Sunflower(向日葵)

Name: Sunflower
Genre: Drama, Romance

Hong Kong, China, Netherlands · 2005
2h 9m
Director Zhang Yang
Starring Joan Chen, Gao Ge, Wang Haidi, Liang Jing
Genre Drama, Romance

Sunflower is the story of the Zhang family in Beijing father, mother and son across three decades, centering on the tensions and misunderstandings between father and son. Nine-year-old Xiangyang is having the time of his life, free of adult supervision until the day he meets the father he can hardly remember. Having spent years away, he returns with strong ideas about his son learning to draw. But Xiangyang chafes under his father's constant rules and soon stages his own revolution against the lessons enforced.

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Village Voice by

As father and son argue and reunite every few minutes, accompanied by veeery slow violin music, Sunflower plays less like the epic it aspires to be than an episode of "Full House: Beijing."

Variety by Derek Elley

With a commanding performance by Sun Haiying as the unbending, ornery father, and a glammed-down Joan Chen remarkable as the boy's devoted mom, pic serves up solid dramatic values instead of being yet another panorama of social and political changes in China during the late 20th century.

The New York Times by Jeannette Catsoulis

Like Douglas Sirk without the throw pillows, Sunflower is a shamelessly old-fashioned melodrama performed with such sincerity that resistance is futile.