One Child Nation
| One Child Nation | |
|---|---|
 Theatrical release poster | |
| Directed by |
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| Produced by |
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| Cinematography |
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| Edited by | Nanfu Wang |
| Music by |
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Production companies |
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| Distributed by | Amazon Studios |
Release dates |
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Running time | 89 minutes |
| Country | United States |
| Languages | |
| Box office | $271,841[1] |
One Child Nation is a 2019 American documentary film directed by Nanfu Wang and Jialing Zhang about the fallout of China's one-child policy that lasted from 1979 to 2015. The documentary is made up of various interviews with former Village Chiefs, State Officials, Ex-Human Traffickers, Artists, Midwives, Journalists, Researchers, and victims of the one-child policy. Nanfu Wang stated, in a Roundtable discussion, that when creating the film she wanted to do a “360 degree with the policy - people who carried out the policy and people who were the victims of the policy”.[2] During the film, Nanfu Wang discovers more about the ties her own family have with the one-child policy, as they unsuccessfully attempt to locate her cousin who was abandoned by her father’s sister in 1989. By the end of the film, Nanfu Wang admits that despite the horrors of the one-child policy, there is an overwhelming acceptance of the policy that remains in China, and a shared attitude that there was no other choice. The closing scenes of the film show the growing propaganda for two child families, presenting the repetition of state interference with family planning within China.[3]
The film premiered at the Sundance Film Festival on January 26, 2019, where it was awarded the U.S. Grand Jury Prize: Documentary Award, and was theatrically released in the United States on August 9, 2019, by Amazon Studios.
Historical Context[edit]
This documentary focuses on the impact of the one-child policy which dominated family planning in Post-Mao China from 1979 to 2015. The state prioritised the scientific motivations behind the one-child policy, hoping to brake the increasing population. By 1980, officials claimed that the one-child policy had averted over 300 million births.[4] In the first stages of the policy, women were encouraged to delay getting pregnant, and state slogans were devised to encourage this, such as ‘later, longer, fewer’. The policy was far more readily accepted in urban areas in contrast to rural areas. Rural areas resented the policy vehemently, resulting in village cadres being attacked frequently for attempting to implement the policy.[5] Village Officials would administer fines, destroy property, confiscate possessions, and abduct women for forced abortion and sterilizations. Therefore, as fear rose so did female infanticide and the gender ratio became imbalanced.[6] Though, it was not just female babies who were killed,to have a male child was commonly far more sought after within Chinese culture. Due to this, there became a disproportionately large number of men in comparison to women as time went on - this, in turn, resulted in a further rise in ‘bare sticks’. Many have condemned the state’s lack of concern over the social repercussions of the one-child policy. ‘One Child Nation’ focuses acutely on the impact of the one-child policy on an individual level.
