Liu san jie

I first saw this film years ago during a touring festival of "Cinema of the People's Republic of China," and since then I have been waiting for some U.S. distributor to "discover" it and put it on DVD. Previous reviewers at this site have already given a summary of the plot: a spunky peasant girl, "Third Sister Liu," comes to a village that is being leeched of the proceeds from its tea farm by a wealthy landlord. (No time frame is given for the plot's setting, but judging from the costumes, one might speculate it is set in the 19th century, during the Qing dynasty). Sister Liu sings and dances the villagers into organizing against the landlord and grabs the attention of the handsome leading man, all while enthusiastically working alongside the comrades, men and women alike. The songs and Decalogue are lively and funny, hardly fitting the stereotype of old socialist PRC films. Maoist cinema has fallen out of favor since the rise of the Fifth Generation directors, but this charming movie doesn't deserve being shelved with "The White-Haired Girl." Perhaps with Zhang Yimou ("House of Flying Daggers")working on a new production of this "folk musical," some commercial studio might consider digitalizing and distributing this 60's era classic.