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Aftershock

Posted on August 17, 2018 by Village Vidiot

240,000 (!) people died in the terrible 1976 Tangshan earthquake. I did not even know it happened. This narrative follows the experiences of one family where the father is killed and the mother must decide which of her twin children she must rescue. She chooses her son and lives with the horrible guilt forever after. Unbeknownst to her, her daughter is rescued and taken in by a pair of Army doctors. But all experience the relentless “aftershocks” that come from these terrible decisions. The film is sometimes simplistic and unkind to the family that adopts the little girl (yes, I am biased in these matters), and some of the acting (the girl’s Canadian husband) is very weak, but it’s an interesting film nonetheless, if only to get a sense of China dealing with these disasters (a second quake aids in the climax). Some scenes are not included. Were they simply never shot?. Were they edited out?. For example, and this is a spoiler: the daughter and son finding one another and confronting that reality during the second earthquake should have been played out, not simply implied. The end scene that features the real wall with the names of the dead is an amazing memorial

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