981 in China.
Events from the year 1962 in China.
The Founding of an Army is a 2017 Chinese historical drama produced by the China Film Group Corporation to commemorate the 90th anniversary of the founding of the People's Liberation Army. Produced by Han Sanping and directed by Andrew Lau, it is the third installment of the Founding of New China trilogy, along with The Founding of a Republic (2009) and The Founding of a Party (2011). The film features a star-studded cast of Chinese actors. It was released on July 28, 2017, to mark the 90th anniversary of the founding of the People's Liberation Army.
Zhang Li is a Chinese director and cinematographer best known for his directorial works Towards the Republic (2001), Ming Dynasty in 1566 (2006), Memories In China (2007), The Road We Have Taken (2008), and Young Marshal (2014).
Ying Da is a Chinese actor and director, best known in film for portraying Louie Wang in Big Shot's Funeral (2001), Ni Zhengyu in The Tokyo Trial (2006) and Jin Shenghuo in The Message (2009), and has received critical acclaim for his television work, particularly as Zhao Xinmei in Fortress Besieged (1990) and Leng Zixing in The Dream of Red Mansions (2008). As a director, Ying Da is best known for bringing the multi-camera format to several comedy television shows, such as I Love My Family (1993), We Are A Family (2013), Idler: Sister Ma (1999), and Sister Ma and Her Neighborhoods (2000).
Lost, Found is a 2018 Chinese drama film directed by Lü Yue and produced by Feng Xiaogang. The film stars Yao Chen, Ma Yili, Yuan Wenkang, and Wu Haochen. It is a remake of 2016 South Korean film Missing. The film premiered at the 21st Shanghai International Film Festival on 17 June 2018, and opened in China on 5 October 2018.
1921 is a 2021 Chinese historical film directed by Huang Jianxin and Zheng Dasheng and starring Huang Xuan, Ni Ni, Wang Renjun and Liu Haoran. The film premiered in China on 1 July 2021, to commemorate the centennial year anniversary of the Chinese Communist Party.