2010 Sundance Film Festival : Last Train Home

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Last Train Home

Lixin Fan 2009

Categories: World Cinema Documentary Competition, First Feature, Political

Average Rating:

Rated 3.782617318357044/5 Stars

My Rating:

Run time: 87 min. | Canada | Language: Mandarin Chinese with English subtitles | color

Each year in China more than 130 million migrant workers travel home for the New Year's holiday—the one time they’ll reunite with family all year. The mass exodus constitutes the world’s largest human migration. Amid this chaos, director Lixin Fan focuses on one couple, Changhua and Sugin Zhang, who embark upon a two-day journey to see their children.

The Zhangs left their rural village for factory jobs when their children were just infants. Now a teenager, daughter Qin resents their continual absence. Yearning for her own freedom, she quits school to work in a factory herself. Her parents, who see education as their children’s one hope, are devastated.

Through its intimate and heartbreaking observation of the Zhangs, Last Train Home places a human face on China’s ascendance as an economic power. To overwhelming effect, Fan illustrates the cost incurred by fractured families and reveals a country tragically caught between its industrial future and rural past.

Film Contact

Lixin Fan, EyeSteelFilm
Email: lixin@eyesteelfilm.com

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screenings

time	event code	venue	calendar
12:00 PM Sat, Jan 23	LASTT23SD	Screening Room, Sundance Resort	+ add to cal
9:00 PM Sat, Jan 23	LASTT23YN	Yarrow Hotel Theatre	+ add to cal
8:30 AM Tue, Jan 26	LASTT26PM	Prospector Square Theatre	+ add to cal
3:00 PM Thu, Jan 28	LASTT284A	Holiday Village Cinema IV	+ add to cal
4:30 PM Sat, Jan 30	LASTT30BA	Broadway Centre Cinemas IV	+ add to cal

About the film

Cast & Crew

director	Lixin Fan

executive producer	Zhao Qi
producer	Mila Aung-Thwin, Daniel Cross
composer	Olivier Alary
co-producer	Bob Moore

Audience Buzz

Rated 3.782617318357044/5 Stars

3.8 | 18

4,631 people viewed this page

488 people added it to their calendar (find out who)

4 people reviewed this film

Featured Review

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Rated 3.0/5 Stars my rating click to rate 1 2 3 4 5 SLUGMag 3:48 PM		Every year in China over 130 million migrant workers leave their factory jobs in large cities to travel home and reunite with their families for Chinese New Year. For many, it is the only time they will see their family for the entire year. To demonstrate this plight of the Chinese laborer, Lixin Fin chose to focus on the story of a single family, The Zhangs. Both parents left their rural home to work in the city when their oldest daughter was only an infant. Grandparents were left to raise the children, who inevitably feel somewhat abandoned by their parents. Although the cinematography of Last Train Home is beautifully crafted and the issues examined are newer to American audiences, the plot is a little dull and repetitive. Ultimately, this is one story that might have been better told as a two-page article instead of an 87-minute documentary. –Jeanette D. Moses http://www.slugmag.com/festivals.php?sid=585