Yellow Earth (1984) is the directorial debut of Chen Kaige (b. 1952), who is one of China’s “Fifth Generation” of filmmakers that include Zhang Yimou who, incidentally, provided the film with masterful cinematography.

The plot of Yellow Earth is simple and heart-wrenching. Set in the austere landscape of northwest China, it tells the story of an army “art worker” in search of rural folk songs for national propaganda. The story takes place in the spring of 1939.  An idealistic communist soldier, Gu Qing, takes to the countryside in Shaanxi province to find spirited folk songs. His mission: to re-write the peasant songs with communist lyrics to boost the morale of soldiers. However, he soon discovers that these peasants don’t sing songs of joy but ballads that tell of their miserable existence. 

Gu Qing settles in with a poor farm family, whose members include a taciturn father, his dull 10-year-old son and his pretty 14-year-old daughter, Cuiqiao. The girl, who spends a lot of time carrying water from the river three miles away, falls in love with the soldier, who helps her with the chore. But he has to go back to the army, and she is sold into marriage. Her consciousness has been raised, however, and by the time he comes back for her, she has sailed off on her own to find liberation, in the form of the People’s Liberation Army, and the hills are alive with the sounds of ”It’s the Communists who save the people.” The provocative ending juxtaposes the peasants’ prayers for rain with a ghostly echo of Cuiqiao’s voice singing the song that promises Communist salvation. By failing to resolve the contradiction, the film deconstructs one the pillars of the Communist Party’s most cherished myths, that Communist ideology was widely embraced by China’s peasant communities as depicted in countless propaganda films in the 1950s and 60s. It also suggests that fundamental issues of freedom and livelihood remains unresolved even today.

The film’s use of a stationary camera, natural lighting, a limited color palette and hauntingly soulful songs suggest that Chen and his crew employed elements of classical Chinese aesthetics in the service of modern cinema. Yellow Earth won a number of awards including the Sutherland Trophy from the British Film Institute and the East-West Center Award at the Hawaii International Film Festival (both in 1985) as well as the International Film Festival Award, Rotterdam in 1986. It received the Golden Rooster Award for Best Cinematography by Zhang Yimou.

You can catch the movie on Youtube. Here’s part 1: