75
Zhang, who tried to make his actors as unaware of the camera as possible, lets the story evolve slowly and deliberately.
What are people saying?
What are critics saying?
60
Washington Post by Desson Thomson
At first, the picture is moving. . And suddenly charm turns to quasi-commie didacticism.
80
Zhang's work is always worth watching, but this is the first of his films in which the sorrows are so heart-rending, its many comic moments so laugh-out-loud human.
100
New York Daily News by Jami Bernard
It's an uplifting movie about the rewards of perseverance and community.
40
Chicago Reader by Jonathan Rosenbaum
Its resolution reeks of phoniness and self-congratulation, even if some of the narrative strands leading up to it are fairly absorbing.
70
This is much more than a typically one-dimensional message-movie -- it's obviously the work of a master filmmaker .
80
The film's occasional dips into sentimental cuteness and its too-pat ending can't cancel the gap that yawns ever wider between rural and urban society.
75
Chicago Sun-Times by Roger Ebert
His story is simple, unadorned, direct. Only the margins are complicated.
91
Portland Oregonian by Shawn Levy
If it touches up against the syrupy at a very few moments, it's nevertheless consistently clear-eyed and convincing.
100
Philadelphia Inquirer by Steven Rea
Has a slow-burning emotional power.