Former cinematographer Zhang Yimou burst onto the international film scene when his directorial debut RED SORGHUM won the Best Film award at the Berlin Film Festival, putting him in the vanguard of China's "Fifth Generation" directors.
It was also the debut of Gong Li, a 22 year-old student of Beijing's Central Academy of Drama. Her luminous performance started an eight-year personal and professional relationship with Zhang resulting in six more acclaimed films.
An unseen man remembers his grand-parents: in remote East China during the 1930s, young Jiu'er is sold by her parents to an elderly winery-owner. Although the head worker saves her from a bandit attack, he later rapes her himself.
When her husband disappears, presumed murdered, she now owns the winery which she turns into a successful collective with the head worker.
The Japanese invade and the workers' resistance culminates in the fields of Sorghum.
Shelf or charity shop? Living in my dvd plastic storage box, Zhang Yimou's sparse drama is a definite keeper. Zhang's years as a cinematographer show in the lustrous look of the film: the waving green fields of Sorghum illuminated by stark sunshine, the vivid reds of the splashing wine and spilled blood and the stark landscape surrounding the winery. Based on Mo Yan's novel, Zhang lets his visuals tell the story but is helped by the commited performances of Jiang Wen as the un-named head worker and Teng Rujun as the dedicated worker Luohan. But Gong Li's glorious debut gives the film an added warmth and vibrancy as Jiu'er, the first of her memorable collection of Zhang heroines.
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