Red Sorghum

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Red Sorghum
Image:Red Sorghum.jpg
Directed by	Zhang Yimou
Produced by	Wu Tianming
Written by	Jianyu Chen Wei Zhu
Starring	Gong Li Jiang Wen Ten Rujun Jia Liu
Release date(s)	1987 October 10, 1988 (limited)
Running time	95 min
Language	Mandarin Chinese
IMDb profile

Red Sorghum (Simplified Chinese: 红高粱; Traditional Chinese: 紅高梁; pinyin: Hóng Gāoliáng) is a 1987 Chinese film about a young woman's life working on a distillery for sorghum liquor. It is based on a novel by Mo Yan.

The film marked the directorial debut of internationally acclaimed filmmaker Zhang Yimou, and the acting debut of film star Gong Li. With its lush and lusty portrayal of peasant life, it immediately spearheaded Zhang to the forefront of the Fifth Generation directors.

Contents 1 Synopsis 2 Style 3 Awards 4 Further reading 5 External links

Synopsis

The film takes place in a rural village in China's eastern province of Shandong. It is narrated from the point of view of the protagonist’s grandson, who reminisces about his grandmother, Jiu'er. She was a poor girl who was sent by her parents into a pre-arranged marriage with an older man. This man, who owned a vineyard, suffered from leprosy.

The girl places a pair of scissors in her blouse before travelling by sedan chair to meet her husband, supposedly to protect her from any of the leper's advances. As her wedding party, consisting of workers from the vineyard and one hired sedan carrier crosses a field of sorghum, it is attacked by a group of bandits.

One member of her party, the hired member, fights off the assailants, and a series of subtly flirtatious looks are exchanged. After she reaches the winery, the man disappears. He returns to the screen while Jiu'er is returning from her parents' house. We see him wearing the same mask as the man who attacked them the day before. He kidnaps Jiu'er and after a short chase, reveals his identity. He then clears some sorghum and they make love.

After the leper dies mysteriously, the young widow takes over the winery, which has fallen on hard times. She inspires the workers to take new pride in their wine, and once again meets the man who saved her life and then deflowered her. He gets drunk one night and urinates into a vat of the wine. Somehow his urine makes the vintage taste better than ever before.

The style of the film shifts from fable to realism when World War II begins and Japanese troops invade the area. The Japanese soldiers flatten the fields with forced labor from the vineyard. The workers revolt against the Japanese. After an uprising is crushed, the Japanese order two of the people skinned alive in front of the others.

Style

Like Zhang's later film, The Road Home (1999), Red Sorghum is narrated by the main characters' grandson, but Red Sorghum lacks the flashback framing device of The Road Home (the viewer never sees the narrator).

The cinematography by cinematographer Gu Changwei makes use of rich, intense colors. Zhang himself was a cinematographer prior to his directorial debut, and worked closely with Gu.

Awards

Red Sorghum garnered international acclaim for Zhang and won the Golden Bear for Best Picture at the 1988 Berlin Film Festival.

Further reading

• Mo Yan. Red Sorghum: A Novel of China. ISBN 0-14-016854-0.

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