User reviews

Before I went to watch this movie, I thought it might be another attempt by another Chinese director to win western market. I thought it might be another hero, a weird martial arts movie that surprisingly pleased western market but not me, a Chinese who grew up with martial arts culture.

How wrong I was, this movie was all about Chinese: government corruption, Chinese fighting Chinese, and bureaucratism, the movie showed them all, and more importantly, real. This movie does not only have the stunning visuals all the big budget Hollywood movies have, but it also has an amazing way of telling history. The movie showed the how cruel a war could be, by telling story of a rich family in Henan province at 1942, when there were a drought and a war threatening. The overall tone was serious, but you will be laughing at some little humors now and then.

I would definitely suggest this movie to anyone who is interested in Chinese culture. For it displayed a real china, unpleasant, even sad, but its real.

There are many stories that can be told all over the world that probably are not on your radar. This is one of them. Even if you know the facts (the numbers in that case), seeing that playing in front of your eyes is something completely different. It's devastating watching events unfolding especially when it's clear that some things might have been avoidable.

With some American star power (Brody and Robbins in this case in smaller roles), the movie depicts war and the cruelties to the common folk. So you won't be able to see much fighting (though there are still quite a lot of war scenes), but the effects it has on civilians. A difficult movie, not only because of the running time, but a very well made one. Even if you're not that much interested in History, this is able to grab you and hold your breath/attention until the end

A tamer version of my review in desensitized words:

Good film, could've been a great film.

A rather controlled and somber depiction of a dark chapter in modern history, subtly echoing another tragedy that happened 16 years later. Surprisingly un-judgmental and un-sentimental for a historical film recreating despair and lowest possible form of human existence.

Feng presents the multiple layers of clues and facts that lead to the ultimate tolls almost as-matter-of-factly, leaving the audience putting together the puzzles and drawing their own conclusions, which is a rather clever way of avoiding censorship and engaging the audience.

Could have been A LOT grittier and more affecting. The acting is powerful in this film. However for a film depicting a major famine that claimed over 3 million lives in recent history, not much huger is shown as visuals in the film, most of the lingering hunger is talked about/acted out (as opposed to being displayed visually) which reduces the general affecting power of the film.

Xu Fan and Zhang Guo-Li are amazing in this film with their acting. Xu gives her most powerhouse performance yet, portraying the tough bottom- feeder hillbilly b*tch who would attempt anything/everything in defending her and her family's rights to live. However for a country woman who's been starving for over 100 days and more than willing to sell her bottom half for a couple of crackers, what's with her double- chin? (think Jennifer Lawrence's face in The Hunger Game – she can act all she wants but I'm sorry, girlfriend is just NOT that hungry) What TF happens to her makeup artist team and special visual effects people?!

Adrien Brody is effectively engaging as a very eager T.H. White who's desperately trying to expose the truth, whether driven by his journalist instincts, Pulitzer, or a genuine sympathy for the poor and depraved. However don't even get me to start with Tim Robbins - why is he even in the film??? The couple of scenes he's in are cringe-inducing. Even if you edit them out altogether it would not affect the story's flow whatsoever.

Feng Xioagang can be considered China's - possibly Asia's - most substantial film maker. His output is increasingly imposing and his box office clout means that the content of his work must come under intense official scrutiny. That made the IF I WERE THE ONE movies quite amazing as an expression of the notion that to be rich is glorious.

BACK TO 1942 is clearly a tent pole movie for the Chinese cinema and then carries a double load. It is an intense, long, demanding account of the 1942 Hunan famine and refugee exodus, made more terrible by the parallel war with the Japanese and also a revision of history with Chiang Kai Shek now shown as both calculating and remote, as well as caring and authoritative but only a support player in the story of the land lord and serf reduced to destitution on their awful journey.

Intriguingly, Theodore White writer of sixties Wolper Documentaries and "The Mountain Road" shows up effectively in the person of Adrian Brody, as a character.

