Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress

2002 Comedy Drama

Dai Sijie directs Balzac et La Petite Tailleuse Chinoise (The Little Chinese Seamstress), a film adaptation of his own best-selling autobiographical novel. Set in China during the Cultural Revolution of the 1970s, the story follows Luo (Chen Kun) and Ma (Liu Ye), two young men from the city who are sent to a mountain village for a re-education in Maoist principles. They work with the peasants under the supervision of the village head man (Wang Shuangbao), who considers their violin to be a symbol of the bourgeoisie. Luo and Ma both fall in love with the little Chinese seamstress (Ziiou Xun), the daughter of the tailor (Chung Zhijun), and they read her forbidden works of Western literature including French writers Balzac and Dumas. The conclusion finds the two men reminincing about their experiences 30 years later. Balzac et La Petite Tailleuse Chinoise premiered at the 2002 Cannes Film Festival. more..

Director: Dai Sijie

Starring: Kun Chen, Zhou Xun, Ye Liu, Shuangbao Wang, Zhijun Cong

Reviews

  • Sweet, funny, sad and profound -- the sort of film that becomes more remarkable when you realize it's based on someone's real life.

    Jonathan Curiel - The San Francisco Chronicle

    20 January 2013

  • For an exquisitely melancholy story steeped in a sense of the past as a succession of great waves of political, ideological and economic change, it's fitting that the movie should end with an underwater sequence. It looks like a dream of a memory of a place about to be wiped out by the next great flood of history.

    Carina Chocano - Los Angeles Times

    20 January 2013

  • If the movie is straightforward and predictable in its attitude, it also exudes a sort of documentary lyricism.

    Desson Thomson - The Washington Post

    20 January 2013

  • Enlightenment is good, Dai acknowledges. But the movie's more provocative assertion is the notion that ignorance was also a kind of bliss.

    Lisa Schwarzbaum - Entertainment Weekly

    20 January 2013

  • In the end, it's a lovely little movie about very big things, and the smallness both illuminates it and keeps it from greatness.

    Ty Burr - The Boston Globe

    20 January 2013

Awards

  • Best Feature

    Chicago International Film Festival (2002)

     
  • Sijie Dai

    Ghent International Film Festival (2002)

     
  • Best Foreign Language Film

    Golden Globes (2003)

     
  • Best Screenplay Adapted from Another Source

    Golden Horse Film Festival (2003)

     
  • Best Asian Film

    Hong Kong Film Awards (2004)