Documentary Topics[edit]
One-Child Policy[edit]
The One-Child Policy is the main theme of ‘One Child Nation’ as Nanfu Wang explores its impact. Within the conducted interview with Zaodi Wang (Nanfu Wang’s mother), she reveals the struggles that she faced as a result of going against the one-child policy, and birthing two children: Nanfu Wang and Zhihao Wang. The audience is informed that Zaodi Wang’s father, Zhimei Wang, opposed the movement to sterilise Zaodi Wang after Nanfu Wang’s birth. They avoided this forced sterilisation by agreeing to wait five years before having another child. Not fully discussed within this documentary was the inclusion of this condition which allowed women to become pregnant again with a second child and would often cost the family a fine of approximately 4,000 yuan ($500 USD), and was more common in rural areas.[7] Zaodi reveals that if she had birthed another girl, she would have felt that she had no choice but to abandon her. Nanfu Wang also admits that she felt embarrassed growing up because she had a sibling, and was not an only child like the rest of her peers at school. The documentary goes on to discuss the prominent role of state propaganda, such as opera, in spreading the one-child policy. In many areas slogans, such as “Better blood flowing like streams than children born outside the state plan” were painted onto village walls, in order to fear-monger and spread the one-child policy further.[8]
Child Infanticide[edit]
The term ‘Child Infanticide’, usually and somewhat misleadingly referred to as ‘Female infanticide’, describes the act of killing a newborn. When used in association with China, this term also branches out to the act of abandoning your newborn for dead. Specific examples are explored within Nanfu Wang’s own family as her mother’s brother abandoned his child in the market, in the hope of somebody rescuing her, however nobody did and she died after having spent three days on the streets. In addition, Nanfu interviews artist Peng Wang whose artwork, focusing on the idea of ‘trash’, presents the horrors of the one-child policy as he incorporates graphic images of dead, abandoned babies in medical waste bags in the middle of rubbish heaps. In 2014, Peng Wang was evicted from his home in Songzhuang, by the Beijing state security police as a result of his outspoken opinions and controversial art.[9] His studio was also destroyed by state officials in 2021 as a result of his warnings to the world about China’s handling of the Covid-19 Pandemic.[10] The documentary’s interrogation of child infanticide aims to demonstrate the extent of state control within China. In the New Yorker’s Roundtable Discussion series, Nanfu Wang states “Ironically the people that we want to see the film most are the people who can’t see. It’s Chinese people.[11]” Thus highlighting the continuing problem of state control within China.
Forced Abortion and Sterilization[edit]
The act of both forced abortion and sterilization was present throughout the existence of the one-child policy in China. It should be clarified that the Chinese Government never explicitly legitimised coerced abortion.[12] However, throughout ‘One Child Nation’, those who implemented these policies disagree. Nanfu Wang’s interview with Tunde Wang describes the duties of the rural village officials in implementing the one-child policy. Tunde Wang talks of how women who refused to be sterilised would be collectively forced to by a group of village officials; he admits “I couldn’t bear to watch. Honestly, I couldn’t take part in that.[13]” In addition, Nanfu Wang speaks with Huaru Yuan, a rural midwife, to establish the role of village doctors and midwives in assisting the state policy. Huaru Yuan states “I’ve done a total of between 50,000 and 60,000 sterilizations and abortions. Many I have induced alive and killed. But I had no choice, it was the government’s policy.[13]” This section unveils the way that village doctors and midwives would travel around the county performing sterilizations and abortions. Some of these procedures would be carried out on unwilling, abducted women who had been brought to the medical station by government officials. The extent of trauma was somewhat dictated by the government official; some women describe being dragged from their beds in the middle of the night and being taken to be sterilised. The state guaranteed that overzealous government officials would be retrained and disciplined, however this rarely happened.[14]
Human Trafficking[edit]
