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One Child Nation

Original title: Born in China
  • 2019
  • R
  • 1h 23m
IMDb RATING
7.5/10
7.6K
YOUR RATING
One Child Nation (2019)
'One Child Nation' uncovers the untold history of China's One-Child policy and the generations of parents and children forever shaped by this social experiment.
Play trailer2:26
4 Videos
5 Photos
DocumentaryHistory

After becoming a mother, a filmmaker uncovers the untold history of China's one-child policy and the generations of parents and children forever shaped by this social experiment.After becoming a mother, a filmmaker uncovers the untold history of China's one-child policy and the generations of parents and children forever shaped by this social experiment.After becoming a mother, a filmmaker uncovers the untold history of China's one-child policy and the generations of parents and children forever shaped by this social experiment.

  • Directors
    • Nanfu Wang
    • Jialing Zhang
  • Stars
    • Nanfu Wang
    • Zaodi Wang
    • Zhimei Wang
  • See production info at IMDbPro
  • IMDb RATING
    7.5/10
    7.6K
    YOUR RATING
    • Directors
      • Nanfu Wang
      • Jialing Zhang
    • Stars
      • Nanfu Wang
      • Zaodi Wang
      • Zhimei Wang
    • 98User reviews
    • 51Critic reviews
    • 85Metascore
  • See production info at IMDbPro
    • Nominated for 1 Primetime Emmy
      • 10 wins & 50 nominations total

    Videos4

    Official Trailer
    Trailer 2:26
    Official Trailer
    One Child Nation
    Trailer 2:26
    One Child Nation
    One Child Nation
    Trailer 2:26
    One Child Nation
    Official Trailer
    Trailer 2:28
    Official Trailer
    One Child Nation: By Giving Her Away
    Clip 1:47
    One Child Nation: By Giving Her Away

    Photos4

    View Poster
    View Poster
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    View Poster

    Top cast19

    Edit
    Nanfu Wang
    Nanfu Wang
    • Self
    Zaodi Wang
    • Self
    Zhimei Wang
    • Self
    Tunde Wang
    • Self
    Xianwen Liu
    • Self
    Huaru Yuan
    • Self
    Shuqin Jiang
    • Self
    Peng Wang
    • Self
    Zhihao Wang
    • Self
    Shihua Wang
    • Self
    Guijiao Wang
    • Self
    Yueneng Duan
    • Self
    Meilin Duan
    • Self
    Brian Stuy
    • Self
    Longlan Stuy
    • Self
    • (as Long Lan Stuy)
    Jiaoming Pang
    • Self - Journalist
    Zhou
    • Self
    • (archive footage)
    Yang
    • Self
    • (archive footage)
    • Directors
      • Nanfu Wang
      • Jialing Zhang
    • All cast & crew
    • Production, box office & more at IMDbPro

    User reviews98

    7.57.6K
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    Featured reviews

    8brendaniforth

    Must See Cautionary Tale

    Yes, this film makes a clear case for the serious consequences that happen when paternalistic societies fail to value and provide equal rights for women. Whether it's rabid anti-choice proponents in America who clearly feel that individual women should be denied the right to make reproductive decisions for themselves, or Chinese communist authorities who perpetuate the party line to force abortions and sterilization, the losers are always women and all of society. We all need to learn this lesson and this film makes this point in a devastating and personal way.
    6hongh

    I expected a broader perspective

    I don't like Communist China and many of its policies, including one child policy. I have the same overall view as the documentary. However, to make a more powerful documentary, they should have applied more scientific storytelling method and interviewed people from broader range of background. Moreover, the film should have involved less of her family and relatives to make it more objective.
    7Agentpie

    Condemning propaganda while spreading its own

    As a documentary it was very informative with insight from many that went through, enforced, and were victims of the one child policy. The film however did not take a bipartisan informative stance, which would allow viewers to form their own opinions. The filmmaker used a nations tragedy to promote her own ideas. The documentary focused on the tragedy of families having their babies killed, which the filmmaker managed to turn into a statement about how awful it was for Chinese women to not have a choice in the killing of their babies. She went further and said that the decision should be left to the mother. In other words, a dead baby under a bridge (as depicted in the film) is awful if the mother had no choice in the decision, however if it was her choice, a dead baby under a bridge is acceptable.
    8Statler-Waldorf

    Thought provoking and emotionally confronting

    A deeply thought provoking and emotionally confronting look at some the people affected by, or tasked with enforcement of China's one child policy established in 1979. The narrative is mostly driven by the film maker's recollections of her experience, and interviews with her family and others in the area where she grew up.

