World War II films from different eras

2010s

Back to 1942

A scene from Back to 1942. [Photo/Mtime]

Back to 1942 is a 2012 Chinese historical film directed by Feng Xiaogang. It is based on Chinese writer Liu Zhenyun's novel Remembering 1942, and is about a major famine in Henan province during the Chinese People's War against Japanese Aggression.

The protagonist, Master Fan, is a wealthy landlord in a village in Henan. When others are struggling to meet their ends, Fan has plenty to feed upon, but his course of life changes when a group of bandits storm the village, rob it and burn it down to the ground.

Fan is left with no choice but to flee his hometown with his family, and heads westwards in search of food. During the flight, Fan continues to see his family members, and the fellow villagers, die one by one. He is eventually forced to sell his daughter to a brothel house in return for food, and to ensure the survival of his daughter. With limited help from the government, Fan begins to lose hope and wants to head back so he could die somewhere closer to home. On his way, he meets a little girl weeping on the body of her dead father. Fan tries to comfort the girl, but the child says she is not crying because of her father's passing, but because everyone she knew has died and all those remaining were strangers to her. Touched by the girl's words, Fan decides to adopt her as his granddaughter, and continues his journey westwards with the girls' hand in his.

The film also won the Best Film of Mainland and Taiwan at the 32nd Hong Kong Film Awards in 2013, and was selected as the Chinese entry for the Best Foreign Language Film at the 86th Academy Awards in 2014.