After the disaster turned to good fortune, Fang Da's grandmother and aunt rushed from Jinan to Tangshan. The old man, who had already lost his son and granddaughter, could no longer bear to be separated from his one-armed grandson, so he made up his mind to take his grandson away. In the face of her mother-in-law’s tears and her own guilt, Li Yuanni finally, after much reluctance, agreed to let them take Fang Da away.
Years later, the daughter reopened old wounds...
Shanghai
Brutal for 23 seconds, grieving for 32 years, beneath the ruins, above time, family ties have no end. Director Feng Xiaogang used such a story about family ties to heal the wounds of the living...
Hong Kong
After having her own children, she finally opened her heart, revealing the trauma at the bottom of her heart to her stepfather, recounting her mother's choice back then. Her stepfather persuaded her to forgive her mother's helplessness back then. Fang Deng said: "It's not that I can't remember, it's that I can't forget! Though I hate her, there is still deep longing for my mother and younger brother in my words."
●The most common - Kappa
"Earthquake in Tangshan" held four advanced screenings in Hong Kong on July 4. For the film's super strong tear-inducing power, the media watching the film all expressed: "Although we knew from the trailer that this would be a very touching movie, we still couldn't control our emotional hearts."
Beijing
Save the sister or the brother?
Audience for two-thirds of the time
All were crying
In July, "Tangshan Earthquake" held multiple test screenings in Beijing. The film received widespread praise, and the audience was moved by the plot, shedding tears in the cinema.
At first, the horizon glowed purple, with lightning everywhere. Then the ground began to shake, and many huge cracks appeared. Buildings started to crack horizontally. When Li Yuanni and her husband crawled out of the truck preparing to go home to save their children, the old crane at the construction site began to sway and break, then crashed down. When they avoided all of this and returned to the yard where they lived, the buildings on both sides had already started to collapse, crushing many people who were preparing to jump down from upstairs. The mother rushed into the building but was pushed to the ground by the father, who himself rushed inside. Just as he went in, the entire building collapsed instantly...
Years later, both children had grown up. The daughter Fang Deng was adopted by another family and renamed Wang Deng. She always harbored resentment towards her mother for abandoning her back then.
This knee-bending moment was undoubtedly the heaviest tear-inducer in the entire film. Male viewers who had been holding back their tears until then finally broke down in tears.
Anyway, since the main characters are all wearing clothes, it's not surprising that Fang Da wears a Kappa sportswear—though the logo is clear—as nothing extraordinary.
This product placement was quite deliberate. Fang Da runs a travel agency in Hangzhou. One day, an employee specifically ran to ask him when would be the best time to buy insurance for customers. Fang Da said: "Just buy China Life Insurance, it's reliable!" The blatant advertisement floored all the audience.
Bomb 1
According to reports, due to the large number of viewers, many people stood in the aisles to watch the entire film. Moreover, after the screening ended, many viewers spontaneously applauded, a scene rarely seen. Even picky industry insiders praised the entire movie's effect as "touching, tear-jerking, the screenwriter deserves much credit."
Truck driver Fang Dqiang (played by Zhang Guoqiang) and his wife Li Yuanni (played by Xu Fan), along with their twins, daughter Fang Deng and son Fang Da, squeezed into a narrow house, the family warm and harmonious. This time, Fang Dqiang returned from his delivery trip, bringing something rare for ordinary families—a fan. The siblings hugged it and happily ran home, drawing curious looks from others. Li Yuanni looked at her children and husband, her heart full of aspirations for a better future. She wouldn't have thought that within a few hours, the family's happiness would be torn apart in such a tragic way.
Some say Feng Xiaogang is too skilled at stirring emotions, even tough men were moved to tears; others say the biggest feeling after watching the movie is warmth, just wanting to hurry home and hug the kids. Feng Xiaogang said: "The emotions in this movie are especially intense, a bit hard to control myself. For me, making a movie isn't necessarily about making the audience cry, I'm just conveying the feelings that moved and shocked me. This crying isn't despair, it's warmth."
Brother Fang Da brought sister Fang Deng home, Li Yuanni kept busy in the kitchen, her hands trembling while making dumplings, yet pretending to be calm, telling the children to go inside. After Fang Deng entered the room, she saw her and her father's photos hanging on the wall, with a pot of tomatoes placed below the photo. Only then did she realize that all these years, her mother had never forgotten her, and remembered the event of the night before the earthquake when she promised to buy tomatoes for Fang Deng. At this point, Xu Fan walked in and said: "The tomatoes are washed clean, mom didn't lie to you." Then, the elderly mother suddenly knelt down, crying and saying: "Deng'er, Mom apologizes to you, Mom is sorry to you, all these years, where did you come from?"
The emotional climax of the entire movie lies in the scene where the mother and daughter reunite 32 years later.
