Sunflower

Sunflower succeeds as both a moving family drama and a microcosm of China's social history since the 1970s.

Like Douglas Sirk without the throw pillows, Sunflower is a shamelessly old-fashioned melodrama performed with such sincerity that resistance is futile.

With a commanding performance by Sun Haiying as the unbending, ornery father, and a glammed-down Joan Chen remarkable as the boy's devoted mom, pic serves up solid dramatic values instead of being yet another panorama of social and political changes in China during the late 20th century.

As father and son argue and reunite every few minutes, accompanied by veeery slow violin music, Sunflower plays less like the epic it aspires to be than an episode of "Full House: Beijing."