To call “Aftershock” a melodrama doesn’t really do it justice. Shortly after Feng Xiaogang’s film begins, a woman whose husband has just died in the devastating 1976 Tangshan earthquake looks up and screams: “God! You bastard!” And things go downhill from there. Before you know it, she has a Sophie’s choice to make involving her two trapped children and a concrete slab.
如果將《唐山大地震》稱作劇情片，那麽多少有點不公。在這部馮氏電影開場後不久，發生於1976年唐山的毀滅性地震便奪去了壹個丈夫的生命，而她的女人只能仰望天空淒厲地嚎叫“老天爺！王八蛋！”自此她便陷入了更大的泥沼：很快她便面臨著蘇菲般的抉擇，不得不從兩個被壹塊混凝土板困住的孩子中選擇壹個。
These scenes, including a highly effective rendering of the earthquake, which killed an estimated 240,000 people, are dispatched quickly. But the pain is just beginning. Still to come are an adoption, an unexpected pregnancy, terminal illness, two amputations, three emotional reunions, four abandonments and more than 30 years of exquisite suffering, guilt and resentment, until a redemptive finale brought about by — it’s almost too good to be true — the 2008 Sichuan earthquake.
以上這些場景和壹個效果震撼的地震過程（這場地震據估計造成24萬人死亡）很快便結束了。然而，這僅僅是苦痛和創傷的開始。之後還會發生諸多的事件：壹次收養，壹次意外懷孕，疾病晚期，兩次截肢，三次感人的重逢，四次遺棄，超過三十年的細入發梢的苦痛，愧疚與怨恨，直到壹個救贖式的終曲——而這簡直是再恰當不過的——2008年的四川大地震。
The surprise is that while you’re aware that “Aftershock” is extracting tears with a sledgehammer, it doesn’t necessarily feel like abuse; it’s easy to let yourself go along with it. A lot of Chinese moviegoers did: “Aftershock” (the original title translates as “The Tangshan Earthquake”) is the highest-grossing domestic film in China’s history, its $100 million take since its release in July ranking it ahead of “The Founding of a Republic,” though still behind “Avatar.”
盡管所有人都會知道《唐山大地震》顯然是壹部催淚彈，但令人意外的是這部影片並不那麽濫情；妳可以很輕松地放任自己的情緒跟著片中的人物飄搖。事實上很多中國電影觀眾也的確這樣做了：於是《唐山大地震》（英文譯名原為The Tangshan Earthquake，後改為Aftershock）成為了中國歷史上最賣座的本土電影，自七月份上映以來其累積票房收入達1億美元，穩穩領先於《建國大業》，不過仍然落後於《阿凡達》。
Mr. Feng, director of the romantic caper “A World Without Thieves” and the romantic comedy “If You Are the One” (No. 3 in that box office ranking), has been called the Spielberg of China. In “Aftershock” the comparison makes sense in terms beyond commercial success. He somehow manages to mitigate the worst excesses of Su Xiaowei’s script. The film may be a blunt instrument , but it’s rarely maudlin — the exception being the performance of Mr. Feng’s wife, Fan Xu, as the long-suffering mother -and is, on occasion, quite moving. (Western viewers will still find some of the notions about family guilt to be over the top , but then they’re not accustomed to presumptive filial piety and a one-child policy.)
馮小剛曾執導過黑色喜劇《天下無賊》以及愛情喜劇《非誠勿擾》（官方票房排名第三位），被稱為中國的斯皮爾伯格。而《唐山大地震》這樣壹部沈重的影片除了商業成功外，其與馮小剛以往作品的風格對比也十分強烈。馮小剛多少成功把握住了蘇小衛過於冗長的劇本。這部電影或許有些過於直白，但絕不僅僅只有淚點——除了劇中那位飽受各種折磨的母親（由馮小剛的妻子徐帆扮演），有時也頗為令人感動。（西方觀影人仍然會感到有些關於家庭的罪惡感被過分誇大了，但這很多時候也是基於文化障礙——他們並不了解傳統東方文化中隱含的孝道以及獨生子女政策。）