✭ ✭ ✭ ✭ Read critic reviews
Canada, China, United Kingdom · 2009
1h 25m
Director Lixin Fan
Starring Changhua Zhang, Suqin Chen, Qin Zhang, Yang Zhang
Genre Documentary, Drama
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Changhua Zhang and Suquin Chen are one of many husband and wife duos journeying back to their rural village hometown for Chinese New Year. As migrant workers they only see their families once a year, with daughter Qin Zhang and son Yang Zhang both extremely resentful of that fact, as their own future prospects seem dim.
The New York Times by A.O. Scott
Mr. Fan's documentary is informed by a melancholy humanism, and finds unexpected beauty in almost unbearably harsh circumstances. It tells the story of a family caught, and possibly crushed, between the past and the future - a story that, on its own, is moving, even heartbreaking. Multiplied by 130 million, it becomes a terrifying and sobering panorama of the present.
The attention to visuals is above and beyond what most vérité is capable of; doing double duty as the film's cinematographer, Fan demonstrates a pitch-perfect photojournalistic eye.
Everything is edged with desperation. However arduous Last Train Home may have been to shoot, it was infinitely more arduous to live.
The Globe and Mail (Toronto) by James Adams
It's an intense and tense time, unsurprisingly, and superbly realized by Lixin's unflinching yet compassionate eye, the Zhang family his microcosm for the Chinese macrocosm.
Frequently moving and quietly enlightening, Last Train Home is about love and exploitation, sacrifice and endurance.
The picture laudably adopts an intimate, personal approach to a subject -- hardworking Chinese garment workers -- that's been covered in more hectoring fashion elsewhere.
Entertainment Weekly by Lisa Schwarzbaum
This is essential viewing for understanding our world.
Sometimes the story is so much like a fiction feature-complete with explosive family arguments and pointed cross-cutting between the free-spirited Qin and her beaten-down folks-that it feels exploitative, as though Lixin were turning real people into characters.
Boxoffice Magazine by Steve Ramos
Fan finds the delicate balance between broad socio-political themes and a single family torn between centuries-old traditions and the desire to succeed in the capitalist world.
A startling look at the devastating human cost of China's newfound embrace of capitalism.
In another time, in a distant place... an epic adventure is about to unfold.
A dramatic feature documentary on life inside modern China.
Everyone has three lives: a public life, a private life and a secret life
A poor family lies and schemes their way into the employ of a wealthy household — successfully, but with great consequences.
Sometimes it's better to choose your own family.