[Movie Review] Found (2021) : "You are in the wrong gender, they don't want you, and you know that." | sillyandordinarygirl
By Lasmarya Hadi Purwanto - November 11, 2021
"Found" (2021) is a Netflix documentary about three Chinese teenage girls (Lily, Sadie, and Chloe) adopted when they were still babies and raised in American families. They discovered one another as blood-related cousins through the website 23andMe (by submitting their DNA samples). With the help of a guide named Liu Hao from the China Roots, they traveled together to China and found traces about their past, their identity and family history.
Here are some quotes that I really like from the documentary.
"I always knew about the one-child policy 'cause a lot of my relatives, they just...give up their children, their girls. And my parents, they almost gave up me, because they don't want to pay the penalty. But I'm very lucky 'cause my grandparents, they said, "No, we want to keep her." So I just don't have a very good relationship with my father. I remember one time my father wanted to take my brother to a very fancy restaurant. You can get little cute dim sum here. And, you know, I really loved that one. And he just wanted to take my brother there, and I asked him if I can go with them. And he just pushed me out of the elevator, said "No, you can't go". It was very difficult for me because you know you're not welcome. You are in the wrong gender, they don't want you, and you know that. It's very hard."
- Liu Hao
"She was by this tree in a cardboard box. Whichever parent left it probably was watching, waiting... 'Cause you were found really early in the morning, before 7:00. Before it got too busy, but they put you here so when people started getting busy, that...you'd be found right away. So you wouldn't be cold, and all this -- I think you were wrapped in a coat. In an adult raincoat or something."
- Victoria, Sadie's mom
(This one really opens my eyes and let me see things from the parents' perspective. Maybe adopted children would always think that they are unwanted, unloved, and wonder why their biological parents didn't want to keep them and so on. But you can see, I mean if their parents really didn't love them, why would they even care to wrap the babies in a coat keeping it from cold, and even waited until someone found the babies. If they really didn't love their children, they could just leave the babies in the middle of nowhere, or maybe like what my mom said, let the babies float away, right?)
There goes the thoughts that flooded my mind right after I finished watching "Found". It might sound like a rant XD, or maybe a ridiculous wake up call for an ungrateful girl like me. XP But it also teaches me that there are often two sides of a story. That some things that we think as bad might not be as bad. And just like what's written on the poster "Their search for answers led them to each other.", maybe the answers to most of our questions are right here all along. Who knows? :DGo watch the documentary in Netflix! I hope you like it as much as I do! :)
