<p> The thick swarm of dragonflies descending like a biblical plague on the city was the first omen of disaster. And later that night, the sky turned purple, the earth groaned and heaved and buildings turned to dust. The great earthquake would kill over 200,000 in the provincial Chinese city of Tangshan. </p> <p>With the actual 1976 disaster as the backdrop, <em>Aftershock</em> investigates the effects of the catastrophe on a family. Although the special effects are pretty good, the story, as the title suggests, is more concerned with what came after. Directed by Chinese director Feng Xiaogang, Aftershock was a blockbuster in its homeland. It\'s out on DVD. </p> <p>The story follows a pair of twins, seven year olds at the time their apartment building came down on their heads. With carnage everywhere, the rescuers gave their shell-shocked mother the hardest choice imaginable: only one child can be saved—you pick. She chose her son, leaving her daughter to death. But the girl survived. Traumatized and forgetting who she was, she was adopted by a kindly, childless couple. Inevitably, her path will intersect with her biological family. </p> <p>In the hands of Hollywood, this would have been a two-hour soap opera, but <em>Aftershock</em> never overcooks the scenario and allows its cast to behave believably as they negotiate the demands of nature and nurture. As the decade-spanning story unfolds, China emerges step by step from the residual revolutionary fervor of late Maoism into the prosperity of one-party capitalism. China\'s economic and social development is as much a character in <em>Aftershock</em> as the protagonists. </p>
In the Aftershock
Chinas Blockbuster on DVD
