50
The ethereal private moments and inspired passages are beautifully shot by Jean-Marie Dreujou, but Dai never quite organizes the material dramatically, and the tone is too often jagged and disruptive.
What are people saying?
What are critics saying?
70
The New York Times by Dana Stevens
Dai Sijie's tender, touching adaptation of his own novel of the same title.
50
Christian Science Monitor by David Sterritt
The story is winning but the telling, with Dai adapting and directing from his own novel, is too sentimental in the long run.
70
A visually lush and very Westernized vision of life in a remote Chinese village in the early 1970s.
80
Washington Post by Desson Thomson
If the movie is straightforward and predictable in its attitude, it also exudes a sort of documentary lyricism.
70
Though the film lacks some of the paper incarnation's subtlety, Dai's infidelity to his own text keeps things interesting. He busts the book's brief time frame, tweaks countless plot points, and tops it all off with a titanic metaphor not found in his own pages.
75
New York Daily News by Jami Bernard
It's a fanciful tale, but the message is sweet - that the higher arts speak a universal language that transcends politics and ignorance.
40
Demonstrating just how different literature and filmmaking can be, filmmaker-turned-writer-turned filmmaker Dai Sijie botches an adaptation of his own best-selling short novel.
50
The A.V. Club by Tasha Robinson
Sijie mostly adapts his own work dryly and literally—the footage of the Chinese mountainside is breathtaking, but it's the only thing in the film with much depth.
75
A meditation on literature, love and remembrance that is able to find humor and hope in the dark days of the Cultural Revolution.