The documentary explores the role of human trafficking within China during the domination of the one-child policy. In this instance, the role of Human Trafficking mostly outlines the act of collecting already abandoned babies. Nanfu Wang interviews ex-human trafficker Yueneng Duan to investigate his methods. Yueneng Duan, and his family, worked in the Guangdong and Hunan provinces in the 1990s, finding children to sell to orphanages. Yueneng Duan reveals “I used to walk on this road day and night to see if there were any abandoned babies. If so, I would bring them to the orphanages. The orphanages would pay me $200 for each baby I brought in. They then put them up for international adoption.[13]" Yueneng Duan was prosecuted and sentenced to 6 years in prison. Within this section, the documentary introduces Brian and Longlan Stuy and their mission to reunite Chinese families with their lost children who were adopted internationally by US citizens. Brian Stuy also publishes his research, Open Secret: Cash and Coercion in China’s International Adoption Program. He reveals that children were being supplied for adoption through three main ways: ‘baby buying’ schemes within Chinese orphanages, ‘education’ programs which facilitated the falsification of date of birth records, and ‘confiscation’ of children led by population control officials.[15]
List of Documentary Characters[edit]
Nanfu Wang - Narrator Shihua Wang - Nanfu Wang’s Mother’s Brother
Zaodi Wang - Nanfu Wang’s Mother Guijiao Wang - Nanfu Wang’s Father’s Sister
Zhimei Wang - Nanfu Wang’s Grandfather Peng Wang - Artist
Zhihao Wang - Nanfu Wang’s Brother Yueneng Duan - Ex Human Trafficker
Tunde Wang - Former Village Chief Jiaoming Pang - Journalist and Author
Xianwen Liu - Family Planning Propaganda Official Huaru Yuan - Midwife
Shuquin Jiang - Family Planning Official
Brian Stuy - Owner and Founder of Research-China (Husband of Longlan Stuy)
Longlan Stuy - Research-China's in-country guide and translator (Wife of Brian Stuy)
Shuangjie Zeng - Young girl separated from twin due to One-Child Policy
Production[edit]
Both directors Wang and Zhang were born under the one-child policy in China during the 1980s, but knew little of its effects as it was second nature among the country's populace. After moving to the United States and getting pregnant with her first child in 2017, Wang returned to China in an effort to "explore the direct effects of the 'population war' on her family... acquaintances from her rural village, midwives, family planning officials, journalists and artists.[16]"
Reception[edit]
Box office[edit]
The film opened at one theater in New York City and one in Los Angeles and grossed $22,244 in its opening weekend, with Amazon reporting "sold-out shows throughout the weekend.[17]"
Critical response[edit]
On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, 98% of 100 critics' reviews are positive, with an average rating of 8.4/10. The website's consensus reads, "As illuminating as it is accessible, One Child Nation probes a painful chapter in Chinese history with piercing clarity."[18] Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned the film a score of 85 out of 100, based on 25 critics, indicating "universal acclaim".[19]
David Rooney of The Hollywood Reporter called the film "a valuable record and a sober but frightening illustration of the dark side of this government-controlled experiment" and praised the editing and musical score.[16] Ram Venkat Srikar of Cinema Sentries called the film "an unapologetic description of the unpleasant aftermath of China's One-Child Policy".[20] Inkoo Kang at Slate wrote that the film is "best viewed as an oral history of a desperate experiment in a fast-changing, selectively amnesiac country" but that "its directness and intimacy lend an indelibility that encyclopedic framing could never approximate."[21]
ChinaFile published a set of critiques of "the film’s many lacunae, distortions (including overgeneralizations), and failures to address the policy in broader perspective, especially its clear and substantial benefits to significant numbers of women".[22]
References[edit]
- ^ "One Child Nation". Box Office Mojo. Archived from the original on July 23, 2019. Retrieved September 20, 2019.
- ^ Greenhalgh, Susan (June 2003). "Science, Modernity, and the Making of China's One-Child Policy". Population and Development Review. 29 (2): 163–196. doi:10.1111/j.1728-4457.2003.00163.x.
- ^ Judd, Ellen R. (2019-11-04). "Women and China's Revolutions Gail Hershatter Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 2018 xx + 397 pp. £24.95; $36.00 ISBN 978-1-4422-1569-6". The China Quarterly. 240: 1167–1168. doi:10.1017/s0305741019001279. ISSN 0305-7410. S2CID 211304717.
- ^ Greenhalgh, Susan (June 2003). "Science, Modernity, and the Making of China's One-Child Policy". Population and Development Review. 29 (2): 163–196. doi:10.1111/j.1728-4457.2003.00163.x. ISSN 0098-7921.
- ^ Judd, Ellen R. (2019-11-04). "Women and China's Revolutions Gail Hershatter Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 2018 xx + 397 pp. £24.95; $36.00 ISBN 978-1-4422-1569-6". The China Quarterly. 240: 1167–1168. doi:10.1017/s0305741019001279. ISSN 0305-7410. S2CID 211304717.
