A young slodier from the communist party is sent to northern China to collect some "happy" fols songs for helping the party boost army's morale during the battle against Japanese invasion in 1939 shortly before WW2. There he meets a farmer family- a father and 2 kids- but all songs they know is about endless suffering and pain.
Director Kaige Chen uses this setting to build up a rather interesting encounter between 1. a young soldier full of ideologies and strong beliefs and 2. a poor family in rural north China with extreme living difficulties and hardships. The young soldier believes that sickles and hammers will help these poor people and build them roads but we as viewers know that such things won't happen, we've seen that no ideology will end these circumstances.
The film is believed to be a Chinese communist propaganda vessel but what I gathered from this film was that it shows communism- maybe not directly- as yet another incompetent, useless set of beliefs.
This is not an enjoyable film, nor is it easy to watch. It feels really long for 86 minutes and it desparately needs a restoration. What it does however, is it opens discussions with friends, it makes people think and of course it's a very influential, historically important cinematic piece.
