One Child Nation Quick View Grade: B

Source: IMDB

One Child Nation is a documentary that covers the untold story, of China’s One-Child Policy law that was dated back in the 80’s, that recently ended in 2015. The law states that parents can only be allowed one child in each household if they wish to and no more than one. Witness a shocking documentary that’ll trouble some viewers, by what the consequences were to those that disobey the law. Given the circumstances of today’s world, as to what is happening recently in China and with the whole NBA fiasco: More than likely this is going to be nominated for Best Documentary Film at the Oscars. It’s just what the Oscars do time and time again, if a film is relatable to today’s political stance on things, then more than likely it’s getting nominated... Rigged?! Absolutely. But the question is: If nominated, do I think One Child Nation deserves that nod?! I believe so, I would not hate nor complain if this gets nominated, due to the fact I think it’s a powerful documentary. Sure the documentary isn’t for entertaining purposes, as it took me a few times to finish the thing, however I learned a great amount of information from this documentary, but more importantly I learned IMPORTANT things that people should know about the subject. I can see from the Chinese government’s point of view, of why they had a One-Child Policy, I understand the entire thing completely. Minimize the population so they can have more resources for all, plus less crowded and less likely to have homeless around the country, I get the positives they were trying to make. However the strict rules that follow with this policy... Very heartbreaking and disturbing. Like hearing how many abortions these nurses had to handle each and everyday is just troublesome to hear, as you can tell they didn’t feel comfortable doing these procedures, especially how many months in labor some of these women were. Some of the punishments were very cruel, when finding out one had more than one child in the household. Hearing about what some parents would do if they had a daughter was pretty depressing as well, I did learn parents rather have a boy to keep the family name going as they trust they’ll be by their side throughout life, as they didn’t trust having a daughter due to the fact they’ll likely switch over to the other side. The whole information regarding orphanages and adoption was a staggering amount of children... Like wow, how can anybody stand for this?! It was pretty inspiring hearing from the film maker, of how she felt inspired to deliver a powerful documentary to us, all because she became a mom and wanted to let the world know just how bad it was back then and how most mothers/fathers now and especially other countries were so blessed that they can have more than one child of their choice. Overall, One Child Nation is a rock solid documentary film. I recommend this film, it’s one Amazon Prime incase you’re interested. -Mitch Smietana