Last Train Home
Last Train Home Image
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Metascore
86 out of 100

Universal acclaim - based on 18 Critics What's this?

User Score
8.1 out of 10

Universal acclaim- based on 21 Ratings

Your Score
0 out of 10
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  • Starring: Changhua Zhan, Suqin Chen, Yang Zhang
  • Summary: Every spring, China’s cities are plunged into chaos as 130 million migrant workers journey to their home villages for the New Year’s holiday. This mass exodus is the world’s largest human migration—an epic spectacle that reveals a country tragically caught between its rural past and industriindustrial future. Working over several years in classic verité style Chinese-Canadian filmmaker Lixin Fan (with the producers of the award-winning hit documentary Up the Yangtze) travels with one couple who have embarked on this annual trek for
    almost two decades. Like so many of China’s rural poor, Zhang Changhua and Chen Suqin left behind their two infant children for grueling factory jobs. Their daughter Qin—now a restless and rebellious teenager—both bitterly resents their absence and longs for her own freedom away from school, much to the utter devastation of her parents. Emotionally engaging and starkly beautiful,
    Last Train Home’s intimate observation of one fractured family sheds light on the human cost of China’s ascendance as an economic superpower. (Zeitgeist Films)    … Expand

Critic Reviews

Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 18 out of 18
  2. Mixed: 0 out of 18
  3. Negative: 0 out of 18
  1. San Francisco Chronicle
    Reviewed by: G. Allen Johnson
    100
    Fan has visual panache - Last Train Home has some gorgeously composed shots - but he also has something that can't be taught: The patience and understanding to allow a family to tell their heartbreaking story in their own way.
  2. Chicago Sun-Times
    Reviewed by: Roger Ebert
    100
    It's one of those extraordinary films, like "Hoop Dreams," that tells a story the makers could not possibly have anticipated in advance. It works like stunning, grieving fiction.
  3. Time Out New York
    Reviewed by: David Fear
    100
    The attention to visuals is above and beyond what most vérité is capable of; doing double duty as the film's cinematographer, Fan demonstrates a pitch-perfect photojournalistic eye.
  4. Boxoffice Magazine
    Reviewed by: Steve Ramos
    80
    Fan finds the delicate balance between broad socio-political themes and a single family torn between centuries-old traditions and the desire to succeed in the capitalist world.

See all 18 Critic Reviews

User Reviews

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Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 2 out of 2
  2. Mixed: 0 out of 2
  3. Negative: 0 out of 2
  1. camelion
    10
    Lixin Fan's film retains an extraordinary relationship with it's direct subjects; a struggling family, and the tensions of some 130 million other peasants toiling in similar fashion, trying to make a living in the enormous industrial complex that is modern China. Juxtaposing the intimate, enchanting portrait of the Zhang family with the action footage of them lost in the utterly insane annual event that constitutes 'goin home for the holidays in China was a masterstroke. This, thankfully, is one of those documentary films that never feels like it intrudes, so much so that a sense of voyeurism crept up on me. I found the cinematography so fluid and captivating that the solitary occasion wherein the tension of a cameras glaring presence is brought to bare became an unforgettable scene of wrought emotion. I actually had to press pause. This film is a real achievement in Cinéma vérité, from a special artist, and an important one too.… Expand
  2. snow_walker
    9
    This film is a wonderfully paced and visually stunning portrait of a cultural phenomenon - economic migration within China. The struggle of one family is shown rather than explained, with snippets of conversation as a chorus to the imagery. A sensory treat.… Expand

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