User reviews

I saw this at the Toronto International Film Festival today and enjoyed this dramatic tale of a pregnant high-school girl who is scorned by family and society.

The movie spans about 10 years and hence paints a somewhat intricate story against the changing backdrop of Chinese society and changing values. The pressure of society and family against this pregnancy, in my view, is really what this movie is about. In another time, or a more liberal era, some of the things that would happen would be non-issues. Who cares that there was a teen pregnancy. It can happen. And it might. But when pressures are too great, then back-door plans are concocted and that's what this story focuses on. It's an intimate look at some of the darker moments beyond the back door and yet hints to some better times.

A strong cast and some gritty and textured locations (including a street that acts as a dam -- hence the name 'Dam Street') make for a very authentic and subtle story that allows the story to emerge on its own.

Linguistic Note: This movie takes place in Sichuan -- which means a lot of the Chinese is actually of the Sichuan dialect. This may make it less accessible for Mandarin speakers unless subtitles are included.

1983 in Communist China, schoolgirl Yun gets pregnant to fellow 2nd-year student Wang Feng. Her hospital worker mother says she'll do the delivery at home, but thrashes Yun for the shame she has brought on them all till the girl threatens to commit suicide in front of her. The pair's moral decadence is condemned over school loudspeakers and they are expelled. They decide to 'have rather than sell' the baby and, after premature delivery, we discover Yun's mother has told her it's dead while secretly planning to give it up for adoption. Ten years later, the talented Yun is forced to lower herself to working in a cheap stage show. The story follows the tale of this brave young woman trying to find a way out of her predicament.

Yun's character is well drawn. We hear her sing both classical (Sichuan Opera) and popular song, and lament that she is dragged down to the level of the bawdy establishment. (Liu Yi, who plays Yun, is also a trained opera singer.) Her employer tries to sleep with her for money. Even at her wedding she suffers humiliation: "Are her tits soft?" We long for her to have the chance to rise above an environment where she is oppressed at every turn.

The other characters are realistically played but less captivating. The boy from across the river is fascinating, but his endless naughty pranks seem repetitive. Yun's mother and the men in her life are rather two-dimensional, vehicles to progress the story and little more. The insights into China however - whether the schooling or spending "a few days in jail" for a murder - are enthralling. The film's main plus is its visual impressiveness, bursting into colour against drab backgrounds. When Yun is attacked on stage, she is in full costume; an overhead shot captures a wooden vase of flowers as it falls, the fallen blooms lying next to the performer who is beaten almost unconscious.

Dam Street is a picturesque odyssey of a young woman living through a period of China that Westerners are largely unfamiliar with. It is very stylish in places but drags on too long, especially as the dramatic punch line is all too obvious by half way through.

This film played on a public access channel in New York a few days ago, so I watched it. I had never heard of it, but the show, City Cinematheque, shows movies from around the world. This films spans the period of 1983 to 1993 in a provincial town in China and it stars the wonderful Yi Liu as Yun. In 1983, Yun gets pregnant while still in school, causing a scandal. She gives birth but is told the baby was dead. Ten years later and Yun is an opera singer for the locals, having an affair with a married man. You meet Xiao Wong, a 10 year old boy who comes in contact with her. At first annoying her (her nickname for him is "Little Bastard"), you soon see a connection between them. What makes this slow moving, dark film stand out is the authenticity of it. China was going through a post Mao period, but from 1983 to 1993 has much changed in the villages? Special mention again of the amazing Yi Liu in the lead role, but the film will grab you by its honesty. You won't laugh, you may cry, but I don't think you'll forget it.

I was completely captivated by this touching film. There is some very strong imagery here that is both authentic and allegoric, my favorite being an overturned cart of freshly caught fish where the cart owner frantically attempts to gather up the thrashing fish from the rain soaked street, throwing them back into the lopsided cart where many just flop out again. This is in fact the story of beautiful and talented Yun's damaged life where the few attempts of redemption fall far short of the shame she must endure for her teenage pregnancy some tens years prior.

In this post Mao society, women are still possessions to be owned and tossed away by men who feel their worth as successful business men entitle them to.