Review Of Movie "My People My Homeland" (我和我的家乡)

I love rags-to-riches stories, and China's is the biggest rags-to-riches story of our times.

The story of how 400 million (or more) people were lifted out of poverty into the middle class in a single generation never fails to amaze and move me. The 2020 movie 我和我的家乡 wǒ hé wǒ de jiāxiāng (literally "Me and my hometown" but officially titled "My People My Homeland") is a collection of five stories of small towns and villages from five different regions of China, which uses humorous (yet touching) situations to show various aspects of China's development over the past generation.

Many scenes left me with a lump in the throat.

My People My Homeland - an anthology of five short movies

It's propaganda for sure, but based on reality. No one doubts that the progress the movie shows off is genuine. And as a bonus, the narrative isn't contrived or boring but quite entertaining throughout, so this is a movie that educates even as it entertains.

Story 1 - 北京好人 Běijīng hǎorén ("The Good People of Beijing")

Region: Beijing (North)

Aspect highlighted: Universal state-subsidised healthcare

The name of the protagonist is Zhang Beijing, and so the title can also be interpreted as "Good guy Beijing". Indeed, he is a good friend to his country cousin who needs an expensive surgery done. He tries a variety of tricks to smuggle his cousin into the medical system under his identity so he can have the procedure done without cost. This leads to many a hilarious situation, and an increasingly messy imbroglio for both the men. All turns out well in the end, however, and the moral of the story that we're left with is that the Chinese state provides an insurance-based healthcare scheme that covers everyone, both city folk and rural folk.

A second message is that everyone in Beijing is nice, understanding and helpful, including cops, doctors and nurses.

Okay.

The benevolent city slicker Zhang Beijing is played by the well-known comic Ge You, with Zhang Zhanyi providing a good foil as the bumbling country bumpkin 

Story 2 - 天上掉下个UFO tiānshàng diào xià gè UFO ("A UFO Falls from the Sky")

Region: Qiannan, Guizhou (South)

Aspect highlighted: Improved transportation and connectivity, innovation

This story was funny too, but it was my least favourite of the five. A certain village becomes a tourist attraction after a UFO sighting. We follow two investigative photojournalists who are trying to expose what they suspect to be a fraud. Along the way, we learn about the traditionally impassable terrain of the southern province of Guizhou, which makes even nearby places inaccessible to one another.

But of course, most of those problems of transportation and logistics are now a thing of the past, which is what the movie is trying to tell us.

Indeed, China has been a world leader in the speed at which it rolls out kilometre after kilometre of roads, so I won't grudge them a bit of boasting.

Story 3 - 最后一课 zuìhòu yī kè ("The Final Class")

Region: Qiandaohu, Zhejiang (East)

Aspect highlighted: Universal primary education, alleviation of rural poverty

This short movie and the next were my favourites in this series. Both deal with education, and with inspiring, dedicated teachers. Lao Fan (played by comedian Fan Wei) is an old professor at the Swiss campus of a Chinese University. He lives in Switzerland with his son and daughter-in-law. When he suffers a strange neurological disorder, his doctor advises his family to take him back to the place and the point in time where his mind seems to have become stuck, so that he can recover.

The place was a small village, now a well-developed town, and that point in time was a few decades earlier, when he was posted out of the city to a rural area as a schoolteacher. Although he was initially shocked at the backwardness of the village, he stayed on for a full decade rather than leave when his official term was over. He wanted to see the children of the village educated, and he succeeded. Those very children, now grown up, help his family recreate the environment of a ramshackle school building, now long replaced by a huge and gleaming one. The camerawork showing the Potemkin school juxtaposed against the real school that existed so many years ago is very powerful.

The movie's title is from what teacher Lao Fan writes on the board, as he exhorts his class to imagine what they would like their hometown to look like - "Me and my hometown"

Sincerity personified. I wouldn't knock this portrayal, since I have seen teachers like this in my own childhood.

One of the children draws his vision of what his school should look like, but lacks paints to colour it with.

No one in the class has a full set of paints or colour pencils

The younger Lao Fan (in the flashback) attempts to bring colours to help the boy

Juxtaposed against the present day, where Chinese schoolchildren want for nothing

Story 4 - 回乡之路 huí xiāng zhī lù ("The Road Back Home")

Region: Shaligou, northern Shaanxi (West)

Aspect highlighted: Reversal of desertification, development of backward regions

Two people meet while travelling back to a village in Shaanxi province for their school reunion. One, played by comedienne Yan Ni, is a celebrity entrepreneur with her own popular Internet channel. The other, played by comedian Deng Chao, is a loudmouth show-off who doesn't seem to be half the success he claims to be.

Another teacher turns out to be the inspiration for the students returning to the school. Madam Gao is long dead, but her words have inspired Yan Ni's character to greatness.

The girl was inspired by her teacher's words

The surprise twist in the story is the role of Deng Chao's braggart character, and what it turns out he has done.

Story 5 - 神笔马亮 Shén bǐ mǎ liàng ("The Magical Touches")

Region: Huixiang village, Xihong municipality (Central China)

Aspect highlighted: Preservation of ethnic minority identity

This was the funniest story of the five. The literal translation of the title is "Ma Liang's magic brush". A classic deception sit-com, the audience can laugh along all the way.

Henpecked artist and local party secretary Ma Liang (played by comedian Shen Teng) gains admission to a prestigious Russian art school, which his wife (played by the equally talented Ma Li) insists he should not turn down, but his instincts lead him instead to take up a posting in his old village, where he helps to develop the place with his art and his general administrative skills. The elaborate ruse he and his friends put up, to convince his wife that he is in fact in Russia, provides the bulk of the laughs. очень приятно (ochen' priyatno, very nice), as the characters often say.

There is a serious message, though, and it's about the role of the party in not only developing villages and attracting young people back from the cities to live in them, but also in preserving the cultures of ethnic minorities, in this case the Hui people.

The scene showing a bullet train whizzing past a huge agri-art mural of a classic steam train, was a bit unsubtle, but again, the Chinese have earned such bragging rights.

Conclusion

All said and done, I think this was a very watchable film, and the fact that it was a propaganda film is largely mitigated by the indisputable fact that China has developed enormously in a very short time, so it's not inauthentic.

3.5 stars out of 5.