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Review: Red Sorghum (紅高粱) (1988)
This movie was Zhang Yimou's directorial debut, and it definitely shows the very distinct Zhang Yimou style. Among Zhang Yimou's older movies, there were others that I preferred to this one, but I think it makes a lot of sense that I did, as this was his first one, and his story telling and directorial style were not as mature compared to his later movies.
Spoilers.
Story
The story is very similar to the stories that we've seen in Zhang Yimou's other early movies. This one too is based on a novel, but just the first parts of it.
The story was told as a flashback about the narrator's grandparents. The movie really struck me as a guy telling an interesting story about his family. I don't know that there was any big point or strong themes in the movie, but it is the kind of story that you'd find interesting if you found out it happened to a relative of yours.
Jiu'er, the narrator's grandmother, was a girl who was married off to a distillery owner, a man with leprosy. On her wedding day, she and the men escorting her were ambushed by a robber who was very soon subdued and killed by the men. During that journey, Jiu'er showed a liking towards one of the men, who would later be the narrator's grandfather.
As is wedding tradition, Jiu'er was to return to her birth family three days after the wedding. She did, but we saw that her father kept yelling at her, telling her that she was not to return. Annoyed at first, Jiu'er took a walk in the tall grasses, where she was ambushed by the man she took a liking to, and they had sex. Jiu'er later returned to see her father again, but he was droning on and on about how they got a donkey from the marriage, and how she was now a member of the Li family forever, etc. Jiu'er had enough of feeling unloved and like an object and she stomped off in a huff, declaring that she would never return.
Li Datou, Jiu'er's husband, died of mysterious causes, but the narrator suspected that it was his grandfather who had done the deed. Jiu'er became the new boss of the distillery, and she struck up a good rapport with the workers, asking them to call her Jiu'er, which they did, except for Luohan, who continued to call her Zhanggui (something like "Boss").
Jiu'er's lover, the narrator's grandfather, one day walked in all drunk boasting about how he slept with Jiu'er, which embarrassed her greatly, and she had the workers put him in a vat until he wisened up. During that time, however, Jiu'er was kidnapped by Sanpao, and was only released for ransom.
The narrator's grandfather then tried to approach Sanpao to get revenge. When he returned, he peed in some of the liquor but somehow that made the liquor better (according to the narrator).
After the business found success, Jiu'er and the lover seemed to become a stable couple. However, Luohan left suddenly, though the others continued to think of him fondly.
Years later, when the narrator's father, Douguan, was 9 years old, the Japanese invaded. They forced our characters to ruin their crops, and forced the butchers to skin other humans. Among those being skinned was Luohan.
After his death, the distillery decided they would get revenge by destroying the Japanese Army's car. As they lay in waiting, Douguan ran home to ask his mom, Jiu'er, to bring them food. She arrived right when the Japanese car came. The bombs the workers had created malfunctioned. In the aftermath, the only people who walked away were the narrator's grandfather and father, Douguan.
So it's a story that doesn't really have a big theme except that that's an example of how life was in that era. It's very in line with the kind of story that Zhang Yimou seemed to enjoy at that time.
Production
Again, this movie did have a very distinct Zhang Yimou style, such as the vibrant colours, though they were a bit raw in this movie compared to his later works.
The story telling was also rather Zhang Yimou style as well. There was some "telling," but by and large, Zhang Yimou relied on showing to advance the story.
This was Gong Li's acting debut, but she already seemed a relatively mature actress in my opinion!
Characters
Narrator's Grandmother/Jiu'er
Jiu'er started the movie as a young girl being married off to a new family. This is something that we've seen in several of Zhang Yimou and Gong Li's collaborations. In Ju Dou and in Raise the Red Lantern, the movie started with Gong Li's character as a new bride.
I don't think Jiu'er thought anything of her marriage. She was just trying to get through it. The robbery was a surprise, but I think she wasn't too afraid. I think she was basically relatively optimistic about her marriage.
When she returned home three days after her marriage, her dad kept droning on about how she was now a member of the Li family, as if he didn't raise her for years. He kept talking about how they got a wholeass donkey from the marriage. The entire time, Jiu'er kept feeling unloved, that she was only worth being raised so that her father could trade her for a donkey. And so she vowed never to return. I think that made her even more optimistic about trying to turn her new life into a good experience.
