By Ruby Yang, Lambert Yam
This eye-opening documentary follows four Chinese families as they step into the 21st century. Working without official permits, the filmmakers used compact digital video gear to record intimate portraits of ordinary people living in tumultuous times, capturing candid and sometimes emotional interviews. Families are small - one child in the city, two in the country - so children hold center stage. Veterans of the Cultural Revolution are saving up to send their son to business school. Another couple, whose son is a prize law student, glows with satisfaction. To insure his children's future, a peasant leaves his remote village to work in the quasi-legal urban job market. A farm family near Shanghai feels manhandled by the privatizing economy; they sacrifice to send their daughter to high school. CHINA 21 introduces otherwise anonymous people whose spark and initiative are changing their country.
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