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CHINA · 1987
Red Sorghum
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Synopsis
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.
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Cinematic Threads
When we were studying at the Beijing Film Academy, we had access to many foreign films for the first time after the Cultural Revolution. For me, Akira Kurosawa was a huge revelation. His epic scale, the way he captured human drama against vast landscapes, and his powerful visual compositions deeply impressed me. When I was making Red Sorghum, I was consciously trying to infuse it with that kind of raw, epic energy, similar to what I felt watching films like Seven Samurai.
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