Master crafted, some of the staging is exceptional. The bombing raids are great set pieces and the film manages to keep disaster chic in hand, even if it's so grim.

Essential for the serious movie goer, a strain on the casual entertainment seeker.

the bad: there is a lack of a decent plot, the movie is more an assembly of different episodes that happened during the famine, told through the eyes of a former landlord and his family. Unfortunately most (if not all) of these episodes are cliché' and predictable (there is a pregnant woman, guess when she will deliver; there is a girl with a cat, guess what will happen to the cat; there are corrupt officials out to buy women for their own pleasure, guess who they will buy;). The episodes told are so many that there is no time to sympathise for a character, or at least that was my feeling. Most scene are a brutal graphic depiction of what hunger is, but I found it less involving than, for example, Fires on the Plain.

the good: the subject treated is historically important, especially the fact that the government was aware/unaware able/unable to do something to prevent this catastrophe. The action scenes (the bombing of civilians) are shot with mastery and makes you feel uncomfortable all the way through. What I found more interesting though (but haven't seen anybody pointing it out so far) is that Feng Xiaogang is indirectly (and very subtly, of course) criticising todays government. There are many parallels with what is happening now in China, the top leaders who lost touch with the people, corrupt officials who take money and women, foreigners who have to point out faults of officials, Chinese against Chinese with their insatiable hunger for wealth. Even the Japanese, though enemies, are depicted as more human than the Nationalist officials.

The Ugly: Tim Robbin's role, or the whole religious part for that matter. It doesn't add anything to the, already thin, plot. Also why Christians and not Buddhists or Daoists?

Overall it's an interesting movie to be watched, not only for the famine, but also as a new step for Chinese cinema becoming more international.

6/10

Review: This is an epic and interesting movie about the famine in a place called Henan during the 1942 Japanese war which took 3 million people's life's. It follows a wealthy family who are forced to flee Henan with the rest of the many families who struggle to reach a better place, which will supply them with food and shelter. The journey takes its toll on the many families and the lack of food and freezing weather takes many of there life's. There's a lot of political issues connected to the reasons why they are forced out Henan, which are addressed in the movie but it's the touching story of the family which really made the movie for me. The acting is great from all of the cast and I really can't imagine how it must have been for the real people that were forced into this gruesome situation. I would have liked it dubbed in English so I could have concentrated on the emotional scenes but thats just me being picky. Although the subject matter is quite deep and the storyline was pretty interesting, I did get bored in some parts and it did seem to drag after a while. With that aside, the true story is amazing and I'm surprised that this epic journey about the people of Henan and there search for a better life, wasn't told earlier. Watchable!

Round-Up: This is another one of those films were they put the big names on the poster and there not really in the film. In this case the people are Adrien Brody and Tim Robbins who only had small parts in the movie. To be honest, they were the reason why I rented the movie because I was wondering how they were involved in this epic tale but they wasn't the main characters in the film. Brody did play a massive role in getting the aid to the starving people who took part in this amazing journey but I didn't really see the point in Tim Robbins role. Anyway, I personally enjoy movies were you actually learn something and in this case, it's a piece of Chinese history which I hadn't heard about before. Its a shame that it didn't get the big Hollywood treatment because I'm sure that a lot of people will be shocked when they see what these individuals had to go through. They ended up thinking that dying was a blessing because the journey became too much for the people of Henan and the ones that survived, had to live with the fact that they lost there families and loved ones in such a terrible way.

I recommend this movie to people who are into their epic dramas about the famine in Henan and there epic journey to find a better life, which took 3 million people's life's. 6/10

With big budgeted films like Assembly and Aftershock under his belt, Feng Xiaogang is no stranger to ambitious films set against the Chinese historical backdrop, which he handles most excellently through powerful, emotional dramas, balancing it out with what would be money shots of the large event that forms the canvas of his movies. With Aftershock he dealt with the Tangshan earthquake of 1976, Assembly had his war between the Communist and Nationalist soldiers, and now he goes a little further back in time to 1942, where China's Henan province suffers through its deadliest drought resulting in the death of 3 million through starvation.

