Yellow Earth (1985)
"Huang tu di" (original title)

Yellow earth focuses on the story of a Communist soldier who is sent to the countryside to collect folk songs for the Communist Revolution. There he stays with a peasant family and learns ... See full summary »

Director:

Kaige Chen

Writers:

Kaige Chen, Lan Ke (novel),

Stars:

Xueqi Wang, Bai Xue, Quiang Liu

4 wins.

Cast

Cast overview:
Xueqi Wang	...	Gu Quing (as Xueyin Wang)
Bai Xue	...	Cuiqiao
Quiang Liu	...	Hanhan
Tuo Tan	...	The father

Storyline

Yellow earth focuses on the story of a Communist soldier who is sent to the countryside to collect folk songs for the Communist Revolution. There he stays with a peasant family and learns that the happy songs he was sent to collect do not exist; the songs he finds are about hardship and suffering. He returns to the Army, but promises to come back for the young girl, Cuiqiao, who has been spellbound by his talk of the freedom women have under Communist rule and who wants to join the Communist Army.

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Plot Keywords:

communist | song | china | singing | retarded man | 

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Genres:

Drama | Music

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Details

Country:

China

Language:

Mandarin

Release Date:

1988 (USA)

Also Known As:

Yellow Earth

Company Credits

Production Co:

Guangxi Film Studio

Technical Specs

Runtime:

91 min

Sound Mix:

Mono

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

The film was filmed near Yan'An, which is considered the motherland of the Chinese cultural revolution.

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Connections

Featured in The Story of Film: An Odyssey: Episode #1.12 (2011)

User Reviews

Yellow earth

Not far from the yellow river there is a big area where the earth also is yellow and the climate and living are very harsh, this time because of a drought. First we see a wedding ceremony with the bride little more than 12 years old, a happy occasion for everyone except for the skeptical onlooking Cuiqiao whose fate will be similar in short time and the bride herself. Enter folk song collector comrade Gu who stays with her family for some time. His talk of whats going on in the south, the end of arranged weddings and equality of women sets a deep impression on Cuiqiao, but also her mute brother.

Much of the film is told in its folk songs and its pictures. Cuiqiaos misery is told with songs: "of all the people//girls are the most miserable" and her new hope with the songs of the Party.

The pictures leave much room for the environments to sink in. Distances are big and the landscape homogeneous, that is earth covered mountains and a wide yellow river. In a setting such as this, the figures get small, and even more so by the devotion Zhang Yimou gives to the vast sky.