Kino Eye: One of China’s best films, Red Sorghum

Submitted by AWL on 14 December, 2021 - 4:15 Author: John Cunningham
Red Sorghum

Directed by Zhang Yimou, Red Sorghum is set in the thirties in Shandung province around the time of the second Chinese-Japanese war (1937-45). Jiu’er (Gong Li) is sold in an arranged marriage to Li Datou, a leper, who owns a distillery which brews Red Sorghum wine. Jiu’er falls in love with a distillery worker, “Grandpa” (Jiang Wen), who rescues her from bandits and later they have a child.

Li Datou dies (possibly murdered); he has no heirs and Jiu’er becomes the owner of the distillery. Grandpa is the butt of a practical joke and peevishly urinates in the huge wine vats (don’t try this at home). The wine acquires a new taste and potency becoming very popular. However, the Japanese army occupy the province and they brutally torture and kill Luohan, a much-respected worker at the distillery.

Drinking wine to bolster their courage, the workers plan their revenge. They ambush a Japanese convoy with improvised bombs made of Sorghum wine. The fighting is ferocious and almost everybody, Chinese or Japanese, ends up dead. Jiu’er is killed and only Grandpa and their son survive. Outside the time frame of the film the son, in turn, becomes a father and his child is the film’s narrator.

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