I guess it's quite challenging for many here to have experienced true hunger in today's relatively affluent society, but those who have been through some days without having to eat something, usually through vanity reasons of keeping artificially slim, will attest to an uncomfortable feeling. Multiply that by months on end, with a war looming and then experienced, and one can almost picture how miserable life then would have been, with food being literally scraped from what would be unthinkable as food, such as tree barks, and many willing to offer anything, most often children, as barter trade for foodstuff.

Based on the novel by Liu Zhenyun titled Remembering 1942, it charts the huge drought and famine through one of China's provinces, told through the eyes of various protagonists in this sprawling epic. There's a well to do landlord in Master Fan (Zhang Guoli) who opens the movie, as we bear witness to his slow and inevitable descend from prince to pauper, having a stockpile that got naturally targeted by bandits, and when all hell broke loose, he suffers tragedy after tragedy, joining the millions of others on their trek westwards to find food, and also incidentally escape from invading Japanese forces.

Then there's the religious arc, with Priest Sim (Zhang Hanyu), a Chinese man seeing opportunity in all these distraught to spread the word of Christ amongst his fellow countrymen, with his faith being shaken by constant questions how his God would have allowed this to continue, where at one point he had envisioned this situation to be similar to Moses' leading of the exodus out of Egypt. Tim Robbins and Adrien Brody also took up roles in this film, much like Christian Bale in Zhang Yimou's The Flowers of War, with the former being the priest whom Sim confides in, and the latter playing the role of a Time magazine correspondent who also lends his perspective to the growing atrocities, and ignorance of the many politicians who prefer to enjoy the company of elites, and turning a blind eye to the true situation thousands of miles away.

While the film does not offer pointed accusations, it does present a series of events that may have contributed to the immense human tragedy, and this largely involves politicians, soldiers and the Japanese, where WWII almost becomes an excuse for the existence of millions of refugees uprooting themselves and moving elsewhere not only to escape from enemies, but to look for sustenance. Director Feng engages some of the best in the craft for this ironically lush production (for a film that deals with those with absolute nothingness), to bring out vivid looking shots and conditions in which the actors thrived in delivering heartfelt performances, with no holds barred effort poured into the production to make every shot look believable, plausible, succeeding in its attempt to put you right where the action unfolds.

War and battle scenes also looked notches above what the director had done with Assembly. Blood and gore moments were kept realistic without the need to be gratuitous, from major scuffles amongst bandits and villagers, to constant Japanese air raids which saw bombs raining down indiscriminately against both soldiers and the long lines of civilians trying their best to escape from hunger, now having to deal with another threat which some see as a lifeline to end their miserable lives. But if looking from yet another angle outside from the premise of the film, the narrative also deals with the adage of fortunes being cyclic in nature, telling such a story where a rich man's most prized possession will be that final slap in the face when Maslow's basic theory of needs come into play, like a warning to the newly affluent that when it boils down to survival, it's every man for himself, with the elite class likely to suffer the most when the people trodden upon calls it quits.

Chinese films have come a long way over the last decade, and Feng Xiaogang has shown that he's amongst one of the best out there to deliver big budgeted productions that doesn't have to void of a soul or emotional core. It's an epic on the grandest scale, succeeding because it tells stories of the human condition that everyone can identify with. Highly recommended, as I ponder what other historical backdrop the director would be tackling next, since he has a keen eye and a knack for it!

It hurts. It really hurts. I watched my people suffer, I watched familiar faces suffer multiple blows, I watched this land suffer.

Many things not only happened in the past, but in different forms now. Many pain others really will never know, they may be cynical, perhaps shed a drop of crocodile tears, who can really understand? Have not experienced the suffering of others, do not condescending criticism.

