the review of "Yellow Earth"

“Yellow Earth” is the début film of Chen Kaige who is one of the “Fifth Generation” filmmakers of China which is the well-known group in the world, and the movie is considered to be a true masterpiece in history of Chinese film industry in terms of transformation from the tradition style to the new style—in the movie, there is no obvious story line as a plot, but there is unimaginable reality that is depicted desperately and vividly which was never carried out in Chinese movie before.

As we are able to notice the literal meaning from its title, “Yellow Earth（黄土地）”, the movie shows closely the life of peasantry who resides along the Yellow River in northern Shanxi province in the late 1930s by the realistic description. I think that the director who had gone through Cultural Revolution, being sent to rural area from city and denouncing his father as a Red Guard when he was a youth, put his experiences into the movie as Gu Qing, a cultural worker from the Eight Route Army, who tried to collect folk songs in order to transform the national culture and encourage the Communist force against Japanese.

When Gu and Cuiqing’s family were having lunch after they worked on the field together, Gu was asking them to sing some indigenous songs and wondering how they remember all the songs. The response from Cuiqing’s father to Gu was that peasants sing either happy or sad, and they remember folk songs because their life is difficult. Through the conversation, I think that even though the “revolutionary” soldier tried to learn and enlighten with ordinary peasants by collecting folk songs, he actually could never understand the “bitter tunes” and realities of people there. As the more he tried to be identified with the local people, the more he stood out to be differentiated by his attitude and gesture—laughing alone and using revolutionary words—during the conversation with the village people. As for Shanxi’s people, songs were simply sung and remembered spontaneously within their daily “bitter” life; however, as for the soldier, folk songs were the object to be “collected” and the means of transformation. The soldier’s job was maintaining the folk songs, and yet what he actually was doing was distorting folk songs. It represents that Chinese Communist Party has been trying to preserve customs and traditions, but they were actually exploiting and taking advantage of the people. No matter what there were wars and political revolutions, the life of ordinary peasants was still going on and existed as hardship and bitterness as if the nature has been there all the time as it is.

In the movie, the soldier talked to Cuiqing and her family about the “liberated” life in yan’an where the cradle of Chinese Communist party was, and Cuiqing started dreaming about the utopianism life without gender inequality and gap between the poor and the rich. Even though the soldier gave Cuiqing hope, he could not realize her hope as leaving her behind. After Cuiqing got married forcefully, she tried to escape from her home by herself. However, the director did not show audience whether she successfully crossed the river or failed to go to “dream” land. I want to ask that was the revolution and communism successful or not?

There is the scene that when the soldier was leaving the village, Cuiqing asked him to take herself with him. The soldier responded that there are rules in army, so he would come back to take her after he gets permission according to the rules. Then, Cuiqing asked him again that if the rules can be changed. I think that “Yellow Earth” was a movie that tried to change the traditional rules in terms of film’s aesthetics and contents in China by using the picture with vast angle and various perspectives, the screen with long and tedious shots, and folk songs with intense and unique expression of poetic means.

Yellow Earth Review

Yellow Earth is an exquisite and unique jewel produced by one of the most renowned directors from the Fifth Generation of Chinese cinema and leader of this new artistic movement, Chen Kaige. This film, produced conjointly with Zhang Yimou as the cinematographer, is the first production from the new generation, which set Kaige’s distinctive and provoking essence in the filmmaking world. It could be also considered as a ground settler piece of art for his future biggest production, the highly praised and awards winner film Farewell My Concubine.

As many of Kaige’s works, Yellow Earth is developed around revolutionary themes during the historical era of Chairman Mao. Specifically, this movie takes place in 1939, during the time when Chinese Communist Party and the Kuomintan joined forces to protect China against the Japanese. It is through this nationalistic sentiment that one of the main protagonists, Gu Qing, an Eighth Route Army soldier, is sent to collect peasants’ folk songs in the area of Shaanxi, located in northern China. These songs would be sung by the troops when marching towards the battlefield. They were supposed to be an encouragement to the soldiers because the lyrics would remind them about the reason they were fighting. However, ironically, we learn that most of the peasants’ folk songs are sad cries or happy cheers, depending on each person’s mood.

Gu Qing ends up living with a family that becomes also the main characters. Da Shu is the father, Cuiqiao the daughter, and Hanhan the son. They are humble people that live off the production of their arid land. It was the director’s intention to use music as a medium to express the feelings and desires of these characters in the film. What characterizes the movie the most and grabs Gu Qing’s attention, as also the viewer’s, is Cuiqiao’s beautiful and melancholic singing. The lyrics of her songs are cries of her suffering and pain from restraining herself from having a normal childhood and having to accept her fate at her young age, set by the community she lives in. As an oppressed woman in a male centered and poor society, she could only sing for no one to listen as a desperate cry for help without the intention to find any aid.

