3rd of March "Red Sorghum" (China, 1988)

"Red Sorghum" marked the directorial debut of internationally acclaimed filmmaker Zhang Yimou, and the acting debut of film star Gong Li. With its lush and lusty portrayal of peasant life, it immediately vaulted Zhang to the forefront of the Fifth Generation directors.

In the 1930s China, 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 a new.

For more about the plot click here.

Director: Yimou Zhang
Writers: Jianyu Chen, Yan Mo
Stars: Li Gong, Wen Jiang and Rujun Ten

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