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Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress

Poster for the movie "Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress"

Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress (2002)

116 min - Drama - 9 October 2002
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During the Cultural Revolution, two young men are sent to a remote mining village where they fall in love with the local tailor’s beautiful granddaughter and discover a suitcase full of forbidden Western novels.

Director:  Sijie Dai

Photos

Storyline

During the Cultural Revolution, two young men are sent to a remote mining village where they fall in love with the local tailor’s beautiful granddaughter and discover a suitcase full of forbidden Western novels.


Collections: Sijie Dai

Genres: Drama

Details

Official Website: 
Country:   China France
Language:  普通话, French
Release Date:  9 October 2002

Box Office

Company Credits

Production Companies:  Les Films de la Suane, Le Film

Technical Specs

Runtime:  1 h 56 min

During the Cultural Revolution, two young men are sent to a remote mining village where they fall in love with the local tailor’s beautiful granddaughter and discover a suitcase full of forbidden Western novels.

Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress (simplified Chinese: 巴尔扎克与小裁缝; traditional Chinese: 巴爾扎克與小裁縫; French: Balzac et la Petite Tailleuse Chinoise) is a 2002 Franco-Chinese romance drama film with dialogue in the Sichuan dialect directed by Dai Sijie and starring Zhou Xun, Chen Kun and Liu Ye. It premiered at the 2002 Cannes Film Festival on 16 May.

Based on the 2000 semi-autobiographical novel of the same title by Dai, the film revolves around two young Chinese boys of bourgeois background who were sent to a remote village in Sichuan province for three years of re-education during the Cultural Revolution. They both fell in love with a beautiful local girl, granddaughter of an old tailor and known to everyone as the Little Seamstress. During those years of intellectual oppression, the three found solace and liberation in a collection of banned translated novels by Western authors, among whom their favourite was Balzac. The film explores the themes of youth, love, and freedom in those dark times in China. [Wikipedia]