SummaryBased on the international best-seller, Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress is set in the early 1970's during the later stages of China's "Cultural Revolution," as two city-bred teenage best friends, Luo (Kun Chen) and Ma (Ye Liu), are sent to a backward mountainous region for Maoist re-education. (Empire Pictures)
Directed By:Sijie Dai
Written By:Sijie Dai, Nadine Perront
Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress
Metascore
Generally Favorable
65
User score
Mixed or Average
4.8
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Top Cast
Metascore
Generally Favorable
65
68% Positive
15 Reviews
15 Reviews
32% Mixed
7 Reviews
7 Reviews
0% Negative
0 Reviews
0 Reviews
100
Sweet, funny, sad and profound -- the sort of film that becomes more remarkable when you realize it's based on someone's real life.
80
If the movie is straightforward and predictable in its attitude, it also exudes a sort of documentary lyricism.
75
Enlightenment is good, Dai acknowledges. But the movie's more provocative assertion is the notion that ignorance was also a kind of bliss.
70
Dai Sijie's tender, touching adaptation of his own novel of the same title.
63
Artfully designed to appeal to lovers of romance and books, but by the end of the film I was not convinced it knew much about either.
50
The story is winning but the telling, with Dai adapting and directing from his own novel, is too sentimental in the long run.
40
Demonstrating just how different literature and filmmaking can be, filmmaker-turned-writer-turned filmmaker Dai Sijie botches an adaptation of his own best-selling short novel.
User score
Mixed or Average
4.8
50% Positive
3 Ratings
3 Ratings
0% Mixed
0 Ratings
0 Ratings
50% Negative
3 Ratings
3 Ratings
Oct 21, 2017
10
Based on the book by the same name and author who wrote and direct the film, this realistic, charming and passionate memoir shows what is lost and gained in the passing of traditions and exposure to sophisticated ideas of literature.
Production Company:
- Les Productions Internationales Le Film
- StudioCanal
- France 3 Cinéma
- Les Films de la Suane
- TF1 Films Production
- Canal+
- Bac Films
- Centre national du cinéma et de l'image animée (CNC)
- China Film Group Corporation (CFGC)
- Forbidden City Studios
- Philippe Rousselet
Release Date:Jul 29, 2005
Duration:1 h 50 m
Awards
Golden Globes, USA
• 1 Nomination
National Board of Review, USA
• 1 Win & 1 Nomination
Golden Horse Film Festival
• 1 Nomination
