I have previously written a post about the Chinese movie “Aftershock” by Feng Xiaogang. A few days ago, I finally watched this movie and it has been a wonderful experience. It really tugged at my heartstrings and I just could not help tears from welling up in my eyes.

"Aftershock" movie poster

�Aftershock� is not your typical disaster flick but more of a family melodrama revolving around perennial themes of love, choices, human trauma, pain and forgiveness. The movie has a number of serious tear jerker moments, it tells a very touching story and it will have you thinking about it long after.

“Aftershock” is a fictional story set during a real-life event and benefits from the unflinching powerhouse portrayal of the director’s actress wife Xu Fan as a mother who was caught in a heart-wrenching dilemma of choosing between saving her son or her daughter during the atrocities of natural disaster. It is a strong, textured drama with very decent CGI work that doesn’t detract from the primary focus of building on themes of guilt, abandonment, closure and redemption

Yuan Ni (Xu Fan), the mother who is the focus of the movie, lost her husband in the Tangshan Earthquake in 1976 and, forced to make the difficult decision between saving her son Fonda or her daughter Fan Teng, she chose her son. What she didn�t know was that her daughter overheard her decision and survived the calamity. The daughter Fan Teng suffered from the painful memory of her mother’s decision to abandon her and was traumatised by this childhood experience.

Mother frantically searching for her daughter and son

Mother carrying her seriously injured son to seek medical attention not realising that her daughter had also survived the calamity.

The daughter all alone after regaining consciousness

Fan Teng was adopted by a couple from the People’s Liberation Army and grew up in comfortable conditions, while her mother and her twin brother (who lost an arm in the quake) struggled to get by back in Tangshan.� The story follows the diverging path of the siblings (who are twins) as they grow up, as well as the rough experience faced by her mother.

Fan Teng adopted by a military couple

When the Sichuan earthquake struck in 2008, Fan Teng volunteered to join the rescue team and returned from Canada to her homeland China. As she witnessed the tribulations people suffered, she finally unlocked the pain she had felt all these years and found forgiveness for her mother. She was finally reunited with the mother and twin brother after 32 years.

The daughter Fan Teng, now an adult, returning to China to help out during the aftermath of the Sichuan earthquake

Let me warn you again that this is a movie that will really tug at your heartstrings and bring tears to your eyes. Make sure you have tissue paper with you when you watch this movie!