Aftershock

Aftershock is a 2010 Chinese disaster-drama film directed by Feng Xiaogang and produced by Huayi Brothers, starring Zhang Zifeng, Xu Fan, Zhang Jingchu, Chen Daoming, Lu Yi, Zhang Guoqiang and Li Chen. The film is based on a novella by Zhang Ling and depicts the aftermath of the 1976 Tangshan earthquake. It was released in China on 22 July 2010, and is the first "big commercial film" IMAX film created outside the United States. The film was a major box office success, and has grossed more than US$100 million at the Chinese box office. Plot Li Yuanni and her husband, Fang Daqiang, and their twin children, Fang Deng and Fang Da, live in a small apartment in Tangshan. In the early morning of July 28, 1976, after putting their children to bed, the couple make love in the back of their truck. An earthquake suddenly breaks out, causing buildings to crumble and disintegrate. While rushing back to save their children, Fang pulls Li back and runs ahead of her but gets instantly crushed and killed by falling debris. Their apartment block collapses and traps their children under a pile of rubble. In the aftermath of the earthquake, a rescue team informs Li that her twins are trapped under a large slab of concrete. They tell her that lifting up the slab in any way will crush one of her children to death, so she can only choose one to save. Feeling heartbroken, Li decides to save her son, Fang Da. The girl, Fang Deng, survives and regains consciousness later to find herself among several dead bodies. Assumed to be an orphan, Fang Deng is adopted by a military couple, Wang Deqing and Dong Guilan, who bring her back to their home in Beijing. She is renamed Wang Deng after taking on her adoptive father's surname. Ten years later, she moves away from home to study in a university in Hangzhou, where she meets a graduate student, Yang Zhi, and begins an intimate relationship with him. When Fang Deng is in her third year, her adoptive mother becomes critically ill. Before dying, she asks Fang Deng to use the money they have saved to find her biological family. Fang Deng soon finds out that she is pregnant. Despite being pressured by Yang Zhi to undergo an abortion, she refuses to do so, and secretly drops out of university, loses contact with Yang and does not return home. Wang Deqing meets with Yang Zhi and blames him for causing Fang Deng to leave.