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RATING:  
There's nothing more unnerving than seeing a really old woman fiercely claiming that if you gave her a rifle right now, she could kill someone just like that.
This much-talked-about debut documentary from Singaporean director Khee-Jin Ng, retraces the perilous Long March undertaken by China's 200,000-strong Red Army during the mid-1930s, while being pursued by their mortal enemies, Chiang Kai Shek's Kuomintang.
The main narrator, a young journalist named Elly Zhang, travels from Central China up to the Gobi Desert, a path traversed by the lesser-known Fourth Red Army, which was later known as the Western Route Army. Unlike their more victorious counterparts, this group of soldiers was eventually annihilated by the vicious warlord Ma Bufang.
By interspersing anecdotes from the survivors, old footage of the actual Long March, and actual shots of the crew on the road, Feet Unbound succeeds in putting you in the moment. The engagingly frank Zhang is the perfect counterpoint to the old survivors. A carefree modern Chinese woman, she freely talks about her love life — and at one point, sheepishly admits to partying hard the night before a particular trip.
But that's the charm of having "one of us" delve into such a cobwebbed point in the past. Despite her seeming frivolity, Zhang is dedicated to unearthing the truth — and when that truth hits her hard at the end of the trip, we are just as affected.
Feet Unbound is a no-frills peek at a singular overlooked strand in China's official history — and watching it is a step in the right direction. - TODAY/sh
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