Red Sorghum

Although I don't think this is quite as good as some of the other films that master Chinese film maker Zhang Yimou has made--e.g., Raise the Red Lantern (1991); The Story of Qiu Ju (1991); Ju Duo (1990)--Red Sorghum is nonetheless an outstanding film strikingly presented visually and thematically.

Gong Li stars as the betrothed of an old leprous wine maker. The film opens with her being carried in a covered sedan chair to the consummation of her wedding by a rowdy crew from the sorghum winery. It is the 1930s or a little before. They joust her about according to tradition and sing a most scary song about how horrible her life is going to be married to the leprous old man. Through a break in the sedan's enclosure as she sits alone in fear and dread she catches sight of Jiang Wen, a burly, naturalistic man with a piercing countenance. A little later after a bit of unsuccessful highway robbery during which she is released from her confinement, they exchange meaningful glances. The young man doing the voice-over identifies them as his Grandmother and Grandfather. (Obviously the leprous old man is going to miss out!)

Zhang Yimou's technique here, as in all of his films that I have seen, is to tell a story as simply as possible from a strong moral viewpoint with as little dialogue as possible and to rely on sumptuous sets, intense, highly focused camera work, veracious acting by a carefully directed cast, and of course to feature the great beauty of his star, the incomparable and mesmerizing Gong Li. If you haven't seen her, Red Sorghum is a good place to start. Jiang Wen is also very good and brings both a comedic quality to the screen as well as an invigorating vitality. His courageous and sometimes boorish behavior seems exactly right.

I should warn the viewer that this film contains striking violence and would be rated R in the United States for that and for showing a little boy always naked and for the "watering" of the wine by Jiang Wen and the boy. Indeed the film is a little crude at times and represents a view of pre-communist China and its culture that the present rulers find agreeable. The depiction of the barbarity and cruelty of the Japanese soldiers is accurate from what I know, but I must say that this film would never have seen the light of day had communist soldiers been depicted in such a manner.

Nonetheless the treatment is appropriate since Red Sorghum is a masculine, lusty film suggesting the influence of Akira Kurosawa with perhaps a bit of Clint Eastwood blended in. There are bandits and tests of manhood. The men get drunk and behave badly. Masculine sexual energy is glorified, especially in the scene where Jiang Wen carries Gong Li off to bed, holding her like a barrel under his arm, feet forward, after having "watered" her wine as though to mark his territory. The camera trailing them shows her reach up and put her arms around his neck and shoulder as much in sexual embrace as in balance.

Obviously this is Zhang Yimou before he became completely enamored of the feminist viewpoint; yet somehow, although Gong Li is allowed to fall in love with her rapist (something not possible in contemporary American cinema), Zhang Yimou manages to depict her in a light that celebrates her strength as a woman. One can see here the germination of the full blown feminism that Zhang Yimou would later develop in the aforementioned Raise the Red Lantern, Ju Dou and Qiu Ju.

As usual in Zhang Yimou's films not only are the sets gorgeous but the accompanying accouterments--the pottery, the costumes, the lush verdure of the sorghum fields, even the walls and interiors of the meat house restaurant/bar and Gong Li's bedroom--are feasts for the eyes, somehow looming before cinematographer Gu Changwei's camera more vividly than reality.

There are some indications here however that Zhang Yimou had not yet completely mastered his art, and indeed was working under the constraint of a limited budget. For example there was no opening in the sedan through which Gong Li could see Jiang Wen, and there shouldn't have been one (a peephole maybe). The pouring of the wine (into presumably empty bowls that obviously already contained wine) by Jiang Wen needed more practice. In his later films Zhang Yimou would reshoot such scenes to make them consistent with the audience's perception. Additionally, Gong Li's character was not sufficiently developed early on for us to appreciate her confident governance of the winery she had inherited. "Uncle" Luohan's apparently jealous departure from the winery and his implied relationship with and loyalty to Gong Li were also underdeveloped.

However these are minor points: in what really matters in film making--telling a story and engaging the audience in the significance and the experience of the tale--in these things Zhang Yimou not only excelled, but gave promise of his extraordinary talent that would be realized in the films to come. See this by all means, but don't miss his Raise the Red Lantern, in my opinion one of the greatest films ever made.

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There are several versions of this film available on video. Some are in wide screen, some aren't. The impact of the visuals is lost without the full-shot wide screen. Then there are two different subtitled versions, one that has large subtitles and another that uses smaller but less intrusive subtitles, which is the best of the two. So depending on what version of the video you're watching, your experience of the film can vary. But assuming you get your hands on the good version...

This film is like a quiet fairy tale that transforms into something that I didn't see coming. The visuals are stunning. The story slowly unfolds but is presented so well that it's completely compelling. The acting is as good as it gets. And the ending hits you like a punch in the stomach.

This films stands out from all other Chinese films I have seen. It has a character uniquely its own, and is well worth seeking out.

"Red Sorghum" (1988) is the first film in a trilogy, further comprising "Ju Dou" (1990) and "Raise the red lantern" (1991). In the Netherlands the film was released after the success of the latter two.

The trilogy has coherence both with regard to the themes and the style. In all three films a young woman is married with a much older man, giving rise of course to the temptation of adultery. All three films use bright colors, in particular red. In two of them the color red is also used in the title, in "Ju Dou" the bright colors are due to the fact that the film is situated in a wool dyeing factory.

"Red Sorghum" was Zhang Yimou's debut film and (thus) also his first co-operation with lead actress Gong Li. Some lack of routine is visible by both, for example in the mixing up of genre conventions of relationship drama, Western and war movie. The last element is probably added to please the Chinese censor. In later films Zhang Yimou turned out to be more brave in this resect.

