Aftershock

Aftershock (2010) is about the Tangshan earthquake of 1976. The first ten minutes are a disaster sequence; the remaining two hours are its aftermath. 28 July 1976. An earthquake strikes Tangshan in the middle of the night and levels the city. Official figures put the dead at more than two hundred and forty thousand, making it one of the deadliest earthquakes of the twentieth century. At the core of the film is a single scene. Twins, a girl and a boy, are trapped under opposite ends of the same concrete slab. The rescue team tells the mother: if we lift one end the other collapses. We can save one. Choose. She says her son. The girl hears it from under the rubble, and survives. The rest spans thirty two years. The girl is raised by another family and refuses to speak to her mother. The subject is not the earthquake but having heard that sentence. It is adapted from a novella by Zhang Ling. It broke box office records in China, passing a hundred million yuan in three days, and was the first major commercial IMAX film produced outside the United States. It runs 135 minutes. Good for: disaster drama, Chinese cinema, and family stories. Less good for: the opening earthquake is very hard, children die, and the sentiment runs high.