Tangshan watches "Aftershock" with tears

The "Aftershock" cast makes a toast to celebrate the premiere on Monday, July 12, 2010 in Tangshan, Hebei Province. [Photo: CFP]

As director Feng Xiaogang brought his latest film "Aftershock" to Tangshan for the world premiere Monday, residents of the city scarred by the devastating earthquake 34 years ago had mixed feelings about "reliving" the catastrophe. More than 240,000 people perished when a 7.8-magnitude earthquake struck the underdeveloped north China city on July 28, 1976, a time when a radio would cost an ordinary worker four months wages and an electric fan was considered a symbol of family wealth.

About two-thirds of the premiere's 15,000 people in the audience were sitting in chairs on the grass at Tangshan Stadium, wearing blue or orange T-shirts handed out to them by sponsors.

"Tangshan moves the world," said the words on the back of the T-shirts, which were believed to be in Feng's handwriting.

The epic, costing more than 100-million-yuan (about 15 million U.S. dollars), is being screened in IMAX format at Tangshan Stadium. The premiere, which opened at 7:30 p.m., will last for more than four hours.

During the 130-minute film, many in the audience kept wiping tears away with handkerchiefs provided by sponsors. The movie left no dry eyes in test screenings during which sponsors had to provide tissues for audiences.

"This time, we would hand out handkerchiefs, as we thought there might not be enough tissues, which are also not environmental friendly," said Xiong Guoxiang, a culture official of Tangshan city, Monday earlier. "The audience can keep them as souvenirs of the premiere," he said.

Though assured by audiences at test screenings in other Chinese cities, the 52-year-old director was still nervous about Monday's premiere. "I am looking forward to, but also nervous about the premiere because how the Tangshan people feel about this film will mean a lot to us. We really hope they like it," said Feng late last week.

Monday afternoon, Feng, along with his crew, laid flowers in front of the Tangshan Earthquake Memorial Wall. The 300-meter-long black marble wall, also called the "wailing wall" of China, bears the names of all the earthquake victims.

The 1976 quake is believed to be one of the deadliest natural disasters of the 20th Century. Some survivors believe the film is a proper tribute to the dead, but others fear the experience will just revive old traumas.

Liu Qiubin, 35, was only a year old when he lost all seven members of his uncle's family to the quake.

"I was too young to have any memory of the earthquake itself, but I do remember that we lived in tents for a long time," said the Tangshan carwash attendant.

"I am expecting to see through my own eyes what happened then and to feel the fear and pain Tangshan went through, as a way to show my respect to people who died and to the scar in every Tangshan person's heart," he said.

Feng focuses on the aftermath through the story of a mother's three-decade journey to an emotional reunion with the daughter she thought she had lost in the disaster.

The mother, played by Feng's wife, Xu Fan, had to make a choice between saving her daughter or her son and she picked the boy, after which the daughter, saved by her foster parents, held a grudge against her mother for 32 years.

"My wife could not stop weeping when she saw the little girl waking up surrounded by bodies in the preview. We won't see the movie. It will be so painful," said Li Changjun, 62, who lost his 2-year-old child in the quake.

"For old folks like us, this movie surely reminds us about the painful past. It, however, also shows us that we can overcome any difficulties because we always have the whole nation's support. That's why we had made it through the Sichuan and Qinghai quakes in the past two years," said Zhao Xicheng, a 62-year-old survivor of the Tangshan quake, at the premiere.

"As for the young people, they can learn of the selflessness and strong will of people after the quake," he added.

The screen, 33 meters long and 15 meters high, was the largest in the world, said Sun Ao, head of the business division of Huayi Brothers, one the three co-producers with China Film Group and Tangshan municipal government.

"Aftershock" would be the first made-in-China IMAX film, he said. "Many extras in this movie are actual quake survivors, some even brought their children, as they want the kids to know how their mothers crawled out from the rubble," said Xu, who delivers a haunting performance as the mother scarred by the death of her husband and the loss of her daughter.

"Sometimes when the extras needed to create lines themselves, they started to talk about real things that happened to their family. Things so sad they often brought us to tears," said Xu.

The movie, due out on July 22, is also expected to revive memories of the 2008 Sichuan earthquake and this year's Qinghai disaster.

An 8-magnitude quake left more than 87,000 people dead or missing when it hit the southwestern Sichuan Province on May 12, 2008.

In April this year, an earthquake in the northwestern Qinghai Province killed more than 2,200 people.