"Under the Hawthorn Tree" is the latest film from famed Chinese director Zhang Yimou. This tells the story of a young girl dealing with the pressures of having capitalist parents during the Cultural Revolution in China, and the boy that falls in love with her.
The film is unabashedly innocent in tone, drawing us back to a different time in China. Like any good Chinese film, and most of Zhang Yimou's work, it ends in a decidely awful, tragic way...but rather than being akin to something like "A Walk to Remember", a film which allowed us to weep with the satisfaction that characters had some sort of closure, the tragic ending of this film leaves us stinging with the regret that the main characters must feel. This is part of the mark of a good Chinese film, so fans of lighter fare take heed before venturing into the realm of Chinese cinema.
I really liked that movie. It reminded me of Zhang's another movie A Road Home 我的父亲母亲。It was same kind of slow movie that there's no much action going on but the beauty is on the details. And of course in the love story.
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