The official (old) husband of lead actress Gong Li dies early in the movie (under suspect circumstances), and she inherits his distillery. In the rest of the movie Gong Li has a relationship with two men. One is physically attractive, impulsive, showing up only now and then and the father of her child. To the other she can talk, he is toughtful, ever present and is helping to raise her child. The lead character gives the impression that she doesn't mind this division of labor, proving her to be an independent and strong woman.

Reviewing Red Sorghum (1988) The movie Red Sorghum (1988) adapted from the novel of the same tile won Golden Bear Award at the 38th Berlin International Film Festival. The film won the international reputation for its director, Yimou Zhang; and also star the actress, Li Gong.

This film is about the story of 'my grandmother and grandfather' in a rural village in Northern China. The story started from my grandmother who was on the way to her prearranged old husband's winery distillery factory. My grandmother, a young bride, was sent to get married with an owner of a wine distillery factory. After experiencing attack by a bandit, abduction, and mysterious death of her prearranged husband, my grandmother inherited that wine distillery. The story was ended by the death of my grandma during the period of Japanese invasion.

Off-screen voices adopted as one important dramatic element is unique characteristic of this movie. The plot is structured into a completed story by the "narrator"- I , the grandson of the protagonists. At the beginning, audiences can hear the off-screen voices arose: "I'll talk about my grandpa and my grandpa" (Red Sorghum,1988). The narrator did not appear in the movie, which makes him in the neutral objective position; in the other hand, he is the descendant of story characters, which makes him becoming a subjective participation to some degree. "I" was telling the story; and also I was told about my family history. Off-screen narration appear 12 times in the movie. The relationships between characters and the progress of plot at turning point depends on 'my narration', for example, the relationship between my grandma, her prearranged leprosy husband and sedan carriage worker (my grandpa); the mysterious death of leprosy husband, the process of my grandma abduction, the left of Uncle Lohan, and the appearance of Japanese troops. The integration of real family history and unreal story completely depends on my off-screen narrations, which helps the connection of past with present, the real with the unreal. The film narrative approach ultimately generates historical distant effects in time and space.

Cinematographic style is another prominent characteristic of the film. The director stylized the film with intense and rich red color. The screen is completely occupied by bright red color. At the beginning, a red scarf is filled with the whole screen; under the red scarf is my grandma's brighten young face with red makeup; the red sorghum stalk is glittered with the flash sunlight in the fields; the red sorghum wine liking rains is prayed around; the naked body is completely full of blood; and the world become the totally red after the mysterious total solar eclipse. At the end of the film, the flowing black red sorghum emphasized on the screen, which generates a brilliant and strong visual effect. This is not a realistic representation of time and space; it is the externalization of human innate desire for natural life and validity. Regardless of the plot, the extension of the red force gives audiences a pure emotional experience that is filled with wild and heroic.

Unlike other Chinese films of the same period, Red Sorghum is not a typical realism film. The director did neither tell a legend of China's farmers nor seek for " the national cultural root" (Ni, 2002). The film only wants to praise 'life, endless vitality, freedom, life expansion and stretch' (Ni, 2002).The sun is regarded as the origin of life. The brilliant red filled with the screen represents the mythology of "worship of the Sun" (Ni, 2002). Covered with a mysterious color, the director explores the significance of freedom and the nature of life, which goes beyond political ideology, social structure, and cultural differences. The themes going through the film are about the vitality and the freedom. The film expresses the desire for a liberated, plain and undistorted state. This is not the world what has been understood by people now; it is a world that concerns for the life rights of human being instead (Ni, 2002). Because the praise for vigorous vitality and freedom is an universal idea of human regardless of language and culture, this film won the international honors.

Overall, the high artistic achievement in cinematography and the uniqueness in plot structure make this film becoming one representative works of China's fifth generation filmmakers. Audiences can read the reconsideration for the nature of life, the future world as well as the destiny of mankind in that world known for us.

References Ni, Z (2002). Memoirs from the Beijing Film Academy: The Genesis of China's Fifth Generation. translated by Chris Berry. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.

Red Sorghum (1988) Yimou Zhang

Red Sorghum will delight those that enjoy the art of cinematography. This visually stunning film truly deserves its international acclaim simply because of the way it presents the tale through its remarkable use of imagery, lighting, and filters.

Until I saw this film, I would have never thought that one could say so much about character, setting, mood and plot simply through the use of layout and image composition. This controversial film set in the 1920's - 1930's, by the rebellious Zhang Yimou, follows the life of sorghum wine farmers from Northern China.

If you follow the history of Chinese film, you will see how nicely this film combines motif's of many of its precursor films. Chinese history and culture has been vastly explored through many Chinese films, however I believe that this is a good film for the average American film goer to get a taste of the Chinese film industry and culture through their perspective. I say this for a variety of reasons, the pacing of this drama is quicker and faster moving compared to other related Chinese films before its time. Generally Chinese film have a tendency to be slow, when set aside the general American preferred standards.

It presents to us some of the Northern Chinese cultural traditions. Its display of the Japanese brutality could not have been better presented. The Japanese have been quite swinish during this period in Chinese history. All I can say is it says it all as it really was, very well indeed.

This is the last but most important reason to watch this film... look at its cinematography. It has to be among the best I have ever seen. It amazed me to see how resourceful a cinematographer can be when working for a film of little budget. Yimou showed me how simple things can be filmed to be works of art. Unfortunately I have not been able to see the film in its original cinematic scope however, even in full screen it is still quite visually stunning. The aperture, f-stop and lens settings were set just perfectly giving the film a very rich vibrant look making Yimou my favorite Chinese film cinematographer/director of all time to date. Oh, it is a film that you just have to see for yourself! Hope you enjoy it! Happy Viewing!