- ^ Ebenstein, Avraham (2010). "The "Missing Girls" of China and the Unintended Consequences of the One Child Policy". Journal of Human Resources. 45 (1): 87–115. doi:10.1353/jhr.2010.0003. ISSN 1548-8004. S2CID 201752851.
- ^ Feng, Wang; Gu, Baochang; Cai, Yong (March 2016). "The End of China's One-Child Policy". Studies in Family Planning. 47 (1): 83–86. doi:10.1111/j.1728-4465.2016.00052.x. ISSN 0039-3665. PMID 27027994.
- ^ WANG, GUOYAN (2018-03-19). "Wall Slogans: the Communication of China's Family Planning Policy in Rural Areas". Rural History. 29 (1): 99–112. doi:10.1017/s095679331800002x. ISSN 0956-7933. S2CID 165502160.
- ^ "An Artist Metamorphosed: William Orpen's Modernist Paintings of the First World War", War and Art, Brill | Schöningh, pp. 29–49, 2020-07-27, doi:10.30965/9783657702923_003, ISBN 9783657702923, S2CID 225474540, retrieved 2022-05-03
- ^ "Beijing Officials Demolish Studio of Activist Artist". Radio Free Asia. Retrieved 2022-05-03.
- ^ Nanfu Wang on Growing Up With China's One Child Policy & State Propaganda | Close Up, retrieved 2022-05-03
- ^ "Jing-Bao Nie (1999), 'The Problem of Coerced Abortion in China and Related Ethical Issues', Cambridge Quarterly o f Healthcare Ethics, 8, pp. 463-75", Abortion, Routledge, pp. 445–458, 2017-03-02, doi:10.4324/9781315263502-26, ISBN 9781315263502, retrieved 2022-05-03
- ^ a b c d Petruska, Karen (2018-01-03), "Amazon Prime Video", From Networks to Netflix, New York: Routledge, pp. 355–364, doi:10.4324/9781315658643-33, ISBN 978-1-315-65864-3, retrieved 2022-05-03
- ^ OOSTERVELD, V. L. (1996-10-01). "The Canadian Guidelines on Gender-Related Persecution: An Evaluation". International Journal of Refugee Law. 8 (4): 569–596. doi:10.1093/ijrl/8.4.569. ISSN 0953-8186.
- ^ McKenna, Brian G.; Simpson, Alexander I.F.; Coverdale, John H. (July 2003). "Patients' perceptions of coercion on admission to forensic psychiatric hospital: a comparison study". International Journal of Law and Psychiatry. 26 (4): 355–372. doi:10.1016/s0160-2527(03)00046-3. ISSN 0160-2527. PMID 12726810.
- ^ a b David Rooney (January 26, 2019). "'One Child Nation': Film Review - Sundance 2019". The Hollywood Reporter. Archived from the original on February 4, 2021. Retrieved August 8, 2019.
- ^ Brooks, Brian (August 11, 2019). "'The Peanut Butter Falcon' Leads Mixed Weekend; Music Doc 'Bring The Soul' Croons; 'The Farewell' Salutes $10M: Specialty Box Office". Deadline Hollywood. Archived from the original on February 25, 2021. Retrieved August 11, 2019.
- ^ "One Child Nation". Rotten Tomatoes. Fandango Media. Retrieved October 10, 2021.
- ^ "One Child Nation". Metacritic. Red Ventures. Retrieved 15 October 2021.
- ^ Ram Venkat Srikar (December 19, 2019). "'One Child Nation': Film Review - MAMI 2019". Archived from the original on January 14, 2020. Retrieved January 14, 2020.
- ^ Kang, Inkoo (9 August 2019). "One Child Nation Is a Haunting Documentary About a Country's Attempts to Justify the Unjustifiable". Slate. Archived from the original on 15 November 2021. Retrieved 15 November 2021.
- ^ Li, Jie; Greenhalgh, Susan; Thornber, Karen (6 February 2020). "What a Picture of China's One-Child Policy Leaves Out". ChinaFile. New York: Asia Society. Retrieved 21 November 2021.
