The Little Chinese Seamstress

Released May 16, 2002

1h 51m

Romance

Drama

List

77%

62 Reviews

Tomatometer

83%

2,500+ Ratings

Audience Score

In the early 1970s, teenage friends Ma Jianling (Ye Liu) and Luo Min (Chen Kun) are forced to move to a remote mountain village for re-education during China's Cultural Revolution. Luo falls in love with a beautiful girl known as the Little Seamstress (Zhou Xun), who thirsts for the Western music and literature that the village chief (Chen Tianlu) considers insufficiently Maoist. The friends read to her from a cache of suppressed European literature that opens her mind to new possibilities.

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Critics Consensus

This delicately told fable about the power of literature is a lyrical delight.

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Audience Member

I found the movie terrible. It relies entirely on clichés, adds a patronizing tone that was not in the book (too bad Sijie revealed his own intentions that were less blatant in his novel). None of the characters is either believable, interesting or complex. Every time the movie has the occasion to show or say something stupid, it does. It gets half a star because the shots of mountains and streams are beautiful.

Rated 0.5 out of 5 stars

02/03/23

Full Review

Serge L

A quietly epic story during Mao's revolution. It sow's slowly under our skin. Bitter, sweet, bitter. Only cinematographic flaw is the abrupt transition to the current situation, 20 years later, very much a change of pace and of world that could have been handled better. Maybe even be a subject of a sequel. The mystery of what happens to the Seamstress could be a whole other adventure, like Zola used to do from book to book. This is the feeling. More of a Zola type of drama.

Rated 4 out of 5 stars

06/19/17

Full Review

Josías G

La pequeña costurera es uno de mis viejos amores, la amé cuando la vi en un festival de películas extrajeras hace ya más de diez años y nunca la pude olvidar.. http://cineptimoarte.blogspot.mx/

Rated 5 out of 5 stars

09/29/15

Full Review

Audience Member

Charming and lyrical in its style, but brutal in its implications. I think modern audiences just have to be hit over the head to think something is deep. They are young, ignorant, and manipulated by propaganda, and each other. The significance of Balzac is the influence of western ideas

Rated 3.5 out of 5 stars

02/01/23

Full Review

Audience Member

Chinese coming-of-age and the power of literature. I finished the book yesterday and enjoyed this adaptation. The amended ending is particularly beautiful.

Rated 4 out of 5 stars

01/15/23

Full Review

Audience Member

the film felt vacuous or at least it left me feeling sort of empty, and insatiated at the end. it was an easy,enjoyable enough watch but meaningful, insightful film it was not. p.s. anyone else caught whiffs of homoerotic undertones? or was it just narrow-minded me?

Rated 3 out of 5 stars

01/19/23

Full Review

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Sijie Dai

Director

Kun Chen

Luo

Ye Liu

Ma

Xun Zhou

Seamstress

Wang Shuangbao

Head of the Village

Chen Tianlu

Commune Director

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Patrick Z. McGavin

Chicago Reader

The ethereal private moments and inspired passages are beautifully shot by Jean-Marie Dreujou, but Dai never quite organizes the material dramatically, and the tone is too often jagged and disruptive.

Mar 18, 2010

Full Review

Empire Magazine

Rated: 3/5

Dec 30, 2006

Full Review

Richard Nilsen

Arizona Republic

The film is episodic, and most of the scenes are evocative and charming.

Jan 12, 2006

Full Review

Dennis Schwartz

Dennis Schwartz Movie Reviews

A dullish though quite watchable lyrical coming-of-age love triangle drama set in the 1970s during the Chinese Cultural Revolution.

Rated: C+

Mar 24, 2008

Full Review

Eric Monder

Film Journal International

Anyone expecting something either insightful or unusual will be disappointed.

Mar 1, 2007

Full Review

Jim Lane

Sacramento News & Review

Rated: 3/5

May 12, 2006

Full Review

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Synopsis

In the early 1970s, teenage friends Ma Jianling (Ye Liu) and Luo Min (Chen Kun) are forced to move to a remote mountain village for re-education during China's Cultural Revolution. Luo falls in love with a beautiful girl known as the Little Seamstress (Zhou Xun), who thirsts for the Western music and literature that the village chief (Chen Tianlu) considers insufficiently Maoist. The friends read to her from a cache of suppressed European literature that opens her mind to new possibilities.

Director: Sijie Dai
Producer: Bernard Lorain, Pujian Wang
Screenwriter: Nadine Perront, Sijie Dai
Genre: Romance, Drama
Original Language: Chinese
Release Date (Theaters): May 16, 2002, Original
Rerelease Date (Theaters): Jul 29, 2005
Release Date (DVD): Dec 27, 2005
Box Office (Gross USA): $665.3K
Runtime: 1h 51m
Sound Mix: Dolby Stereo, Dolby Digital, Dolby A, Dolby SR
Aspect Ratio: Scope (2.35:1)