Last Train Home
Verzio FF Every spring, China's cities are plunged into chaos, as all at once, a tidal wave of humanity attempts to return home by train. It is the Chinese New Year. The wave is made up of millions of migrant factory workers. The homes they seek are the rural villages and families they left beh...
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| Institution: | Open Society Archives at Central European University |
| Language: | Mandarin Chinese |
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EyeSteelFilm
2009
Canada |
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| Online Access: | http://hdl.handle.net/10891/osa:6958e9e7-5a71-4c39-a094-3ab976e7ff49 |
| Summary: | Verzio FF
Every spring, China's cities are plunged into chaos, as all at once, a tidal wave of humanity attempts to return home by train. It is the Chinese New Year. The wave is made up of millions of migrant factory workers. The homes they seek are the rural villages and families they left behind to find work in the booming coastal cities. It is an epic spectacle that tells us much about China, a country discarding traditional ways as it hurtles towards modernity and global economic dominance. "Last Train Home" draws us into the fractured lives of a single migrant family caught up in this desperate annual migration. Sixteen years ago, the Zhangs abandoned their young children to find work in the city, consoled by the hope that their wages would lift their children into a better life. Yet in an act of teenage rebellion, their daughter drops out of school to become a migrant worker — the very trait her parents wanted her to escape. The film follows the Zhangs' attempts to change their daughter's course and repair their ruptured family whose fate mirrors the experience of millions of others who pay a great price for China's headlong economic development. |
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| Published: | 2009 |