Famine has been always one of the most deadly threat to human beings.  Even it is now.  Usually famine derives from severe drought; no precipitation and scorched soil make crops shrivelled, being unable to have any harvest.  Another peril comes from insect attack, like a huge swarm of locusts unpredictably swamp the fields and gnaw at everything in minutes.  U.S. midwest states have suffered drought over a year, and no sigh of ending yet.  But we havn't heard of any famine occurred out of the drought.  All we know is the price of corns, soybeans and wheats have been hiking, but as the midwest is the grannary to the U.S., even to the world, its elevators must be full, due to mass production by using highly machanic tools like tractors, combines etc.. So the grain supplies won't be remarkably short as a whole.

That was not the same case that had happened in Henan province, China, 1942.  A severe drought made the farmers of subsistence agriculture have to leave their lands and homes in mass exodus to seek food for survival.  Although the refugees ate every thing they could find en route, still the quantites they needed had been far from minimum requirement.  They died of starvation, sold their children and wifes for couple barrels of flour.  The situation was getting worse and worse; one of the campaigns in Sino-Japanese war broke out in Henan, that had aggravated the suffering of the refugees: many of them were killed during Japansese bombing, and the already belated succour from government was embezzled by the troop and the systematically bureaucratic corruption.  The staggering distress that people of Henan suffered had taken a heavy toll, by all accounts, that culminated in a total death of three millions. 

 The movie engendered controversy online between the netizens from both sides of the strait.  From Taiwan, people thought the director of the film was unfair in demonstrating the fact, and accused him of "Dare he shoot a film concerning the so-called {three years' natural disaster} during 1959 thru 1961 of a peace time under Communist rule?"  I think the accusation was irrevelant.  The catastriohe of 1942 would have occurred as long as it was due to a natural disaster, let alone China then was just a medieval state under war.  What we should do now is striving to be further industrized, ensuring all Chinese people are free from hunger.  How about people in Taiwan?  Don't worry, so long as the elevators of  mainland are abundant, the supplies Taiwan need will never be scarce.