She was very friendly with the workers, asking them to call her Jiu'er, the name she was called at home, because she was born on the Ninth day of the Ninth month of the Lunar Calendar. In addition, we can note that Jiu (nine) is pronounced the same as wine. That was likely purposeful on the author's part.
Though Jiu'er had a good relationship with the workers, her relationship with her lover started off very rocky because he was so immature about their relationship. Boasting about his sexual exploits was extremely embarrassing to her, and the fact that he would get drunk and posture was also a huge turnoff.
After the wine successfully fermented, that's when it seemed like Jiu'er and her lover were on stable terms.
Jiu'er remained thankful to Luohan, as he supported her in her time at the Li family. He helped her both with running the wine production and with running the household. Despite everybody calling her Jiu'er, he only called her Zhanggui (probably out of professionalism and respect). It was before his departure, when the wine was successfully produced, that he called Jiu'er by her name once, and then never saw her again. So when Jiu'er caught a glimpse of Luohan, she tried to run after him and probably thank him.
And of course, when she saw that he was being tortured by the Japanese, she could not let that go, and she spearheaded the plan to get revenge for him. While the men lay in waiting, Jiu'er had made food in preparation for the men to return. That was interrupted by Douguan running back and telling her that the men were hungry. And because of that poor timing, she died by the Japanese army.
Jiu'er's life was not a particularly special one. Many girls were married off for whatever reason, but after her poor marriage, she managed to find a good enough life, and then died in war.
Narrator's Grandfather
The grandfather was kind of like...a meathead? Jiu'er showed some interest in him and he pounced. Granted, it looked like she accepted him when they had a tumble in the grass. However, afterwards, the grandfather could not keep his mouth shut and be classy about it. And even after he saw how worn out Jiu'er was from being kidnapped, his first thought was to approach Sanpao to get revenge, without having anything to back him up.
When he returned and peed in the liquor, I think it was meant to be something of a power move? After he did it, he took Jiu'er into the home and presumably that was the beginning of him taking responsibility for a family.
The grandfather shared Jiu'er's sentiment of wanting to get revenge for Luohan. However, with the clumsy execution, only he and his son remained, and we saw how it gutted him.
And at that point, I wonder if he regretted anything in his life. He's been among the most active characters in this movie. His grandson suspected that he had killed Li Datou. And then after Jiu'er was released by Sanpao, he tried to get revenge, though unsuccessful. This time, when he tried to get revenge, he was successful but at the cost of nearly everything. It might have been a lesson to him to be less reckless.
Liu Luohan
Luohan was a worker at the distillery who, as I mentioned, supported both the household and the distillery very well. He retained his professional distance with Jiu'er until his very last moment. Later, he briefly visited the distillery, though ran away super fast.
I think he was some kind of spy, and that was why he was rounded up by the Japanese and tortured. Of the two men captured by the Japanese, one was Sanpao and the other was Luohan. The Japanese had forced a butcher to skin Sanpao; however that butcher was on okay terms with Sanpao from before, and thus killed him to prevent the torturing. That butcher was killed afterwards. The second butcher was then forced to skin Luohan, which he eventually did, but we see that he basically turned mad from the insanity of it.
And as you know, the distillery respected Uncle Luohan a lot, and aimed to get revenge for him, which they did, but at the cost of their lives.
Sanpao
Sanpao was a local bandit who kidnapped Jiu'er soon after she got married. The first thing he asked her was whether she'd slept with Li Datou. She said yes, and because of that, Sanpao did not have sex with her, because he thought she would have gotten the leprosy from him.
After he released Jiu'er for ransom, the narrator's grandfather came at him with little success as the people at the butcher's were also allied with Sanpao.
In the end, despite being a long-time enemy of our protagonists, the enemies of course would not see him as any different. They captured him and wanted the butcher to skin him, but since he had a good rapport with the butcher, the butcher just killed him instead, and was killed in turn.
Themes
Revenge
My idea of this theme isn't super well formed. I just thought about the times that the narrator wanted to carry out revenge. With Sanpao, he failed. With Luohan's revenge, he succeeded but at the cost of everything. But that's kind of how it is in real life, right? Nothing is as perfect as it seems in stories.
Red
The impression I got was that the colour palette of this movie was actually kind of yellow, just because they were located in a sort of arid place.
The narrator said that after the revenge on the Japanese army, everything would look red to the narrator's father. From a thematic standpoint, red often represents blood, so perhaps the plants reminded him of a bloody day. Or, perhaps everything for him always tied back to their red wine.
