23 seconds.  32 years.

23 seconds was all the time needed for the 7.8 Richter scale earthquake to totally devastate the city of Tangshan in Hebei back in 1976, killing 655,000 people.

32 years was the total number of years needed for a mother and a daughter to be reconciled again, after being separated from each other due to the disaster. 

Produced by Huayi Bros and mainland mass-appeal auteur Feng Xiaogang, Aftershock is a movie which operates in couplets.   

It tells the story of how one mother Li Yuanni (played by Xu Fan, who is also Feng's wife) had to make a decision between the devil and the deep blue sea.  Forced to choose between her 7 year old twins trapped under a concrete slab after the quake, she chose her son Fang Da over daughter Fang Deng when faced with the choice to save either (her husband played by Zhang Guoqiang was killed in the natural disaster).

The consequences of Yuanni's decision was life long and excruciating.  It followed one emotional roller coaster after another as the parallel tracks of Yuanni and Fang Da's lives are traced against that of Fang Deng and her foster parents who hail from the military. 

As the main protagonist of the show, Yuanni made the greatest impact (pardon the pun) with impressive acting chops by Xu Fan.  Carrying the emotional burden and psychological trauma of having wronged her "dead" daughter, Yuanni refuses to overcome her past and opts to swallow a life-long bitter pill.  The altar bearing her husband and daughter's photographs was highly symbolic in depicting her commitment to a life of regret, refusing any romantic encounters or notions of a more luxurious life.  

Special mention must be made of Zhang Zifeng, the little girl who played Fang Deng during the most sordid initial scenes of the movie.  Expressing grief in a shell-shocked manner, Zifeng must have moved many parental hearts with her silent sobs.  The adult version of Fang Deng (well known actress Zhang Jingchu) continues to portray that sense of loss throughout the show, and this was exacerbated by personal tragedies in her life - the loss of her foster mother to cancer, becoming an unwed mother, and stopping her education in medical school.

Movie Trailer featuring Zhang Zifeng as Fang Deng

Fang Da's life with his mother, on the other hand, appears to be slightly less dramatic.  While the lost of a limb appeared to impair his ability to succeed academically, the adult Fang Da (Li Chen) managed to do well, getting married with a kid and driving a BMW around. 

While the scenes of the cataclysmic earthquake itself were horrifying, with buildings falling onto people, kids caked in grey mud and families wrecked apart, Feng's masterful touch in storytelling is more evident tracing the aftermath of the incident. One could quite pulpably feel the emotional turmoil and release when mother and daughter reconciled, coincidentally when the pair of twins returned to assist with relief efforts in the 2008 Sichuan earthquake.

In a way, Aftershock the title (which is different from the Chinese title which literally meant "great earthquake) appeared to be apt.  The impact of a natural calamity on lives doesn't just end when rebuilding efforts are over. 

Feng Xiaogang is a national cinematic hero in China.  His movies were all box-office events, grossing more than 1 billion yuan (S$209 million) over the past 16 years.  While Feng was much celebrated in his hometown in Beijing, he was relatively unknown in Singapore.

Hopefully, Aftershock, his latest tearjerker based on the 1976 Tangshan earthquake in Hebei, will change that.

Special thanks to Omy.sg for inviting me for this preview.

Cast members of Aftershock (courtesy of Sina.com)