Bumming in Beijing [流浪北京] (1990)

Bumming in Beijing (aka Roaming Beijing) is a short but fascinating documentary looking at the lives of five freelance artists (writers, painters, experimental theratre  director and photographer) in late 1980s Beijing. The artists have rejected a conventional approach to life and mainly live in small rented and rundown hutongs in Haidian (near the Summer Palace…

Hibiscus Town [芙蓉镇] 1987

While ‘scar’ cinema ended about 1981-2 with the banning of Bitter Love, films continued to reference the previous history of oppression dating back to the 1950s. Probably the best of these is Hibiscus Town by Third Generation director Xie Jin based on a 1981 book by Gu Hua (script by Xie and Ah Cheng and…

China on the verge of a nervous breakdown: Obsession [疯狂的代价‎] (1988) and Transmigration [轮回] (1989)

Together with Half Flame, Half Brine, these two films portray a country struggling to come to terms with the rapid social changes arising from opening up. But while earlier 'social problem' films adopted a well-meaning and heartfelt approach, these films show the much darker side of opening up.  Transmigration, like Half Flame, is based on a…

King of the Children [孩子王] (1987) & Chess King [棋王] (1988)

Both films are based on novellas by Ah Cheng, part of his 1980s Kings trilogy (the remaining King of Trees has yet to be filmed). Chess was directed by Fourth Generation director Teng Wenji while Children was directed by Fifth Generation Chen Kaige, both for Xian Film Studio. Both the main characters are played by…

Woman, Demon Human [人·鬼·情] (1987)

‘You’re a woman. Its even harder for you’. The story of opera singer, Qiu Yun, directed by Huang Shuqin (one of the relatively few female Fourth Generation directors), for Shanghai Film Studio. It is apparently loosely based on the real story of  opera star Pei Yanling. Yun [initially played by Gong Lin as a teenager…

Border Town [边城 ] (1984) & A Girl from Hunan [湘女萧萧] (1986)

Shen Congwen is one of the best Chinese authors of the twentieth century.  He was born in the picturesque Fenghuang (Phoenix) town in the very west of Hunan where one can still visit his home.  Although his work was published in journals associated with the New Culture Movement, he is not generally considered as a…

Two literary films of the early 1980s

While the Maoist state paid lip-service to the publications of the May Fourth writers, in fact it was rather afraid of their independence of thought and few film adaptations of their work appeared during the Seventeen Years (1949-66). Notably, very few authors wrote any major works after 1949. This changed significantly in the 1980s as…

Red Sorghum [红高粱] (1988)

After his work as photographer in a number of major Fifth Generation works, Zhang Yimou finally got the opportunity to direct his own film in this stunning work. Set in the 1930s and 40s, it tells the story of the (unseen) narrator’s grandfather and grandmother. Its is based on a novel by Mo Yan which…

Horse Thief [盗马贼] (1986)

A classic of Fifth Generation film-making. Unlike Chen Kaige with Yellow Earth, Tian Zhuangzhuang had made a number of (quite diverse) films before coming to Horse Thief. One of his earlier films, On the Hunting Ground, had been set in Mongolia but the location of this film is in Tibet. Always a sensitive topic in China, the…

Old Well [老井] (1986)

Old Well is a brilliant film by director Wu Tianming and one of the first wave of films since the 1940s to present actual people rather than characters in a preset drama. Its also one of the few efforts to produce a realistic picture of village life since Spring Silkworms in 1931. The film is set…