One Child Nation (2019) on Netflix
NR20191h 28mDocumentary
A first-time mother, Nanfu Wang returns to China to trace how the one-child policy shaped her family and her country. She interviews officials, midwives, an ex-trafficker, an artist and parents.
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- Netflix4.3/5
- IMDb7.5/107,908 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes98%
Trailer
Plot summary
China's one-child policy governed family planning from 1979 until 2015. Enforcers and targets both speak: a former village chief, family planning officials, a rural midwife, an ex-trafficker, an artist, journalists and parents. Slogans and opera carried the campaign into villages, where fines, confiscated possessions and forced sterilizations met resistance. Zaodi Wang, who bore two children, explains that her father opposed the sterilization demanded of her, and the family agreed to wait five years before a second birth. She says a second daughter would have left her no choice but to abandon the child. Midwives traveled the county performing abortions and sterilizations, some on women officials brought in. An ex-trafficker describes collecting abandoned babies and selling them to orphanages that placed them for international adoption; Brian Stuy and Longlan Stuy work to reunite Chinese families with children adopted abroad.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about One Child Nation (2019)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- Nanfu Wang and Jialing Zhang, both born in China under the one-child policy in the 1980s, knew little of its effects because it was second nature among the population; Wang returned to China in 2017 after becoming pregnant with her first child in the United States.
- Artist Peng Wang was evicted from his home in Songzhuang by Beijing state security police in 2014 over his outspoken opinions and controversial art, and his studio was destroyed by state officials in 2021 after his warnings about China's handling of the COVID-19 pandemic.
- Yueneng Duan and his family found children in Guangdong and Hunan provinces in the 1990s to sell to orphanages. He was prosecuted and sentenced to 6 years in prison.
- Rural midwife Huaru Yuan told the film she had performed between 50,000 and 60,000 sterilizations and abortions, saying many were induced alive and killed, but that she had no choice because it was the government's policy.
- Nanfu Wang's mother, Zaodi Wang, avoided forced sterilization after Nanfu's birth when her father, Zhimei Wang, opposed the movement and the family agreed to wait five years before having another child.
SPOILER
Nanfu Wang's mother's brother abandoned his child in the market hoping someone would rescue her, but nobody did and she died after three days on the streets.
