China Blue

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88%

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User Ratings: 624

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Movie Info

Guo Xi Lam owns a blue jeans manufacturing plant in the southern Chinese city of Shaxi, known for its large number of clothing factories. This documentary examines the factory's harsh conditions, in which workers are paid as little as 6 cents an hour for shifts that can last up to 20 hours. Here, 15-year-old Jasmine begins working to send money home to her family but quickly grows tired and sick. Meanwhile, Lam proves to be a bad boss, endlessly delaying paying his workers.

Genre:

documentary
Original Language:

Chinese
Director:

Micha X. Peled
Producer:

Micha X. Peled
Runtime:

1h 26m

Cast & Crew

Micha X. Peled
Director

Micha X. Peled
Producer

Miriam Cutler
Original Music

Micha X. Peled
Cinematographer

Manuel Tsingaris
Film Editor

Critic Reviews for China Blue

All Critics (15) | Top Critics (8) | Fresh (15)

Though its dissection of globalization is sobering and sharp-tongued in places, the film's approach is ultimately more diary than diatribe, centered on the kind of girls who would rather dance than despair.

March 8, 2007 | Rating: 3/4 | Full Review…

Janice Page
Boston Globe
Heartbreaking yet boldly essential documentary.

January 26, 2007 | Rating: 3.5/4 | Full Review…

Jeff Shannon
Seattle Times
After watching the eye-opening documentary China Blue, you're likely to think twice the next time you want to buy a pair of jeans. At the very least, your conscience will bother you knowing that the garments were made at sweatshops in China.

January 26, 2007 | Rating: 3/4 | Full Review…

V.A. Musetto
New York Post
A heartbreaking and meticulous documentary about life inside a blue-jeans factory in China, reveals more than we may care to know about the provenance of our most beloved item of clothing.

January 26, 2007 | Rating: 5/5

Jeannette Catsoulis
New York Times
... China Blue feels stage-managed at times, but the conditions of this 750-person factory are heartbreaking ...

January 24, 2007

Michelle Orange
Village Voice
The most heartbreaking, moving film in theaters right now is not Babel, Letters From Iwo Jima or Little Children. It is China Blue, a documentary about sweatshop workers at a denim factory.

January 19, 2007 | Rating: 4/4 | Full Review…

G. Allen Johnson
San Francisco Chronicle
Globalization is here to stay, and it presents us with yet another set of problems that we must address. China Blue does not offer solutions, but it might help get us to stop ignoring the problems. It is the little elephant that roared.

April 23, 2007 | Full Review…

Beverly Berning
culturevulture.net
The next time you try on jeans and notice a few stray threads, you won't be so quick to judge the workmanship if you see the documentary China Blue.

April 20, 2007 | Rating: 3/4 | Full Review…

Barbara Vancheri
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
in the same category as Riis' "How the Other Half Lives" and other scathing exposes from America's own less than noble economic past. Patently angry, but never strident, this film is as intelligent as it is jarring

February 12, 2007 | Rating: 5/5 | Full Review…

Andrea Chase
Killer Movie Reviews
Quote not available.

February 3, 2007 | Rating: 4/5 | Full Review…

Hartford Courant
Just the latest in an invaluable string of eye-opening documentaries designed to make Westerners face the fact that their relatively high standard of living comes at the expense of impoverished, indigenous peoples of the Third World.

January 27, 2007 | Rating: 4/4 | Full Review…

Kam Williams
Denver Urban Spectrum
A must-see--if not by the average consumer, then by politicians and U.N. officials.

January 26, 2007 | Full Review…

Eric Monder
Film Journal International