Further reading[edit]
- Media
- "'One Child Nation' Exposes the Tragic Consequences of Chinese Population Control". Reason TV. 2019-08-16.
External links[edit]
원 차일드 네이션
 One Child Nation | |
|---|---|
| 감독 | 자링 장 |
| 촬영 |
|
| 편집 | Nanfu Wang |
| 음악 |
|
| 개봉일 |
|
| 시간 | 89분 |
| 국가 | 미국 |
| 언어 | 영어, 중국어, 간어 |
원 차일드 네이션(One Child Nation)은 미국에서 제작된 자링 장 감독의 2019년 다큐멘터리 영화이다.
1979년부터 2015년까지 지속된 중국의 계획생육정책의 좋지 못한 결과에 관해 다룬다.
이 영화는 2019년 1월 26일 선댄스 영화제에서 초연되었으며 여기서 미국 심사관상:다큐멘터리상을 수상했다. 미국에서는 2019년 8월 9일 아마존 스튜디오에 의해 극장 개봉하였다.
외부 링크[편집]
一人っ子の国
| 혼자의 나라 | |
|---|---|
| 한 어린이 국가 | |
| 감독 |
|
| 만들다 |
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| 제작 총 지휘 |
|
| 음악 |
|
| 촬영 |
|
| 편집 | 난푸 원 |
| 제작회사 |
|
| 배급 | 아마존 스튜디오 |
| 공공의 |  2019년 1월 26일 ( SFF 2019년 8월 9일 |
| 상영시간 | 89점 |
| 제작국 | 미국 |
| 언어 |
|
| 흥행 소득 | $271,841 [1] |
' 一人っ子の国 '( One Child Nation )는 난푸 원 과 지아린 장 감독에 의한 2019년 미국의 다큐멘터리 영화 이다. 중국 에서 1979년부터 2015년까지 깔려 있던 혼자 정책 을 주제로 하고 있다. 프리미어 상영은 2019년 1월 26일 선댄스 영화제 에서 열렸으며 미국 심사원 대상(다큐멘터리 부문)을 획득했다. 미국에서는 2019년 8월 9일 아마존 스튜디오 배급으로 극장 공개됐다.
평가 [ 편집 ]
흥행 소득 [ 편집 ]
뉴욕과 로스앤젤레스에서 각각 1관씩 개봉돼 첫 주말 2만2244달러를 매출했다. 아마존 측은 "주말을 통해 매진"했다고 보도했다 [2] .
비평가의 반응 [ 편집 ]
리뷰·어그리게이터의 Rotten Tomatoes 에서는 77건의 리뷰로 지지율은 99%, 평균점은 8.51/10이 되어,
「『一人っ子の国』は中国の歴史の中の痛ましい章を鋭い明瞭さで探っていく」とまとめられた[3]。Metacriticでは25件のレビューで加重平均値は85/100と示された[4]。
『ハリウッド・リポーター』のデヴィッド・ルーニーはこの映画を「貴重な記録であり、この政府が管理する実験の暗黒面の沈痛でありながら恐ろしいイラストレーション」と評し、編集と音楽を賞賛した[5]。
参考文献
참고 문헌 [ 편집 ]
- ↑ “ One Child Nation ”. Box Office Mojo . 2019년 9월 20일에 확인함.
- ↑ Brooks, Brian (2019년 8월 11일). “ 'The Peanut Butter Falcon' Leads Mixed Weekend; Music Doc 'Bring The Soul' Croons; 'The Farewell' Salutes $10M: Specialty Box Office ”. Deadline Hollywood . 2019 년 8월 11일 조회.
- ↑ “ One Child Nation (2019) ”. Rotten Tomatoes . 2019년 9월 6일에 확인함.
- ↑ “ One Child Nation Reviews ”. Metacritic . 2019년 9월 6일에 확인함.