Civilization can only develop in the heyday, the dark years to live as the only hope. When I realized that I was a part of history, I lost the ability to stand aloof and detached.

A grain of dust of The Times, falling on the ordinary people are thousands of pounds of stone. It is not so serious, do not see, surrounded by fear will not believe. This movie is about the past, but it is never just the past. Many old ideas will not be changed, and happiness will not really come.

Labelled 'the Spielberg of China' with 15 box office successes in the last 20 years ranging from family-friendly comedies poking fun at China's materialistic culture to weightier, big budget historic epics such as 'Assembly', 'Aftershock' and now 'Back to 1942', Feng Xiaogang has become the most popular director of mainstream cinema in China. Yet, despite the work of Chinese directors such as Chen Kaige, Zhang Yimou, Wong Kar-Wai and Ang Lee, Feng Xiaogang is virtually unknown to Western audiences, something that the Chinese government is attempting to put right by submitting 'Back to 1942' as the country's official Oscar submission for Best Foreign Language Film this year.

Adapted from the book 'Remembering 1942' by Liu Zhenyun, the film is a historical disaster epic following the fates of refugees during the drought and famine in Henan Province, which devastated the region and left 3 million dead of starvation during the Second Sino-Japanese War (1937-45). As well as featuring famous Chinese stars such as Chen Daoming (Aftershock) and Zhang Hanyu (White Vengeance), the film is one of the few Chinese productions to boast Hollywood talent in the form of Oscar winner, Adrien Brody and Tim Robbins, recalling Christian Bale's turn in 'The Flowers of War' (2011) chronicling the Japanese attack on Nanking.

The film follows the fortunes of landlord Fan (Zhang Guoli), who with his family joins the mass exodus of people after their village is destroyed by bandits, leaving behind their privileged lifestyle and falling in with the desperate masses as they head west looking for solace and hope. Hoping to lead the refugees is deserter turned priest An Ximan (Zhang Hanyu), though he soon comes to realise the hopelessness of the situation, with starvation spreading, (Chinese) soldiers raiding for supplies, and the Japanese bombing indiscriminately. With Nationalist (Kuomintang) politicians bickering over what to do and how to profit from the situation with their American, British and Soviet allies, it is left to Time magazine correspondent, Theodore White (Adrien Brody), to reveal the true extent of the catastrophe that has befallen Henan Province by venturing into the disaster zone and exposing the full horror of the people's suffering.

Back to 1942 is a hard hitting and unrelentingly grim disaster movie playing through the eyes and experiences of its ensemble cast, switching between the three main stories of Fan, White and the Nationalist and provincial governments at a pace that cracks along, despite its 145 minutes length. Through his earlier work Feng has demonstrated a talent for tapping into public sentiment and mining melodrama on a national scale. The result has been a slew of hit films that have dealt with little known areas of Chinese history and in doing so, reveals a little more about China itself and for a Western audience that is a welcome change from the usual diet of Hollywood teen comedies, superhero movies and remakes.

Feng said recently in an interview that if it were not for censorship, Back to 1942 'would be even more cruel'. I am not sure how this could be possible without the film lapsing into parody. Feng pulls few punches and does a good job of recreating a believable sense of desperation and despair and at times, darkly satirical comedic moments are exposed which puts the viewer in an awkward position as to whether to laugh or cry (the loss of the donkey being a good example). In part this is due to the real horror of the situation, depicted in fairly graphic detail in the film, as the refugees run out of food and trudge onwards through incredibly harsh conditions, being reduced to eating bark and eventually resorting to cannibalism and selling family members for meagre bags of millet in order to survive. Feng presents much of this without fuss or fanfare and the film is all the more harrowing for the way in which it shows conditions spiralling quickly out of control against the backdrop of the government jockeying for position.