    Excellent film making, use of imagery, narration and examination of a number of different perspectives. Very sensitively approaching the subject, she was able to gently yet persuasively coax some truly shocking admissions of guilt from some of her interviewees. Be prepared for some awful images, but thankfully these scenes are not dwelt on for long as macabre voyeurism was not the intent, but to solidly make the point of what happened to many babies. The story told indicates that the one-child policy was implemented in a harsh, cruel, uncompromising and unforgiving way, although it seems the government eventually recognised the need to protect and find new homes via international adoption programmes for babies that were abandoned by their parents trying to avoid the harsh penalties that they would face.

    The only criticism is that there is not much in the way of analysis of the reasons that led up to the point of the introduction of the policy in China. This was hinted at by interviews with her mother, but not much else. For an example of a country that should have, but hasn't introduced population control measures, take a look at India. There, they have well over 100 million people enduring appalling, squalid, miserable poverty and hundreds of millions more struggling daily to eke out a meagre existence. Religious dogma and lack of understanding about environmental impact regarding unrestrained human reproduction are at least partly to blame for the coming crisis of over-population in most parts of the world. If the human race is to avoid large scale wars over food, water and climate change induced migration in the next 30 years, then global population controls need to be carefully introduced and incentivised, but not the way the PRC did it. Seen at NZIFF Wellington by a parent of one child.
    JohnDeSando

    This is an expertly and darkly real doc.

    "As a bookish child, I would come to see the one-child policy as one of the most fascinating and bizarre things about the land of my ancestors, equal parts Aldous Huxley and King Herod." Mei Fong, One Child: The Story of China's Most Radical Experiment

    Hearing about China's 1979 one-child policy, lasting 35 years, is one thing. Listening to Asians who lived through it is another. The logic of administrators, some of whom who appear in Nanfu Wang's informative and touching documentary, One Child Nation, almost make sense.

    Then you realize who is abandoned and who abducted, mostly girls, and you grimace for them and the families who were torn apart by the rule. Assuredly the females had to go first when authorities discovered families with more than one child because the Asian tradition had always favored males.

    Wang having been given a man's name (Nanfu translates into "man" and pillar") shows a deft hand at directing without preaching. She does what I find lacking in too many docs-the other side. Those supporting a one-child policy appear frequently praising it as the salvation of a billion people who would have starved or resorted to cannibalism without the population restraint.

    The devastating effects cannot be hidden: babies left in baskets, twins separated forever, human trafficking on a grand scale are just a few of the disorders. Propaganda is always there to reinforce the state's message. Wang presents it all, both good and bad.

    But like our dark slavery past or Nazi cleansing, heinous plans to control population never seem to survive. The trail, however, is bloody and harrowing.

    Wang has expertly balanced between a depressing subject and an important history lesson: "Don't fool with Mother Nature."

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    Storyline

    Edit

    Did you know

    Edit
    • Quotes

      Nanfu Wang: But I want that decision to be my own. I'm struck by the irony that I left a country where the government forced women to abort and I moved to another country where the governments restrict abortions. On the surface they seem like opposites, but both are about taking away women's control of their own bodies.

    • Connections
      Featured in Subject (2022)

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    FAQ17

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    Details

    Edit
    • Release date
      • August 9, 2019 (United States)
    • Country of origin
      • United States
    • Official sites
      • Official Facebook
      • Official site
    • Languages
      • English
      • Mandarin
    • Also known as
      • Народжений у Китаї
    • Filming locations
      • Jiangxi Province, China
    • Production companies
      • Chicago Media Project
      • Westdeutscher Rundfunk (WDR)
    • See more company credits at IMDbPro

    Box office

    Edit
    • Gross US & Canada
      • $270,128
    • Opening weekend US & Canada
      • $20,523
      • Aug 11, 2019
    • Gross worldwide
      • $271,841
    See detailed box office info on IMDbPro

    Tech specs

    Edit
    • Runtime
      1 hour 23 minutes
    • Color
      • Color
    • Sound mix
      • Dolby Digital
    • Aspect ratio
      • 1.85 : 1
      • 16 : 9

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