An old leper who owned a remote sorghum winery dies. Jiu'er, the wife bought by the leper, and her lover, identified only as "my Grandpa" by the narrator, take over the winery and set up an idealized quasi-matriarchal community headed by Jiu'er. When the Japanese invaders subject the area to their rule and cut down the sorghum to make way for a road, the community rises up and resists as the sorghum grows anew.
Rated 3.5 / 5 from 1 log on Katalog
Zhang Yimou’s directorial debut (and Gong Li’s film debut as an actress) is an impressive vision of peasant life in 1930s China and the Second Sino-Japanese War. I like Roger Ebert’s interpretation of this film almost having “a fairy tale quality”. Between its storybook narration and the folk elements, it certainly feels true. Despite its strengths, I do think this story needed to be fleshed out a bit more, especially in its relationships between the characters.