- ↑ David Rooney (2019년 1월 26일). “ 'One Child Nation': Film Review - Sundance 2019 ”. The Hollywood Reporter . 2019년 8월 8일에 확인함.
외부 링크 [ 편집 ]
- 혼자 나라 - allcinema
- Born in China - IMDb (영어)
Documentary films
Review
One Child Nation review – China's monstrous plan to shape the future
This powerful and upsetting documentary examines the legacy of a brutal policy that limited couples to a single baby
A cruel and tragic experiment … One Child Nation. Photograph: Everett Collection Inc/Alamy
Peter Bradshaw
@PeterBradshaw1Wed 25 Sep 2019
China’s “one-child” policy lasted from 1979 to 2015 (to be replaced by the two-child maximum, still in force) and is revealed in this powerful documentary to be a cruel and tragic experiment in big-government meddling, a colossal and yet intimate abuse of the family by the state whose aftereffects have still to be reckoned with.
Film-makers Zhang Lynn and Nanfu Wang were themselves products of the one-child policy, although Nanfu reveals that her own family benefited – if that is the word – from an early softening of the approach for rural communities, allowing a second child if the first was a girl. This horribly institutionalised sexism naturally bred generations of women encouraged to see themselves as inferior, and created state-sanctioned market forces for infanticide and child-trafficking. Baby girls were routinely abandoned or sold to “orphanages” that would sell them on to customers in the west – a practice horribly comparable to Ireland’s Magdalen laundries but on a more massive scale.
Meanwhile, an entire propaganda culture grew up around this idealised one-child family: on playing cards, stickers, posters and in travelling opera performances. The film shows how China’s contemporary artists have drawn on this strident tradition to create their own bitterly satirical artworks, such as The Thoughts of Chairman Mao, by Peng Wang, which shows individual pages of the little red book, each horribly emblazoned with an aborted foetus. (The film’s most unwatchable section shows photographs of foetuses left in rubbish dumps.)
Nanfu returns to her home town to confront the people from her village who were complicit. And she broods on how, paradoxically, depriving women of choice is still embraced by some in her adopted homeland of the United States. Nanfu’s mother says defiantly that the policy was necessary or China would have turned to “cannibalism”.
I would have liked (in a spirit of devil’s advocacy) to hear from an economist about the measurable benefits or otherwise of this brutal approach, and perhaps to ponder the climbing global population. These reservations hardly diminish the film’s force.
One Child Nation is released in the UK on 27 September.
===
Review: 'One Child Nation' takes hard look at China's population control initiative
Documentary provides sobering look at how government policy affected a nation
Adam GrahamDetroit News Film Critic
They were following orders.
That's the explanation heard time and again in the harrowing documentary "One Child Nation," which takes a difficult look at China's one-child-per-couple policy, enacted in 1979 as a means of population control.
A still from "One Child Nation."
Those order followers forced abortions and sterilizations on countless women, dragging them from their homes and tying them up like pigs, according to stories collected by directors Nanfu Wang and Jialing Zhang.
Some 338 million births were prevented between the years of 1979 and 2015; one woman estimates she alone performed some 50,000 to 60,000 abortion and sterilization procedures on women.
Wang and Lynn go down the rabbit hole on the policy, talking to those affected by it, those who helped enact it and the government-sponsored propaganda that supported it.
Songs, dance routines and public art attempted to put a positive public spin on the initiative, put in place because China was in the midst of what officials called a "popula
Behind the scenes the picture was much more grim, and led to families being torn apart and a rise in human traffickers, who sold illegally born babies to orphanages for international adoptions.
Wang, herself born under the one-child policy, uses her personal story of recently becoming a mother as a way to burrow into the policy and its effects on her and her family. She and Zhang broaden their scope by talking to artists, journalists, midwives and more about what the initiative meant for them and their country in this thoughtful and sobering dissection of the human toll of government rule.
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