Film Review - The Free China Junk



I attended The Free China Junk’s Premiere this Saturday. The film is about a remarkable adventure of five young fishermen who set off from Taiwan in 1955 intending to cross the Pacific in an old junk. First time I heard about this film was on a TV programme - “Asia Downunder”, when I thought there was no way for an old junk can cross the Pacific by itself. That made me want to know the whole story. After I watched the film, I do believe that was a true story. Five young men started with nothing, then they got a junk, food supply, finally, with no satellite navigation, they spent about 4 month to cross the Pacific. Generally speaking, the film contains two main parts; the interviews and the old footages took from the journey. A surprise to me, the old footages from 1955 are all in colour. And they are very important parts of the film, they tell the true story in a visual way, and let the audiences believe the story. Without those old footages, I won’t believe it was a true story. From the beginning of the story, it was an impossible mission. Paul Chow wanted to cross the Pacific with a junk, but he didn’t have a junk or any crew. It sounds like a dream some young man always has. But so many lucky things happened, which made the dream become true. The film smoothly told us the story, it just like listening to grandfather telling a story about what he did when he was young. Through this way, the director successfully brings us into the film, into the story. The film used a different way to tell the story, combining both interview and old footage together makes the film more understandable to the audiences. Not like some other independent films, it’s definitely a interesting movie to me.