Audiences in four places watched the premiere
The most moving scene in the movie, of course, is none other than the eruption of the Tangshan earthquake. The movie spends 4 minutes showcasing the shocking 23 seconds of earth-shattering devastation.
Fang Deng cried and confessed to her mother
A family goes to build a tomb for the surviving daughter, burying items used by Fang Deng when she was a child. Although she left without starting school, her mother bought her textbooks from elementary school to high school... Seeing this, Fang Deng couldn't help herself anymore. She walked to the side, crouched down and cried, sincerely repenting to her mother: "Seeing your younger brother alive, I am happy, he is my younger brother. Mom, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, how have you managed all these years?" Mother and daughter embraced and cried together, a moment that deeply moved every viewer, but this time, it was a heartwarming tear.
As expected, under the pressure of the college entrance exam, the adoptive father and mother prepared to take her to see a movie to relax, but Fang Deng refused. As she rode her bike away from the cinema, the camera panned over a movie poster, and the audience clearly saw the words "Directed by Zhang Yimou."
When the rain came unexpectedly, the daughter who was believed to have died actually came back to life, saved by the PLA soldiers, thus separating mother and daughter. And from the nightmare of hearing those three words "save the younger brother," she lived for 32 years, with hatred intertwined for 32 years.
The mother almost lost her son again
The mother kowtows and apologizes to the daughter
Perhaps the tearful audience, though blurred by tears, still noticed the embedded advertisements in Feng-style films. The植入ed advertisements in "If You Are the One" cost 50 million yuan, whereas in "Tangshan Earthquake," nearly 100 million yuan worth of advertisements were embedded.
The film begins with a dragonfly appearing on the big screen, followed by a large cluster of flying dragonflies, and then so many dragonflies that they block out the sky. They fly from east to west, creating a spectacle. The children sitting in the truck felt strange and excitedly wanted to catch one to play with. The daughter asked her father what was happening. The father was completely stunned by this anomaly and dumbfoundedly said, "There might be a heavy rain."
July 22, "Tangshan Earthquake" will premiere nationwide. Prior to this, the film held internal screenings in various locations and received unanimous approval from the audience. Every screening moved the viewers to tears, with tears running rampant during the 130-minute duration. Someone carefully counted, and throughout the screening, there were no fewer than 28 tear-inducing scenes, equivalent to one every five minutes.
Mother chooses to save the son
Upon hearing this choice, the daughter closed her eyes in despair. The distraught mother could only scream to the heavens: "Heavenly Father, you bastard!" These seven short words pierced the emotions of the already overwhelmed audience like daggers, causing sobbing sounds to ripple through the theater.
●The most beautiful - Hangzhou
Despite some people being unclear why "Tangshan Earthquake" was filmed in Hangzhou and included many scenes there, it cannot be denied that Feng Xiaogang did capture the beauty of Hangzhou, including the schools, hospitals, West Lake, and temples—certainly worth the financial support from Hangzhou.
Father heroically saves the children in the earthquake
What do you expect most when watching "Tangshan Earthquake"? Is it the 5-minute earthquake special effects that rival "2012"? Or the love-hate relationship between mother and daughter spanning 32 years? If you're going for the special effects, you're wrong because Feng Xiaogang isn't making a Hollywood blockbuster. What he really wants to tell is an emotional earthquake.
On the evening of July 12, the movie "Tangshan Earthquake" held its global premiere in Tangshan, Hebei. The touching storyline moved ten thousand Tangshan residents present, and just before the start, even the heavens seemed "infected," with thunder and lightning followed by a sudden downpour.
After the more than two-hour movie screening ended, on the square with ten thousand people, 99% of them were in tears, and the entire audience stood up and clapped for a long time. Under the anticipation of ten thousand Tangshan residents with tears in their eyes, Feng Xiaogang and the main cast including Xu Fan, Zhang Guoqiang, Chen Daoming, Zhang Jingchu, etc., stepped onto the stage to meet the "family" who experienced the earthquake's hardships. Speaking in fluent Tangshan dialect, Feng Xiaogang sincerely expressed: "In the autumn of 2007, the 'homework' you left me has now been completed. Do you think it's satisfactory?" "Satisfactory, extremely satisfactory!" Ten thousand Tangshan residents responded in unison. When the stirring theme song "23 Seconds, 32 Years" played, the audience on-site was still immersed in the plot, unwilling to leave for a long time.
Miss Chen expressed that she originally watched the movie with the intention of "competing" with Director Feng, "I initially thought about how long I could hold back my tears, but I couldn't resist. For the two-hour movie, I was completely absorbed, and I was crying for almost two-thirds of the time."
The audience exhausted a whole box of tissues
Ten thousand Tangshan audiences unanimously called out "Te Zhong"
(Compiled by Xu Shaona)