Feet Unbound

Australia 2006 / 87min. English, Mandarin with English subtitles.
Director Khee-Jin Ng / Producer Khee-Jin Ng

28 year old Elly, a journalist from Beijing, retraces the footsteps of China’s female soldiers of The Long March and embarks on a 5,000 kilometre odyssey that takes her from Cangxi in Central China to Xingxingxia in the Gobi Desert northwest of China.

Along the way, she uncovers the tragic and chilling story of the destruction, extreme deprivation and brutality of the Western Route Army — the greatest military failure of the Chinese Red Army. This episode of Long March history is largely unknown outside of China.

Feet Unbound is director Khee-Jhin Ng’s directorial debut about the Chinese Red Army’s teenage female soldiers of The Long March, a massive military retreat of over 200,000 troops on foot over 12,500 kilometres that lasted from 1934 to 1937. One percent or 2,000 troops on the March were females, mostly teenagers fleeing poverty, cruelty and general discrimination against females, some with the traditionally required bound feet.

Six survivors from the legendary Long March in China tell their extraordinary stories of the Chinese Communists’ Long March and in the course of the film, Elly is forced to confront her identity as a modern day Chinese woman.

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