Overall
An okay movie, not my favourite of Zhang Yimou's but still interesting and alright. I just have high hopes for Zhang Yimou, and his first movie in comparison was not as refined as his later works.
Spoilers.
Story
The story is very similar to the stories that we've seen in Zhang Yimou's other early movies. This one too is based on a novel, but just the first parts of it.
The story was told as a flashback about the narrator's grandparents. The movie really struck me as a guy telling an interesting story about his family. I don't know that there was any big point or strong themes in the movie, but it is the kind of story that you'd find interesting if you found out it happened to a relative of yours.
Jiu'er, the narrator's grandmother, was a girl who was married off to a distillery owner, a man with leprosy. On her wedding day, she and the men escorting her were ambushed by a robber who was very soon subdued and killed by the men. During that journey, Jiu'er showed a liking towards one of the men, who would later be the narrator's grandfather.
As is wedding tradition, Jiu'er was to return to her birth family three days after the wedding. She did, but we saw that her father kept yelling at her, telling her that she was not to return. Annoyed at first, Jiu'er took a walk in the tall grasses, where she was ambushed by the man she took a liking to, and they had sex. Jiu'er later returned to see her father again, but he was droning on and on about how they got a donkey from the marriage, and how she was now a member of the Li family forever, etc. Jiu'er had enough of feeling unloved and like an object and she stomped off in a huff, declaring that she would never return.
Li Datou, Jiu'er's husband, died of mysterious causes, but the narrator suspected that it was his grandfather who had done the deed. Jiu'er became the new boss of the distillery, and she struck up a good rapport with the workers, asking them to call her Jiu'er, which they did, except for Luohan, who continued to call her Zhanggui (something like "Boss").
Jiu'er's lover, the narrator's grandfather, one day walked in all drunk boasting about how he slept with Jiu'er, which embarrassed her greatly, and she had the workers put him in a vat until he wisened up. During that time, however, Jiu'er was kidnapped by Sanpao, and was only released for ransom.
The narrator's grandfather then tried to approach Sanpao to get revenge. When he returned, he peed in some of the liquor but somehow that made the liquor better (according to the narrator).
After the business found success, Jiu'er and the lover seemed to become a stable couple. However, Luohan left suddenly, though the others continued to think of him fondly.
Years later, when the narrator's father, Douguan, was 9 years old, the Japanese invaded. They forced our characters to ruin their crops, and forced the butchers to skin other humans. Among those being skinned was Luohan.
After his death, the distillery decided they would get revenge by destroying the Japanese Army's car. As they lay in waiting, Douguan ran home to ask his mom, Jiu'er, to bring them food. She arrived right when the Japanese car came. The bombs the workers had created malfunctioned. In the aftermath, the only people who walked away were the narrator's grandfather and father, Douguan.
So it's a story that doesn't really have a big theme except that that's an example of how life was in that era. It's very in line with the kind of story that Zhang Yimou seemed to enjoy at that time.
Production
Again, this movie did have a very distinct Zhang Yimou style, such as the vibrant colours, though they were a bit raw in this movie compared to his later works.
The story telling was also rather Zhang Yimou style as well. There was some "telling," but by and large, Zhang Yimou relied on showing to advance the story.
This was Gong Li's acting debut, but she already seemed a relatively mature actress in my opinion!
Characters
Narrator's Grandmother/Jiu'er
Jiu'er started the movie as a young girl being married off to a new family. This is something that we've seen in several of Zhang Yimou and Gong Li's collaborations. In Ju Dou and in Raise the Red Lantern, the movie started with Gong Li's character as a new bride.
I don't think Jiu'er thought anything of her marriage. She was just trying to get through it. The robbery was a surprise, but I think she wasn't too afraid. I think she was basically relatively optimistic about her marriage.
When she returned home three days after her marriage, her dad kept droning on about how she was now a member of the Li family, as if he didn't raise her for years. He kept talking about how they got a wholeass donkey from the marriage. The entire time, Jiu'er kept feeling unloved, that she was only worth being raised so that her father could trade her for a donkey. And so she vowed never to return. I think that made her even more optimistic about trying to turn her new life into a good experience.
She was very friendly with the workers, asking them to call her Jiu'er, the name she was called at home, because she was born on the Ninth day of the Ninth month of the Lunar Calendar. In addition, we can note that Jiu (nine) is pronounced the same as wine. That was likely purposeful on the author's part.