However, she finds hope from the ideologies of equality and renovation brought by the communist party. Her songs were not enough to escape from her sufferings of her restrained monotonous life anymore. Therefore, she strongly clutches to her dream of joining the army to fight for change and where she could find freedom to her cultural-binding traditions. She then decides to leave her village in search for this freedom. Nevertheless, in the last shot in the movie, Kaige leaves the viewer to finish the story by giving an ambiguous ending. The long shot of the dry landscape with a non-natural sound, which turns out to be Cuiqiao singing a folk song about the Party. The song, although is meant to praise the Party, still brings sadness to the viewer, not joy. Moreover, the unknown fate of the protagonist perfectly sustains the director’s possible message that joining the communist army might not have been the best decision.

It is clearly reflected in Kaige’s work the reaction that he has towards the changes and social improvements of the communist party in China. The extended collection of traditional music and folk songs in Yellow Earth expresses the director’s desire to increase the world’s awareness on Chinese culture. His nationalistic pride is a signature in the entire film shown by Chinese traditions. It is also through this music that he does not have a need for words, not even clear images, to convey feelings and to express his opinions about Mao’s regime.

Yellow Earth by Chen Kaige

Chen Kaige made his debut as a director in the 1984 Chinese film Yellow Earth. The film is set in the early spring of 1939 and centers on the lives of three main characters: Da Shu, Cui Qiao, and Brother Gu. The Chinese Communist Party and the Kuomintang are in the midst of cooperating together in order to fight off the invasion of the Japanese forces.

Gu Qing , a soldier from the CCP, journeys alone with a mission to collect folksongs for propaganda purposes for his department. During his journey, Gu Qing stays with a family in a small rural village miles away and learns the “old” ways of their culture—in exchange introducing to the family his “new” traditional input. Cui Qiao, the daughter of Da Shu, grows closer to Brother Gu and ends up falling in love with him. However, Gu Qing urges for her to stay despite the arranged marriage and promises to return one day. Following through with the marriage, Cui Qiao after decides to leave her family and set off to join the CCP. Gu Qing returns later on to the same home and finds it deserted. The film portrays the clash between old traditions and the rising modernism of China.

Chen Kaige’s film Yellow Earth illustrates to its audience the hardships of one family that struggles to resist change and continue on with their old tradition. Cui Qiao has been arranged to marry an individual her father had chosen for her. The “old” tradition of arranged marriages strips Cui Qiao of her will and identity. This is shown during the film in one scene where Da Shu explains to Cui Qiao of what entails in an arranged marriage and what is expected of Cui Qiao. During this scene however, Cui Qiao is shown standing at the door but her face is not shown. She is masked by darkness which portrays the notion of her not having her own identity. Another aspect in the film is the influence of “new” modernism that Gu Qing places on Cui Qiao. I believe the color red symbolized modernism and the new coming of change throughout the film, and the only family member who was seen to be wearing red was Cui Qiao. She is also the only one among the family who yearns to stray away from old traditions and find change in her life. Her attempt to joining the CCP is a direct reflection upon her red outfit as well as the affect the CCP had against her.

The film ends with a group of villagers performing rain dances in order to save their harvest from drying and prevent a drought from occurring. While China has been developing and changing rapidly, the people of the “old” ways are struggling to survive in this new era. Although the fate of Cui Qiao is not certain, those who sought to keep old tradition were seen to perish.

Yellow Earth

The film Yellow Earth directed by Chen Kaige begins with a still image of nature accomopanied by traditional Chinese music in the background. One ofth e main characters, Grother Gu, a solder form the 8th Route Army comes to the small village of Shanxi to collect folk songs to take back to his army. Brother Gu mentions that he wants to collect these songs to that his army could sing them to remember the suffering that they must go through. Brother Gu stas in the village with a family of three, including a widowed father and his two children HanHan and Cuiqiao. During his stay with the family, Brother Gu integrates his lifestyle with that of the family's by helping the father plough the fields and spending time with the children doing things such as sowing. Eventually Brother Gu leaves and Cuiqiao asks to leave with him to avoid the arranged marriage her father had just informed her about. Brother Gu denies her pleas and tells her that he will return for her. After her marriage, however, Cuiqiao cannot wait any longer and decides to leave on her own. Shortly after Brother Gu returns and he finds to villagers asking the King Dragon for rain. The film concldes with a folk song in which the lyrics support the Party.

