Customer Reviews

Red Sorghum ( Hong gao liang ) ( Het Rode korenveld ) [ NON-USA FORMAT, PAL, Reg.0 Import - United Kingdom ]

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(0)
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Zhang Yi-Mou's Red Sorghum...
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(The production description on Amazon doesn't correspond with his film.)

Red Sorghum is the first in the series of fine films by the great Chinese director Zhang Yi-Mou, featuring the lovely and talented Gong Li (cf. Ju-Dou; Raise the Red Lantern; etc.)

The locale is rural China c.1935.
Initially it's a beautiful love story of a sorghum farmer and his bride who eventually develop a successful family business producing red sorghum wine.
However, three quarters of the way through, the film takes a shockingly dramatic historical turn featuring the vicious imperialistic Japanese invasion of China (cf. the Nanking Massacre, Nov.-Dec. 1937). The Chinese peasants try to resist the Japanese who perpetrate crimes of unspeakable inhumanity.

This film has been long coming to DVD, which is a pity for its cinematography is gorgeous.
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Red Sorghum [VHS]
Ju Dou
Raise the Red Lantern (MGM World Films)
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The Rape of Nanking: The Forgotten Holocaust of World War II
Rape of Nanking: An Undeniable History in Photographs
The Nanjing Massacre: A Japanese Journalist Confronts Japan's National Shame (Studies of the Pacific Basin Institute)
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I first saw "Red Sorghum" at an on-campus theatre on the University of New Mexico in the early 1990s. I was astounded by the quality of the writing, direction, acting, and especially cinematography. This film was made before China started becoming more business-like. I was still a lot more party-line communist then. So we see scenes that totally uphold "happy" socialists ideals. For all practical purposes, it was "red-washed." However, this does bring a delightful atmosphere to the film that show an agrarian sorghum winery in which all work together but have their own idiosyncratic personalities that come through. The main characters are funny to powerful throughout the film and when it is time for business, business gets done.

In the "Product Description" section,disregard all after "Synopsis" as that synopsis is for a completly different movie and has nothing to do with "Red Sorghum". The customer review has it about correct and the movie is quite special as it is the first Chinese movie I ever saw and remains one of my favorites. Gong Li was only about 20 years old at the time.