Where film can often be politicised by the Chinese authorities as criticisms of the government, Feng does a good job of appearing neutral and never assigning blame for the disaster, nor criticising the behaviour of the Chinese soldiers who frequently rob the refugees for their own survival. Even the casual and indiscriminate violence of the Japanese soldiers is portrayed as a by product of war, rather than as any grand social or historical criticism, which no doubt the Chinese government would have preferred. In doing so, the film has escaped much of the censorship that plagues Chinese directors who are often welcomed as the darlings of the international film festival circuit.

For students of Chinese history, the complete omission of the government's taxation policy is jarring since it made the food shortages far worse, nor is there any reference to Mao Zedong and the communists, ironic given that the refugees are travelling to Shaanxi Province to escape the famine which was the headquarters of Mao's fledgling Chinese Communist Party.

Despite these pedantic omissions, Back to 1942 is a gripping telling of a little known period of Chinese history that wears its heart on its sleeve without the film being too melodramatic, or trying to drown the viewer in manipulative tears. No doubt tears will be shed as a result of the horror of the situations that the refugees find themselves in but Feng tries hard to make his film politically neutral and to tell the story as it was. Feng is one of China's most talented directors and the huge budget he has to play with (by Chinese standards) really shows up on screen with some stunning visuals and action. Though grim and quite depressing, Back to 1942 is a worthy addition to the pantheon of epic disaster movies and succeeds in revealing the horrific human suffering behind a monstrous and quite possibly avoidable tragedy.

A well made and serious film you shouldn't miss.

Back to 1942!How many movie-goers were born before 1942? I think very few...

The film is all blood and tear in Chinese history-if you ever read any Chinese history you would know a bit of how the corrupted national party of China ran the country(how they handled the famine) and the history of Japan invaded China (how cold blood of their behaviour against civilians)at the time.

To younger people who never experienced war and hunger...please don't expect entertaining plots.

It's realistic. Some lines are good. The actions of the Kuomintang government can be applied to the current situation, such as corruption, cowardice, selfishness and numbness. In a word: prosperity makes the people suffer; death makes the people suffer.

In 1942, China and Japan are in war. In Henan, the drought brings famine to the locals, but the wealthy landlord Master Fan Dianyuan (Guoli Zhang) has enough grains and food to supply to the villagers. Out of the blue, the village is looted by a gang of bandits that kills Fan's son and burns down the village to the ground. Master Fan is forced to flee with his wife, daughter and daughter-in-law and his servant Shuan Zhu (Mo Zhang) and they join the refugees. Along their journey, they are rob by the Chinese soldiers and bombed by the Japanese airplanes. Soon the starvation reaches Master Fan and his family with tragic consequences. Meanwhile he stumbles on the road upon the snoopy Time correspondent Theodore Harold White (Adrien Brody) that heads to Henan to investigate the famine and finds evidences of cannibalism among the survivors of the starvation.

The underrated "Yi jiu si er", a.k.a."Back to 1942", is a magnificent and heartbreaking Chinese epic, with the sad drama of the Second Sino-Japanese War. The plot follows the journey of the landlord Master Fan from his wealthy village to the need to selling his daughter to prostitution for food. The only problem is that it seems that in Mandarin the character speaks less to say the same thing in English. Therefore, it is hard to follow the English subtitles in the Blu-Ray and the end of some sentences is lost. But anyway, it is difficult to understand how an intelligent viewer can rate this film with less than eight. My vote is nine.

Title (Brazil): Not Available

I had no idea of what was going on in China during WWII until I saw this film. This movie enlighten me on the dark facts of starvation and just how far people will go to survive. Although it is in Chinese and subtitled in English, please don't let that keep you from seeing this film. Out of the few movies that really makes you feel, that makes you rethink everything you know about anything, Back to 1942 defiantly ranks top ten in my opinion. I'm not going to give anything away, but the end of this movie left my jaw hanging open and my mind scrambling to understand all that had happen in the two hours and thirty minutes of pure devastation. If you are looking for a movie that shows the sad reality of this world, I urge you to see this film.