Chen Kaige uses many subtle symbols to create connections between different social aspects of China at the time. For example, the color red is a prominent motif that occurs over and over in the movie. Red is the most important color during the marriage ceremony at the beinning of the movie, and also for Cuiqiao's marriage ceremony. Chen Kaige juxtaposes Cuiqiao's marriage ceremony with a ceremonial dance that occurs in Yan'an. Although both celebrations are meant to be happy and festive events, Cuiqiao's marriage is traumatizing for her. In this way, Chen Kaige threads together the urban and the rural parts of China, and at the same time creates a connection between the old and the new. The arranged marriage is a traditional ceremony, while the current situation in Yan'an is the preparationfor the war against the Japanese. Chen Kaige creates this unity between the two, to show that despite the fact that these events are so different, they are still a part of Chinese identity. At the same time, the contrast of these two situations reflect the change that takes place during China at this time.

Also, another way Chen Kaige portrays this change is by showing the transformation of the Shanxi's folk songs from being sad and melancholy to ones that acclaim and support the Party. This portrays the Party's ignorance of the suffering occuring in the rural parts of China. The main purpose tof the fold songs was to express the pain and suffering of the peasants, but the songs were taken from them, and the words were changed to support the Party.

In Particular, Cuiqiao's songs were always about her suffering and her desire to have more freedon and to choose her own destiny. Previously, her father had commented that women should be happy to marry because marriage would provide them with food. However, this was not Cuiqiao's views nor was it what she wanted. Throughout the film, Cuiqiao is constantly amazed at the freedon women have in the south, such as joining the army and being able to love and marry freely. She has this yearnig for change and freedom, which is why she should be associated with the motif of water. In the movie, Cuiqiao was always either getting water from the well, heating up water, or singing by te river. In the end she escapes her village via the Yellow River. Water flows to its own rhythm and it forms its own path, which is what Cuiqiao eventually ends up doing. She forms her own path and decides her own future. Cuiqiao is a way in which transfromation and change is portrayed as one of the main themes of this film.

All in all, Chen Kaige was able to capture the beauty of China's landscape as well as its culture. At the same time he commented on the changeability and the uncertainty of the futre. Chen Kaige emphasizes this point very well in his interview when he says, "The open ending arises from us not being able to - and not wanting to - give audiences a clear anser about what we are trying to express or what the future holds for this child" (Chen 90). The open-ending is crucial for Cuiqiao becasue it symbolizes the risk she takes, and it is also crucial for the Chinese people because it emphasizes the mystery that the future has in store.

Yellow Earth Review

A communist soldier Gu Qing, also known as Brother Gu, is sent to a rural village in Shanxi to collect peasant’s folk songs back for the CCP party in order to use the songs to understand the situations going on in peasant life. The setting is China in 1939, when the CCP and the KMT have already stopped fighting and have joined forces to fight the invading Japanese. In order to complete his task, he stays with a small family of three; a peasant, Da Shu, and his two children, Cuiqiao and Hanhan. Unexpectedly, the family and Brother Gu form a special bond while they learn about each other’s differences.

“Yellow Earth” is a movie that uses a secondary medium to describe the harsh living conditions of the South which is through the singing of folk music. Folk songs are passed on generations after generations and can often reflect the stories and life of the people living in the area. It tells others of where they have come from and also their experiences of sufferings and joy. Mr. Chen uses the folk songs to develop a second narrative besides the movie dialogue as another way to speak to viewers about the main conflict of the movie. The conflict being the clash of the ‘new’ life under the Communist regime represented by Brother Gu versus the ‘old’ traditional life indicated by the poor family.
At first, the children of the family were the most reluctant to open up and sing for Brother Gu, like the boy Hanhan who is almost mute in the beginning of the movie towards Gu Qing. However after spending more time with him and seeing him help with family chores made them believe that they had many thing in common; they are all people who want freedom and joy. Brother Gu had convinced them that there may be a better life under the CCP where arranged marriages were banned, and children were taught how to read and write. The movie clearly depicts Cuiqiao’s reluctance of going through an arranged marriage, but when Gu Qing tried to come back and stop this from happening- it was already too late. Mr. Chen reveals that people must act fast and keep up in this rapidly progressing China, before it is too late, like Cuiqia getting married off and live a life that she regrets.

I think that Mr. Chen directed this film to indicate to viewers that although ‘new’ changes may be hard to accept at times due to the difficult political history China has once endured, but during this era where change is happening so quickly, trying to understand the ‘new’ and what the communists have to offer may be the best thing to do.

Yellow Earth

Chen Kaige’s Yellow Earth is set in 1939, when the Guomingdang and the Chinese Communist Party have temporarily joined forces to fight Japanese invaders. The protagonist, Gu Qing, is a CCP soldier who travels to a poor, rural village in Shaanbei to collect local folk songs for CCP propaganda. Gu Qing who is referred to as Brother Gu, stays with a peasant widower Da Shu and his two children, Cui Qiao and Hanhan.

