Who is the heroine Jiu'er in the earliest episode of Red Sorghum directed by Zhang Yimou?

Year of production: 1986, production company: Xi'an Film Studio

Plot summary

This film is narrated in the first person. In the early days of the Anti-Japanese War, "my" grandma, Jiu'er, a beautiful girl from a village in Gaomi County, Shandong Province, was married by her greedy father to Li Datou, the owner of a leprosy shochu shop. Jiuer had no choice but to get on the sedan chair with a pair of scissors. When the sedan chair passed through a sorghum field, it encountered bandits who were robbing the road. At the critical moment, "my" grandfather, the sedan chair bearer Yu Zhan'ao, led the crowd to kill the bandits and rescued Jiu'er. The two developed a friendship. Three days later, Yu Zhan'ao took advantage of Jiu'er's return to her parents' home to have a good relationship with her in the sorghum field. Later, Li Datou was killed, Jiu'er became the female shopkeeper of the shochu shop, and Yu Zhan'ao came to work as a waiter. After some twists and turns, the two finally became husband and wife and gave birth to "my" father Douguan. The brewing workshop they run also produces the famous sorghum wine. Soon, the Japanese invaders entered the village and forced the people to build roads. In order to force the Chinese to obey their rule, they inhumanely skinned Arhats and other people who dared to resist. This extremely barbaric fascist behavior aroused strong hatred and resistance among the villagers. Under the leadership of Jiu'er and Yu Zhan'ao, the guys at the shochu shop used homemade guns and cannons to ambush Japanese military vehicles in the sorghum fields. After a fierce battle, a Japanese military vehicle was blown up, but Jiu'er and his crew were also sacrificed, leaving only "my" grandfather Yu Zhan'ao and "my" father, nine-year-old Douguan.

This film won the Best Feature Film Award, Best Cinematography Award, Best Music Award, and Best Sound Recording Award (Gu Changning) at the 8th China Golden Rooster Awards in 1988, and won the 11th China Film Hundred Flowers Award. Award for Best Feature Film, the Ministry of Radio, Film and Television’s 1986-1987 Outstanding Film Award; in the same year, he won the Golden Bear Award at the 38th West Berlin International Film Festival, the Best Film Award and the Best Director Award at the 5th Zimbabwe International Film Festival. , Film Critics Award at the 35th Sydney International Film Festival, Gold Award for Director "Grand Atlas" at the First Marrakesh International Film and Television Festival in Morocco; Gold Award for Producer "Grand Atlas"; 1989 The 16th Brussels International Film Festival in Belgium won the Young Audience Jury Award for Best Film of the Belgian French Radio.

The beginning of internationalization

The film "Red Sorghum" is adapted from Mo Yan's novel "Red Sorghum". It is full of vitality, strong colors and bold style to symbolize The original allegory of the Northwest Plateau was expressed in a communist technique, and it was an innovative interpretation of Chinese culture. It impressed the judges of the West Berlin Film Festival that year, and the film won the Golden Bear Award for Best Film that year. The primitive plots in the film, such as "Bumping the Sedan", "Wild Couple", "Pissing", "Skinning", and "Solar Eclipse", strongly shocked the Chinese film industry at that time and triggered a subsequent craze in the filming of folklore films. The film combines narrative and lyricism, realism and freehand brushwork, exerting the unique charm of film language and vividly presenting the power of publicizing life.

Comments:

The film’s elaboration of folk culture is highly fictional, and what stands out is the film’s vitality and wildness. In Chinese movies, which have been suppressed for a long time, Zhang Yimou vented it. As a director with a background in photography, color and shape have always been Zhang Yimou's concern. This film bursts out art and life through eyes full of red sorghum and the characters' naked desire for life. Gong Li played the heroine Jiu'er in the film "Red Sorghum". Although her performance was a bit immature, she showed good potential. As the reputation of "Red Sorghum" grew, Gong Li also gained a great reputation at home and abroad. and became a well-known international movie star.