Okay, first off, how can this rate 6.9 when by far the majority were 8 and higher...? Guess I could check my math but... gosh...

Next,a capsule statement: This is Chinese culture. This is something you'll never truly understand. But you should really try...

I have lived here in China a fair number of years (I'm Canadian). I'm still fumbling with understanding the culture. I mean a deep understanding, not Western superficiality. Try and recall, it's a culture of 5000 years, give or take. Western culture is sliver in comparison. Why? Because we in the West do not now live like the Greeks nor the Romans. Why? Because those cultures died. Sure, there are remnants, but sorry, they are freaking gone. But, the Chinese remain, contiguous, continuous, they never died. No one seems to 'get this'...

The world's oldest continuous culture. The West can't comprehend this.

Old culture is like 1970...

Moving on, it appears to me most professional reviewers (I use the term lightly) continue to judge Chinese movies in the context of Western cultural perspective. I suppose they believe that having thought they

deciphered French and German cinema, they now know the Chinese. Wrong again. No surprise frankly.

Chinese culture is so vast and so unfathomably deep, most will never truly understand unless you are born Chinese. It's called genetics.

It's called nature and nurture. It's called socialization of the human psyche. And it's very very very old... Western civilization is an infant in comparison.

But -- this is the greatest thing! It's called 'mystery'. It's roaming into a land undiscovered by yourself. Completely foreign. And then trying to piece together the meaning. It's like a treasure hunt.

Frankly, I've watched a lot of Chinese movies, sub-titled and not, old and modern. And these have frustrated me beyond belief. Even angered me. Why were they so damn depressing was my first argument. At the end I felt like crap. But also, it made me keep thinking, wondering, exploring this conundrum. It angered me, but it made me feel. It made me feel something I hadn't ever felt before. And I know foreign cinema.

This was different.

It made me think. A lot. About history, about China, about human nature, about cultural differences, about art. About everything; about existence, life. Its essentials, its irony, travesty, betrayal, joy, hope, good, evil. The complex mess we call human. (I use the term loosely.) I just saw this movie for the first time, shame on me. I have worked and lived in China for seven years off and on... Anyway, I had to give it a 10 due to the 'other guy' (euphemism of for dork) gave it a '2' because it wasn't a 'leisure' film. I think this pretty much sums up the problems in today's world. It's called 'narrow-minded'. And that's another euphemism for a word I prefer not to write, being a gentleman an all.

So, back to the point, another classical Chinese movie plot done with modern artistic verve. Classical as in almost everyone dies, anyone you thought was the hero dies, and no happy ending in the true sense. And yet done with a modern cinematic panache.

And as I said, a deep-thinker's movie, with many unanswered questions.

About life and living. About the true mysteries.

Take a chance and give your brain a cultural work-out. I'm still out here on the playing field trying to learn. See you there...

This is a concentration of 20 years suffering of Chinese people in 2 hours movie. The best part of this movie is the reality. Every individual in this move is a real person. There is no hero, monster, patriot or invader, just someone driven by their own hunger, fear, greed and rules they believe. It is too easy to condemn without feeling the suffering of Chinese in the first place. We can also see the kindness and courage from the top leader to individual as we really wish to have in any tough circumstance. No surprising, propaganda and censorship were following up. Unfortunately, we see this pattern repeating itself again and again, in different scale or different form. It is a true story about Chinese people, their government and their spirit. It is complex but really helpful for anyone want to understand China more.

For anyone asking the rating, I will put this PG-17. It needs a strong nerve to watch this movie and feel the pain and helplessness.

In comparison to other WW2 movies set in China, this one stands out thanks to its good acting, realism of the reality of famine and low morale of the Chinese, and events.

It is not perfect and in my opinion it does not properly capture the emotions of characters and the sadness of the war (like Schindler's List or The Pianist) but it is definitely a good film worth a watch.