During his short visit, Brother Gu and Da Shu’s family exchange culture and tradition. Gu experiences peasant life, a very alien and disturbingly different culture when compared to his own. At the same time Brother Gu passes along the teachings of Maoist Communism, focusing mainly gender equality. Eventually Cui Qiao, Da Shu’s teenage daughter, falls in love with Brother Gu and begs to leave the village with him before her arranged marriage date. Brother Gu leaves without Cui Qiao, but promises to return one day. Before that day comes, Cui Qiao decides to escape on her own by braving the Yellow River. Her fate is unknown. The movie concludes with the villagers, performing a rain dance for their failing crops.

Yellow Earth does a wonderful job of illustrating the culture clash between a much more modernized mindset portrayed by Brother Gu and the rural village laws that govern Da Shu’s life and household. Chen Kaige illustrates this conflict skillfully, using both blatant and more subtle cues to provoke the audience. The most blatant example of this is the constant discussion on gender equality between Da Shu and Brother Gu. During one of these discussions, Brother Gu informs Da Shu that in the more modernized south China, men and women pick their spouses based on love and affection. No dowry, betrothal, or match maker at all. Da Shu finds this very strange and responds only that the rules of the village govern the way they live and that he doesn’t indicate any plans to change those rules. Similarly, when Brother Gu informs Cui Qiao about women in the military or his ability to sew, it really opens her eyes to a world beyond the poor village. Here we see the older generation, Da Shu, refusing to buy into the changes occurring in a rapidly developing China. However, the youth, represented by Cui Qiao, absorb these new ideas zealously, with illusions of grandeur. We may be able to take this theme one step further by looking at Chen Kaige’s personal life as a Red Guard who denounced his own father and easily bought into the ideas of something revolutionary.

Chen Kaige also uses this film to educate the audience on the fringes of the China’s growth. Brother Gu sought folk songs he could adapt to the army to raise morale, to better the CCP. Ironically, this quest yields only tunes of hardship, sorrow, and despair. Cui Qiao sings about the gender inequalities she and other women face in the village while Hanhan’s only real lines in the movie occur when he sings a song of sadness as Brother Gu leaves. When Brother Gu asks Da Shu for a song, he merely responds he only sings when he is sad. This extreme suffering and poverty definitely shakes Brother Gu’s resolve as a soldier and a propagandist. Brother Gu’s response can be drawn as a parallel to Chen Kaige’s shaken resolve after his time as a Red Guard. Ultimately, the village’s hopeless, depressing state is a good representation of the people that fall of the grid as China changes, depicting how some people cannot keep up with China’s cultural growth. As the film concluded, I believe the village was ultimately doomed to be forgotten as the rest of China marches forward into the future. Going back to Chen Kaige’s personal life, I believe this theme in Yellow Earth serves to remind the audience that the China they have today did not come about without sacrifices.

Yellow Earth Review

Brother Gu, a member of the Eighth Route Army, goes to the Shanxi countryside in Yellow Earth to collect folk songs for the army to listen to. He stumbles upon a family of three: a 47-year-old peasant and his two children, Cuiqiao and Hanhan. During his stay with the family, Brother Gu constantly helps out the family with daily chores, and eventually Cuiqiao, the daughter of 14 years, falls for him.

Interestingly, in the beginning Brother Gu’s mission to collect folk songs is not successful. None of the family members are willing to sing for him, saying that the songs are reserved for only extreme happiness or sadness, definitely not meant for everyday use. Despite the community being in the midst of an intense drought for the past two years, the family expresses the routine nature of their poverty, and refuses to consider their hardship as “sad enough” to merit singing their folk songs. This brings into focus a stark contrast between the harsh reality of the rural countryside versus the rapid modernization of the urban cities. The city’s optimism for the future is in obvious disparity with the hopeless nature of the country’s people.

Eventually, the old man, the young boy, and even the girl all sing for him. However, the folk songs are always filled with bitterness and despair, as they lament over the conditions of their hometown. It is interesting to note that, ironically, the original purpose was to use these sad, depressing songs to rejuvenate the soldiers as they fight against the Japanese troops. Yet the contents of the songs would seem to function in just the opposite manner – not to energize the army, but rather to spread its gloom all over. Nevertheless, each of the three members of the family all at some point willingly contributes to Brother Gu’s cause.

Through the family’s involvement, Chen Kaige depicts the need for everybody to give their all in order to allow the CCP to succeed, even though not everyone is guaranteed a positive outcome, as assumed in the fate of Cuiqiao. We see from the film that both the old and the young sing, both the male and the female participate, and both the urban and the rural people are needed in order to bring the music from the countryside to allow the army to have a record of the famous folk songs. Thus, the entire society is needed to gear the nation towards progress, while not necessarily ensuring the progress of the individual.

Even though the ending is open to interpretation, I find it hard for even the most optimistic viewer to inject a realistic, happy ending. Chen Kaige ultimately suggests the necessity of contribution and support of the whole country for the success of the CCP, albeit with the cautious, almost reluctant, approval of the rural peasants.