bing_ming66 Reviews

King of the Children (II) (1988)

Chen Kaige's most ambitious film

[10/10 · 15 March 2001]

Haizi Wang focuses on a group of "sent down youth": teenagers exiled to the countryside in the far SW province of Yunnan during the cultural revolution. The protagonist accepts a job as a teacher in an impoverished school and begins teaching his rural pupils in the traditional manner--the instructor transcribes the text of the lesson on the chalkboard, the students recite the lesson aloud, and copy the text in their notebooks. His most ambitious student takes on the task of transcribing the entire dictionary.

The subject of this film is the propagation of Chinese cultural values through traditional style of education. This theme reflects a view prevalent among Chen Kaige's generation who experienced the CR first hand: even though the Cultural Revolution set out to do away with the trappings of China's "feudal" cultural heritage, the language and rhetoric of the participants was infused with deep rooted, "traditional feudal values." Thus the CR only succeeded in replicating the same values it sought to eradicate.

The cinematography and narrative structure of the Haizi Wang underscore the director's concern with breaking from blind imitation of conventional filmmaking.

**Contrast with other films about sent down youth: Sacrificed Youth and Xie Jin's The Herdsman.

The Herdsman (1982)

aka The Herdsman. A veritable orgy of nationalism and melodrama

[5/10 · 15 March 2001]

A veritable orgy of nationalism and melodrama....the common thread throughout 90% of Xie Jin's films. The notable exception is Furong Zhen.

A sent down youth finds love and happiness in the inner Mongolia countryside. The father who abandoned the family years earlier returns from abroad, now a wealthy capitalist, and summons his son to meet him in Beijing. Our protagonist is compelled choose between joining his father in the USA and claiming his inheritance, or returning to adoring wife and cuddly son and the idyllic life as a herdsman.

Setting aside the Hallmark-like indulgences of the director, the film can be viewed as a commentary on temptations of the West as China reopened to western cultural influences and opened the door to study abroad.