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"Engaging...offers a rich view of the
bursting daily life of ordinary Chinese, but is finally even more rewarding as a portrait
of Stan Cottrell, a good ole boy who proves to be as canny as he is compassionate." |
"Spiritual, occasionally rousing...a
combination of straight-shooting travelogue, an athlete's soul-baring diary and a
pleasantly informal look at the making of a low-budget, non-fiction film."
--- The Dallas Times Herald"A helluva
film...a perfectly comprehensible ritual of self-cleansing and healing."
-- LA Weekly
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New! View China Run trailer in slide show format Requires RealPlayer - Real.com |
Stan Cottrell’s run across China began at the Great Wall north of Beijing, and finished 53 days later in Canton, more than 2,000 miles to the south, averaging 40 miles a day. The documentary film China Run, however, is only peripherally concerned with the mechanics of this grueling run; it is really the story of a stranger in a strange land, the world of the modern Chinese peasant seen through the eyes of an American peasant. It is a study in contrasts…it is also a study of shared aspirations.
The son of a poor Kentucky sharecropper, Stan Cottrell struggled through a childhood of poverty and abuse by losing himself in running – running after neighbor’s cows, running down moon shiners for the law, running races at county fairs to achieve the only recognition a poverty-stricken country boy was allowed.The Great Friendship Run began as a dream, but quickly became an obsession. Cottrell and the Chinese/American film crew that accompanied him entered into areas of China unseen by foreigners for over thirty years. By the end of the run, he had not only come to know the joys and anguish of the common Chinese people, but he had also come to know a part of himself that he only suspected – but never knew – existed.
Like Cottrell at the beginning of his odyssey. Most Americans live in shameful ignorance of a nation that comprises one-quarter of the earth’s population. China Run is thus not only a dramatic presentation of one man’s struggle to see his ambitious dream come true, but it is also a concise picture of China itself in the 1980’s, in a historic period of transition between the totalitarian government of the Mao years and the unsure but hopeful China under Deng Xiaoping’s progressive leadership.Humble beginnings, an impossible dream, the adventure of a lifetime…share the excitement and share the vision in China Run.
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