Chinese documentary following two migrant worker parents who, along with 130 million others, annually return to their rural home and...
Chinese documentary following two migrant worker parents who, along with 130 million others, annually return to their rural home and children for a fleeting holiday after a year working in factories.
“Working over several years in classic verité style, Chinese-Canadian filmmaker Lixin Fan (producer of Up the Yangtze) travels with one couple who have embarked on this annual trek for almost two decades. Like so many of China’s rural poor, Changhua and Sugin Zhang left behind their two infant children for grueling factory jobs... Last Train Home’s intimate observation of one fractured family sheds light on the human cost of China’s ascendance as an economic superpower.” (Official Synopsis)
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100 %56 reviewsRotten Tomatoes® rating
87 %5,469 reviewsAudience score rating
"Helmed by Fan Lixin, who also takes credits as d.p. and co-editor, the pic laudably adopts an intimate, personal approach to a subject -- hardworking Chinese garment workers -- that's been covered in more hectoring fashion elsewhere."
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Variety
Variety"Focusing on one family, it’s a compassionate look at fractured lives lived in cold, if beautiful, surroundings."
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Total Film
Total Film"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."
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The New York Times
The New York Times"Last Train Home suggests that the times they are a-changin'. The rulers of China may someday regret that they distributed the works of Marx so generously."
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Roger Ebert
Roger Ebert"An expert, unobtrusive observer, Fan disappears inside his own film and allows us to get completely inside his subjects' lives."
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Los Angeles Times
Los Angeles Times"This personal account of one family's struggle with disconnect surely warrants a viewing, but those not already interested in the overarching subject matter will find it just as gratifying at home as in the theatre."
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Empire Magazine
Empire Magazine"Lixin plays up the atmospheric underclass misery in service of a beautifully shot, heartbreaking vérité narrative about generation gaps and culture clashes."
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A.V. Club
A.V. ClubLast Train Home | Details
Award winner- Best Documentary at the Amsterdam International Documentary Film Festival (2009) and at the Los Angeles Film Critics Awards (2010).
- Runtime
- 85
- Genre
- Documentary
- Country of origin
- China