Though Jiu'er had a good relationship with the workers, her relationship with her lover started off very rocky because he was so immature about their relationship. Boasting about his sexual exploits was extremely embarrassing to her, and the fact that he would get drunk and posture was also a huge turnoff.
After the wine successfully fermented, that's when it seemed like Jiu'er and her lover were on stable terms.
Jiu'er remained thankful to Luohan, as he supported her in her time at the Li family. He helped her both with running the wine production and with running the household. Despite everybody calling her Jiu'er, he only called her Zhanggui (probably out of professionalism and respect). It was before his departure, when the wine was successfully produced, that he called Jiu'er by her name once, and then never saw her again. So when Jiu'er caught a glimpse of Luohan, she tried to run after him and probably thank him.
And of course, when she saw that he was being tortured by the Japanese, she could not let that go, and she spearheaded the plan to get revenge for him. While the men lay in waiting, Jiu'er had made food in preparation for the men to return. That was interrupted by Douguan running back and telling her that the men were hungry. And because of that poor timing, she died by the Japanese army.
Jiu'er's life was not a particularly special one. Many girls were married off for whatever reason, but after her poor marriage, she managed to find a good enough life, and then died in war.
Narrator's Grandfather
The grandfather was kind of like...a meathead? Jiu'er showed some interest in him and he pounced. Granted, it looked like she accepted him when they had a tumble in the grass. However, afterwards, the grandfather could not keep his mouth shut and be classy about it. And even after he saw how worn out Jiu'er was from being kidnapped, his first thought was to approach Sanpao to get revenge, without having anything to back him up.
When he returned and peed in the liquor, I think it was meant to be something of a power move? After he did it, he took Jiu'er into the home and presumably that was the beginning of him taking responsibility for a family.
The grandfather shared Jiu'er's sentiment of wanting to get revenge for Luohan. However, with the clumsy execution, only he and his son remained, and we saw how it gutted him.
And at that point, I wonder if he regretted anything in his life. He's been among the most active characters in this movie. His grandson suspected that he had killed Li Datou. And then after Jiu'er was released by Sanpao, he tried to get revenge, though unsuccessful. This time, when he tried to get revenge, he was successful but at the cost of nearly everything. It might have been a lesson to him to be less reckless.
Liu Luohan
Luohan was a worker at the distillery who, as I mentioned, supported both the household and the distillery very well. He retained his professional distance with Jiu'er until his very last moment. Later, he briefly visited the distillery, though ran away super fast.
I think he was some kind of spy, and that was why he was rounded up by the Japanese and tortured. Of the two men captured by the Japanese, one was Sanpao and the other was Luohan. The Japanese had forced a butcher to skin Sanpao; however that butcher was on okay terms with Sanpao from before, and thus killed him to prevent the torturing. That butcher was killed afterwards. The second butcher was then forced to skin Luohan, which he eventually did, but we see that he basically turned mad from the insanity of it.
And as you know, the distillery respected Uncle Luohan a lot, and aimed to get revenge for him, which they did, but at the cost of their lives.
Sanpao
Sanpao was a local bandit who kidnapped Jiu'er soon after she got married. The first thing he asked her was whether she'd slept with Li Datou. She said yes, and because of that, Sanpao did not have sex with her, because he thought she would have gotten the leprosy from him.
After he released Jiu'er for ransom, the narrator's grandfather came at him with little success as the people at the butcher's were also allied with Sanpao.
In the end, despite being a long-time enemy of our protagonists, the enemies of course would not see him as any different. They captured him and wanted the butcher to skin him, but since he had a good rapport with the butcher, the butcher just killed him instead, and was killed in turn.
Themes
Revenge
My idea of this theme isn't super well formed. I just thought about the times that the narrator wanted to carry out revenge. With Sanpao, he failed. With Luohan's revenge, he succeeded but at the cost of everything. But that's kind of how it is in real life, right? Nothing is as perfect as it seems in stories.
Red
The impression I got was that the colour palette of this movie was actually kind of yellow, just because they were located in a sort of arid place.
The narrator said that after the revenge on the Japanese army, everything would look red to the narrator's father. From a thematic standpoint, red often represents blood, so perhaps the plants reminded him of a bloody day. Or, perhaps everything for him always tied back to their red wine.
Overall
An okay movie, not my favourite of Zhang Yimou's but still interesting and alright. I just have high hopes for Zhang Yimou, and his first movie in comparison was not as refined as his later works.