Message from rramirez

[Anonymous]

Too Late to Apologize (1995)
Too Late to Apologize is a Chinese movie about an old veteran (Shen) of the People's Liberation Army who opens up a bookstore in a small rural community in China. He opens up the bookstore to foment education and knowledge in the small town. Some in the town do not want him to succeed and try to undermine his business.

One man wants to purchase the home of the old veteran (Shen) to set up a business. The old veteran (Shen) refuses to sell because he wants to open a bookstore. The man decides to enlist the aid of his son and his friends in sabotaging the old man’s bookstore. He inspires his son into pestering and harrassing the old man. When the son fails, the father teases the son and puts him down. It was odd to see that the father was being corrupt and corrupting his son. It goes against some of the Confucian thought that we have discussed in our sessions.

It was also odd to see this man being competitive and wanting to destroy another business for his own financial growth. It seemed out of place in a country where the economic system is communism (with a twist) and not capitalism. If the movie was made in the United States, it would seem perfectly normal for one person to try to ruin someone else's business to establish one of their own.

What struck me as important was that all the families only had one child, most of them being sons. All of these children were very mischevious and one was very spoiled. None of them respected the old man in the beginning. I had heard that China’s one child policy has affected the morals and values of the new generation of children, some growing up to be bratty and even disrespectful to parents and elders. Such loss of morals and values by youth were very obvious in the film.

The girls in the movie seemed to be more interested in education and proper behavior than the young boys. I wonder if this is true. Are girls in rural or urban China more interested and eager in excelling at academics?

I really enjoyed this movie (my wife did too). I won't kill the ending for you, because people usually get like this :@ when someone ruins a movie for them.
However, the movie made me ask a lot of questions such as:
1. Are kids in China really becoming less obedient, disrespectful and less proper because of the one child policy?
2. Is the the easing of restrictions by the government on China's economic system increasing greed and ambition in people or is the competitiveness part of Chinese culture?
3. Have females always had more interest in education, literature and proper behavior in China or is it something that is more prevalent today? Have any studies been done to analyze this?
4. How different are things in rural and urban China?