Grandson from america

Here we have yet another film ruined by its annoying bratty child protagonist. This is kind of like a chinese version of goodnight mister tom, in which an american boy goes to live with an old chinese man in a little rural village. The old man is grumpy, as old men should be, but slowly warms to the boy, but nothing in the plot gives any indication as to why, as all the boy does is to act as rudely and spoiltly as possible.

The scenery is nice, and there are some good jokes, and the recurring side characters are also nice. But the core of the film doesn’t seem to make any sense. Another jarring thing is that the ostensibly american chararcters are clearly not american, although they speak little enough that it’s not a huge issue for me. The more jarring thing is that the boy starts the film by showing off his chinese with some very basic sentences, and then continues to have absolutely no issue at all deciphering the think accent of his grandfather.

The absolute worst part of the film is the ending, which i will spoil. After the boy and the old man have finally, inexplicably bonded, and the old man has got back into putting on shadow puppet performances, the boy is watching and having a great time, when his mother drives over and drags him kicking and screaming away, with no chance to say a proper goodbye, and no explanation. It almost explains the boy’s behavioural problems throughout the film if this is the kind of parenting he’s been having to endure.

This should be a warm and happy film, but the ending is weird, the middle is weird, and the start is weird. The subplot, in which the government representative for the town tries to convince the old man to start up puppetry again, is compelling, and the film would have been much better if it was based around the generational gap among people living in rural chinese villages. But then it wouldn’t be able to attempt an allegory about the political situation of the world, in such a clumsy manner that it makes the whole film unbearable.