One Child Nation (2019, documentary) - Wang and Zhang illuminate the Chinese mass infanticide

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A recreation of China's bountiful one-child policy propaganda that shows one of the hidden effects of its implementation screams loud on this poster for Nanfu Wang and Jialing Zhang's One Child Nation

In an effort to avoid mass hunger and provoke better life circumstances, China's effective 1979-2015 one-child policy was unique, but came with very tall human costs.

One Child Nation is a documentary by Chinese Americans Nanfu Wang (Hooligan Sparrow (2016, documentary) and Jialing Zhang (Complicit (2017, documentary)). Both were born in China during the one-child policy, and Wang is able to search out family members in her quest for answers. The film's strength is very attached to its personal relevance for the filmmakers. 
What is uncovered in One Child Nation is not completely shocking for those with prior insight into China's evil Communist system, but hearing the stories and seeing images and contemplating the massive scale of the effects, - at one point the forced abortions and baby killings are counted in the hundreds of millions, - is shocking nevertheless. Forced sterilizations of women, destruction of homes and arrests of those who violated the policy, as well as babies left to die - especially baby girls - as a normalized practice for decades, the one-child policy comes to stand as another pitch black era of inhumane evil in the already packed annals of death and horror in the 20th century.
One Child Nation follows its story to the adopted Chinese children in the US, who may not want to know about the truth of their heritage, and one person working for these connections regrets this towards the film's end. - But can you blame these individuals for not wanting to know about this unfathomable mass of abuse, terror, inhumanity and disempowerment that is China? People are only cogs in a machine in that most distasteful of countries.

Related post:

Nanfu Wang, Jialing Zhang: 2019 in films - according to Film Excess [UPDATED I]

2019 in films - according to Film Excess

Watch a trailer for the film here

Cost: Unknown
Box office: 271k $
= Uncertain
[One Child Nation premiered 26 January (Sundance Film Festival, Utah) and runs 89 minutes. Shooting took place in China and in Utah. The film opened #54 to a 20k $ first weekend in 2 theaters in North America, where it peaked at #40 and in 36 theaters (different weeks) and grossed 270k $. The only other market reported is the UK with 1k $. The film has screened at numerous festivals around the world, winning the documentary prize at Sundance, among other honors, with 3 more scheduled festivals for 2019, and it is a hot contender for the Best Documentary Oscar. Wang and Zhang have not announced their next project. One Child Nation is certified fresh at 99 % with an 8.44/10 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]

What do you think of One Child Nation?

The Conqueror (1956) - John Wayne's inauspicious turn as Genghis Khan

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The colorful poster for Dick Powell's The Conqueror

QUICK REVIEW:

The story of Genghis Khan's becoming the greatest war hero in the world gets told here as a pure, happy cock-and-bull story, or like a western removed to the East, complete with Pedro Armendariz (From Russia With Love (1963)), Lee Van Cleef (For a Few Dollars More (1965)), Susan Hayward (The Snows of Kilimajaro (1952)) and John Wayne (True Grit (1969)) in the title role.

Particularly Hayward and Wayne seem to compete in trying to be the most absurd in their roles; vampy, horribly mercurial Hayward wins. Although Wayne also does his part (in)justice with hammy lines such as, "I call that women's talk, my mother!" (Script by Oscar Millard (Angel Face (1952)).)
The Conqueror is very stiff throughout and amusingly theatrical, not unlike Yul Brynner's concurrent turn as Cossack war hero in J. Lee Thompson's Taras Bulba (1962).
Yet the film as such is also well-paced, lavishly produced (by Howard Hughes (Hell's Angels (1930)) in his penultimate film) and excitingly colorful, (in rich Technicolor.) It is directed by actor-director Dick Powell (The Hunters (1958)).
The Conqueror has become notorious as 'the film that killed John Wayne.' - Referring to the stomach and lung cancer that killed him in 1979: The movie was filmed near St. George, Utah, about 140 miles from a military site where nuclear tests may have affected the 200 some film crew with radiation, although the government had deemed it safe to be there. Reportedly, by 1981, 91 persons of the film's cast and crew had developed cancers, (leaving 46 dead at that time.) A lawsuit was never filed, and no-one was ever held accountable for the possible disaster.
- But it is said that Hughes felt bad about the film's production, and especially its shoot at the possibly hazardous site; so bad that he bought back all of its prints for 12 mil. $ and kept The Conqueror out of the public loop, (until Universal bought it from his estate in 1979, three years after his death.) Reportedly, Hughes saw the film - and the 1968 espionage thriller Ice Storm Zebra, - obsessively in his last years.

John Wayne ironically really wanted this one of his most inauspicious roles, as Dick Powell's The Conqueror

Titanic also in terms of real human tragedy, some might say. Here's the trailer for the film

Cost: 6 mil. $
Box office: 9-12 mil. $
= Flop
[The film made 4.5 mil. $ of its gross in the US, where it was the 11th biggest hit at the box office of 1956, which, however, wasn't enough to make it a success. The Conqueror became known as one of the worst films of the 50's (and, to some, of all time.) - But not to Film Excess, it isn't!]

What do you think of The Conqueror?
Please, share any trivia knowledge about it that you may have