Ju Dou

Released April 1991 in U.S., Ju Dou was the first China film to be nominated for an Academy Award as Best Foreign Language Film.  The movie was directed by Zhang Yimou and written by Liu Heng.  The setting takes place in of the movie takes place in a small village somewhere in China during the 1920s, the Republic of China era.  The film focuses on three main characters in a triangular relationship: Yang Jinshan, Yang Tianquig, and Ju Dou.  Yang Jinshan is characterized as a cruel and perverted old man who owns a mill and is seeking a boy to be his next heir; in hope that Ju Dou will bear his child.  Yang Tianquig is Jinshan’s adopted nephew who later falls in love with Ju Dou.  Ju Dou is the beautiful bride Jinshan has purchased.  The story is about the forbidden love between Ju Dou and Tianquig and the struggle they have to endure to overcome another day.  Jinshan, every night, would sexually abuse Ju Dou, which can be heard loudly by Tianquig.  The sound of agonizing pain from Ju Dou stirred up much agitation and a sense of hopelessness.  It was later when they both fell in love and began their secret affair, which led to Ju Dou's pregnancy.  Little did Jinshan know, Ju Dou got pregnant by Tianquig and Jinshan mistakenly believed it to be his child Tianbai.  This was Ju Dou and Tianquig’s silenced rebellion against Jinshan's devious and torturous treatment
towards the two.  However, both of them later on suffered a terrible consequence psychologically and physically for their crime.  Tianbai was raised thinking that Jinshan was his father and loved him very much but then one day, Tianbai accidentally killed Jinshan after dragging him into a pool of water.  It was later revealed to Tianbai that the biological father was in fact Tianquig.  After seeing the two intimately get involved, Tianbai then finally caused the murder of Tianquig and the story ended with Ju Dou putting the entire mill into flames.

The story sets a symbolic meaning based on China’s feudal system’s censured
oppressiveness it treats its people and the old customs used during their ancestral period which resulted as a patriarchal society.  The relationship between Ju Dou and Tianquig signifies the oppression Chinese people endured during the Republic of China era that was taken care for by Jinshan, the government.  After his death, his high power was still alive and was passed down to Tianbai who signifies as the Red Guard.

The duty of a Red Guard is to obtain and sustain the political and cultural value of the leader, in this case Jinshan.  And because Ju Dou and Tianquig rebelliously and secretly saw each other, it resulted to Tianquig’s death.  This move can be seen as a folktale of innocence and evil, a simple and powerful work of cinematic art, but it has a controversial political view that can also correlate with Chinese communist government today. 

 Ju Dou immediately became the model for several other Chinese films about sexual repression and moral transgression.  It was, nonetheless, a produced movie that has the minimal gap when contrasting with Western films because the foundation of expressing emotional and intimate feelings was very much identical compared to other Asian films.  But even so, the movie brought back some traumatic memories and visions that we do not want to see or be feared by today.  Unfortunately, the movie later on was banned from China due to the symbolical meaning of the story and as well as the shame based on Chinese traditional culture.  But even so, it was released long enough to not repress its existence to the rest of the world.