nqure It's rare to find Yimou's films on terrestrial/free to air digital television. 'Raise The Red Lantern' is a fascinating film as well as the mythic 'Ju Dou' so I was keen to watch 'Red Sorghum' for the first time.It is a bawdy, earthy film yet also mysterious & complex as represented by characters such as the boy's Grandfather & the steward, Luohan as well as the bandit Sanpao. The sedan carriers sing a song mocking the bride yet cease when they hear her sobbing. A bandit attacks them but is fatally distracted by the young woman's beauty.It's reflected in the songs which accompany the film, from the bawdy & slightly grotesque (the bridal litter scene in the beginning) to songs sung in praise of a wine spirit, an older China of pagan rituals. It is about a peasant community with its own folklore (the disappearance of Big Head Li) & codes (Sanpao & the Grandfather, the ransom).'Red Sorghum' is about a land & the people rooted to its soil, their rituals & traditions, & following the Japanese occupation, how these survive as the Grandfather is literally covered in earth, & China re-born.The film is narrated (voice over) by the boy's adult self. It has a mythic kind of tone & mood. Ancestors occupy a special role in Chinese life & are venerated. Continuity is reflected by the boy's Grandmother, who asks the villagers to call her by her family nickname 'Little Nine'. Later, the story fast-forwards nine years to the narrator as a young boy.The story begins with a poor young woman forced into an arranged marriage though this strand is of secondary importance (in contrast to 'Raise The Red Lantern') as the story is about how she overcomes her dismal prospects (her father barters her for a mule, a comment perhaps on the treatment of women/of less value than a mule) & assumes a prominent role in the peasant community. The sorghum becomes a symbol of China, of its people. The fields can be dangerous & illicit, a place where bandits hide, but also a source of life & prosperity, the red wine that resembles blood & which is sacrificed to the wine spirit. Later, the steward & others make an even greater sacrifice for their land.The major turning point of the film is akin to the abrupt change of tone in 'The Deer-hunter' (structure), domestic scenes giving way to the brutal Japanese occupation. The scenes are unsentimental & all the more shocking for this. The sorghum fields are trampled down & crushed, like the Chinese people. The slightly comical butchers who worked for the bandit Sanpao are forced into a horrific choice, the scenes where the older butcher gently washes Sanpao & his poor young assistant driven mad by what he has been forced to do linger in your mind. Images reinforce points, here the Japanese are the real butchers.The film doesn't just depict the Chinese as passive, but proud & defiant. 'Little Nine' urges the villagers to avenge the Japanese's victims leading to the violent explosive denouement.It is a beautifully filmed piece of work, the red hue which imbues the cinematography to the indigo blue of the night skies with the moon high above. The final image of the sorghum swaying again in the red sunlight is a symbol of China itself & of its people, whatever history may throw at them, be it a decadent master to amoral occupiers & maybe even a one party state.

SnoopyStyle It's 1930s China. Jiu'er (Li Gong) is sent by her father to marry the leper winery owner Li Datou. On the way there, there are fields of red sorghum growing wild. She goes home to deliver the mule from Li Datou. She is taken out into the fields by Luohan where they have sex. Li Datou is killed by an unknown assailant and the winery is left to Jiu'er. Luohan returns drunk and making demands on her. He is thrown out. After he sobers up, he urinates into the wine and picks her up like in the field into her home. Surprisingly, the urine wine turns out to be the best ever. That night Luohan leaves and Jiu'er has a child. Nine years later, Luohan returns and the Japanese arrive.It starts off as a funny quirky film. It has moments of originality. When the Japanese come, the movie goes to another gear and another level. It's jarring and compelling. The red color infiltrates everything like the film itself is bleeding. Li Gong makes a terrific debut. The final orgy of violence is shocking.

GyatsoLa This is the first film from Zhang Yimou and Gong Li, the launch pad for a series of superb films which introduced many in the West to modern Chinese cinema. It is the story of a young woman who marries a dying man and then inherits his winery (actually a distillery) famed for its Baiju (red sorghum spirit). The story is simple, with little dialogue, helped along by a near continuous voice-over of a storyteller. Normally this would be an intrusive device, but somehow it works for such a visual film which aspires to an almost epic scale. I can't help thinking Zhang may have been influenced by Terrence Malick films like Badlands and Days of Heaven. But it is certainly an original and striking debut, if not quite as good as his later masterpieces, Ju Dou and Raise the Red Lantern. Of course, what all three of those films share is a near obsession with primary colours, but for visual effect and symbolism.Gong Li of course is charismatic and luminous, it can never have been a doubt from this film onward that she would be a star. But the real star here is the lush, erotic photography. It is a bit of a pity that the final third of the film loses its focus somewhat and becomes a more conventional melodrama. But that is forgivable for a film made in the circumstances. It still holds up very much as a film worth watching.

dennisyoon Red Sorghum. Red is for blood. Blood/Wine coursing through your veins. Blood Pumping Love in your heart and Courage as well. Blood of your loved ones killed in war. Blood of your enemies. Blood of your Brothers. I get it now. I remember his masterful use of color. Just like how he retells the stories in different colors for "Hero". This is how I felt after watching "Red Sorghum."Gong Li is stunning as usual. Check out Zhang Yimou as Brother Lohan. He displays such dignity. Muscle Man quite often steals the show with his bravado. The songs are uplifting and beautiful to hear. The scenery takes you away and the fields of sorghum are alive and pulling you in like Nature Herself.While gutwrenching like his other movies, the characters in this one are especially endearing in their loyalty to each other. What more can I say. Poetry brought to life.