Plot so thin, it passes unnoticed.

one of my absolute favorites!

If you're interested in the topic at hand, you should just watch it and judge yourself because the reviews have gone very biased by people that didn't even watch it and just hate (or love) the creator. I liked it, it was well written, narrated, and directed and it was about a topic that interests me.

This is a dark and sometimes deeply uncomfortable drama

In 1930s China, a young woman is sent by her father to marry the leprous owner of a winery. In the nearby red sorghum fields she falls for one of his servants. When the master dies she finds herself inheriting the isolated business.Like Zhang's later film, "The Road Home" (1999), "Red Sorghum" is narrated by the main characters' grandson, but "Red Sorghum" lacks the flashback framing device of "The Road Home" (the viewer never sees the narrator). The cinematography by Gu Changwei makes use of rich, intense colors. Zhang himself was a cinematographer prior to his directorial debut, and worked closely with Gu. Indeed, it is the colors, coupled with the expressions of the lead actress, that really sell this film.Wang Yichuan pointed to the director's fascination with the "strongman," and found hints of a "fascist aesthetics" in the film. This would not have occurred to me, but it is certainly visible. The question is then asked: does this carry through all his work?

It's rare to find Yimou's films on terrestrial/free to air digital television. 'Raise The Red Lantern' is a fascinating film as well as the mythic 'Ju Dou' so I was keen to watch 'Red Sorghum' for the first time.It is a bawdy, earthy film yet also mysterious & complex as represented by characters such as the boy's Grandfather & the steward, Luohan as well as the bandit Sanpao. The sedan carriers sing a song mocking the bride yet cease when they hear her sobbing. A bandit attacks them but is fatally distracted by the young woman's beauty.It's reflected in the songs which accompany the film, from the bawdy & slightly grotesque (the bridal litter scene in the beginning) to songs sung in praise of a wine spirit, an older China of pagan rituals. It is about a peasant community with its own folklore (the disappearance of Big Head Li) & codes (Sanpao & the Grandfather, the ransom).'Red Sorghum' is about a land & the people rooted to its soil, their rituals & traditions, & following the Japanese occupation, how these survive as the Grandfather is literally covered in earth, & China re-born.The film is narrated (voice over) by the boy's adult self. It has a mythic kind of tone & mood. Ancestors occupy a special role in Chinese life & are venerated. Continuity is reflected by the boy's Grandmother, who asks the villagers to call her by her family nickname 'Little Nine'. Later, the story fast-forwards nine years to the narrator as a young boy.The story begins with a poor young woman forced into an arranged marriage though this strand is of secondary importance (in contrast to 'Raise The Red Lantern') as the story is about how she overcomes her dismal prospects (her father barters her for a mule, a comment perhaps on the treatment of women/of less value than a mule) & assumes a prominent role in the peasant community. The sorghum becomes a symbol of China, of its people. The fields can be dangerous & illicit, a place where bandits hide, but also a source of life & prosperity, the red wine that resembles blood & which is sacrificed to the wine spirit. Later, the steward & others make an even greater sacrifice for their land.The major turning point of the film is akin to the abrupt change of tone in 'The Deer-hunter' (structure), domestic scenes giving way to the brutal Japanese occupation. The scenes are unsentimental & all the more shocking for this. The sorghum fields are trampled down & crushed, like the Chinese people. The slightly comical butchers who worked for the bandit Sanpao are forced into a horrific choice, the scenes where the older butcher gently washes Sanpao & his poor young assistant driven mad by what he has been forced to do linger in your mind. Images reinforce points, here the Japanese are the real butchers.The film doesn't just depict the Chinese as passive, but proud & defiant. 'Little Nine' urges the villagers to avenge the Japanese's victims leading to the violent explosive denouement.It is a beautifully filmed piece of work, the red hue which imbues the cinematography to the indigo blue of the night skies with the moon high above. The final image of the sorghum swaying again in the red sunlight is a symbol of China itself & of its people, whatever history may throw at them, be it a decadent master to amoral occupiers & maybe even a one party state.

I refer to, of course, 2008's Olympic opening ceremony in Beijing being designed and choreographed by the visionary director of this, his first film - China's own Yimou Zhang.And here is where it all started - though previously he had been a cinematographer - and it shows - Red Sorghum is beautiful, visually but with that extra edge of human darkness; lust, greed, violence, death, murderous invaders, all set within or close to the wavering seas of sorghum grasses, grown for making a blood-red wine.Both blood and wine flows copiously at times as this tale gets handed down through the generations; a story that starts simply but which builds into a brazen attack on the senses, the superb use of colour mixing with excellent dramatic acting, slow-moving and evocative long takes and occasional bursts of action - and some comedy, good natural comedy that's actually a joy and which breaks down any boundaries concerned with race, or time.I quite like the narration that occasionally ables us and the songs, more like spiritual war-dances than pretty ditties.If you prefer your Chinese/Hong Kong movies more action-based with high- kicking martial arts or big-scaled epic battles, then this might leave you disappointed - this is more Art-house, something to ponder and savour than having your eyeballs filled with non-stop thrills.

Credit goes to Yimou for stripping this epic 2 novel series down to this spare and gorgeous little hour and a half. For all the recent fantastic forays into Chinese fantasy, this story (which is allegedly true) shown as it is, is as close to a fairy tale as it gets, at least until the very end. Every shot is a painting. For some reason this film is still near-impossible to find on DVD. I truly hope it is not being suppressed for anti-Japanese sentiment expressed in it. That would be a terrible shame. This film was released shortly before Tienanmenn (sp) and it has a boldness and frank humor rarely seen in Chinese film since.