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The end of the Cultural Revolution in China led to the fact that cinematography there slowly began to transform. Some new, young authors appeared who, instead of the previously prevailing and practically the only possible agit-propov style, began to make films that were thematic of that traumatic and difficult period. Already in the mid-eighties, films started appearing in China that were critical of the party there and its actions, but it was still quite shy. The end of the 1980s had to come and the great generation that graduated from the Beijing Film Academy in 1982 would grow up, so that Chinese film would be recognized in the world and that the films there would start winning major awards at the biggest festivals such as Venice and Cannes.
The leader and the so-called the fifth generation is definitely Zhang Yimou, who already won the Golden Lion in Venice for his debut film “Red Sorghum” from 1988. In his early films, Zhang thematized and problematized the period and the eve of communism, so “Ju Dou” takes us to rural cinema at the beginning of the 20th century. Although the whole world was already rapidly modernizing, there time seemed to stand still and stuck in feudalism. The villages are full of poor people who are literally dying of hunger, with the occasional rich landowner, lord or craftsman who exploits the suffering of the majority. So the rich old and cruel owner of the fabric dyeing plant Yang Jinshan will buy a young woman from a poor family.
I bought you, now you are mine and you have to do whatever I want, says old Jinshan to the young and beautiful Ju Do (Gong Li), with whom his nephew Yang Tianquing (Li Baotian) will also fall in love. After the cruel and evil old man turns out to be infertile, young Yang will do the job, and not knowing that the son Ju Dou will soon give birth to is not his, Jinshan will soon suffer a severe stroke and be paralyzed from the waist down. All this time, Ju Dou and Yan Tianquing will have to hide their relationship and secret, and “Ju Dou” was also the first Chinese film ever to be nominated for an Oscar for Best Foreign Language.
A similar theme of life in traditional China at the beginning of the century was dealt with by Yimou in his next, possibly best film, “Raise the Red Lantern”, and his films are perhaps the best depiction of feudal, rural China on the eve of the Japanese occupation and subsequent civil war. . Unlike the films previously shot in China, Yimou and the rest of the crew from his generation completely rejected traditional and imposed filming methods and in a realistic, even naturalistic style, they explored the local culture, often filming in remote parts of the country.
Instead of the then prevailing themes such as the heroic struggle and, of course, the victory of communism, Yimou and the team focused more on the destinies of ordinary people, on their everyday problems. That is why it is not surprising that many Chinese films of that era also had a political edge, they were critical mainly because they showed the situation without beautifying and ideologising, but as it is and as it was. For this reason, many authors found themselves under the attack of censors, their films were banned in the country while they won awards in the rest of the world, and such was the case with “Ju Do”. While Yimou screened the film at festivals around the world after its premiere in Cannes, Chinese audiences were unable to see it until several years later as the Chinese government banned it.