Back to 1942

Back to 1942 (2012) is a Chinese war epic you can watch online on iFILM, directed by Feng Xiaogang. While the Pacific war dominated the headlines, Henan Province was losing at least three million people to famine — drought, locusts, windstorms, and a Kuomintang government too focused on its own survival to send grain south.

Zhang Guoli plays Fan Dianyi, a landlord who loses everything and joins the columns of refugees pushing west through the snow. Adrien Brody is Time correspondent Theodore White, nearly alone in trying to get the famine into the international press. Tim Robbins plays a Catholic bishop who stays when everyone else flees. Chen Daoming plays Chiang Kai-shek, weighing the lives of a province against the survival of the regime.

Feng Xiaogang spent almost twenty years getting the film made — Liu Zhenyun's source novel appeared in 1993, and the subject stayed politically delicate long after that. At 145 minutes, it doesn't flinch. Stream Back to 1942 (2012) online on iFILM.