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MOVIES / ON DVD / SUNFLOWER
Sunflower

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Sunflower (2005)

64%
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100%
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64 %
Reviews Counted: 14 Fresh: 9  Rotten:5 Average Rating: 5.9/10

How does the Tomatometer work?

The Tomatometer measures the percentage of positive reviews from Approved Tomatometer Critics for a certain movie.[-]

Runtime: 2 hrs 9 mins

Synopsis: This drama from Zhang Yang (SHOWER) explores the life of one Chinese family over the latter part of the 20th century. This drama from Zhang Yang (SHOWER) explores the life of one Chinese family over the latter part of the 20th century. [More]

Genre: Foreign Films

Starring: Joan Chen, Sun Haiying

Director: Zhang Yang
Screenwriter: Zhang Yang
Producer: Han Sanping, Peter Loehr

DVD Info

Release:

Jan 7, 2008

[DVD Details]

DVD Features:

  • Region 1
  • Keep Case
  • Anamorphic Widescreen 16:9

Audio:

  • Dolby Digital 5.1 - Mandarin, English
  • Subtitles - English - Optional

Additional Release Material:

  • Featurettes - THE MAKING OF SUNFLOWER
  • Trailers - Theatrical Trailer

Interactive Features:

  • Scene Selections

Reviews

 
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1 - 14 (sorted by date; UK critics are listed first)
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Ratings Image
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An odd combination of sociopolitical metaphor and conventional melodrama, Chinese filmmaker Zhang Yang's Sunflower has moments of keen insight and power touching on the ways in which human character and personality are shaped by historical experience.

Full Review | comment Comment
06/10/08
Prairie Miller
NewsBlaze
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3/4

The film's father-son friction grows occasionally repetitious, but it springs from a sensitive, well-written melodrama that earns its emotions with tender sincerity.

Full Review | comment Comment
01/04/08
Jeff Shannon
Seattle Times
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3.5/5

There is so much going on in Sunflower that you may want to see it more than once.

Full Review | comment Comment
09/21/07
Liz Braun
Jam! Movies
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3/4

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

Full Review | comment Comment
09/21/07
Jason Anderson
Globe and Mail
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Although filled with a plethora of dramatic events, including earthquakes and floods, the film never achieves real dramatic momentum, due in large part to its needlessly sluggish pacing.

Full Review | comment Comment
09/10/07
Frank Scheck
Hollywood Reporter
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N/A

While individual moments are quite moving, Sunflower conveys the passage of its history-changing years in what seems like real time.

Full Review | comment Comment
09/04/07
Frank Scheck
Hollywood Reporter
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N/A

Whatever the movie lacks in sociopolitical insight, it makes up for with moving storytelling.

Full Review | comment Comment
08/27/07
Eric Monder
Film Journal International
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3.5/5

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

Full Review | comment Comment
08/17/07
Jeannette Catsoulis
New York Times
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2.5/4

A much better film in theory than in practice.

Full Review | comment Comment
08/17/07
Rob Humanick
Slant Magazine
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2/4

Paging John O'Hara. One would have to reach back to those melodramatic family potboilers of the '50s to find such an unfettered blast of guilt-tripping and misdirected love.

Full Review | comment Comment
08/16/07
Jan Stuart
Newsday
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3/5

A fascinating portrait of 30 years in a turbulent relationship between a domineering Chinese father and his stubborn son.

Full Review | comment Comment
08/15/07
Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat
Spirituality and Practice
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N/A

Sunflower plays less like the epic it aspires to be than an episode of Full House: Beijing.

Full Review | comment Comment
08/14/07
Julia Wallace
Village Voice
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3/5

This film marks a return to more accessible fare for Chinese director Zhang Yang.

Full Review | comment Comment
09/24/05
Adam Nayman
eye WEEKLY
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The most conventional, but paradoxically the deepest felt and most emotionally affecting, of mainland Chinese helmer Zhang Yang's four pics.

Full Review | comment Comment
09/21/05
Derek Elley
Variety
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1 - 14 (sorted by date; UK critics are listed first)
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