Fu Rong Zhen
1987 / 164m - China
Drama, Romance
1.5*/5.0*
Hibiscus Town poster

Watches

November 24, 2020

1.5*/5.0*

Archetypical Chinese 6th Generation melodrama. If you love people struggling in poor villages, relationships ripped apart by governmental decisions and bucket loads of social critique then this comes well recommended. If on the other hand you've had your fill of the endless Chinese poverty porn, it's best to avoid at all cost.

Yuyin runs a successful food stand, with the money she saved she afforded her family a decent house. All goes well until the government sends out people looking for rightists and capitalists. Yuyin is branded a "rich peasant" and her wealth gets redistributed among the other villages. From that moment on, Yuyin's life spirals out of control.

Performances are rather weak and overdone, the cinematography is bland, the length is more than a little ridiculous and after having seen so many similar films, it isn't easy to still be moved by the drama. There are a handful of decent scenes that kept me somewhat interested, but overall it felt outdated and redundant. Not a good film.