Syllabus | Academic Integrity | Tips on Paper | Movie Notes

The Story of Qiu Ju (1992)
Winner, Best Film, Best Actress, Venice Film Festival, 1992
Gong Li, Zhang Yimou
"Qiu Ju" = "Autumn Chrysanthemum" (a woman's name)
How does this movie differ (generally speaking) from "Judou"?

Background

  • Set in contemporary China (early 1990s)
  • Deals with "peasants" (chili farmers) who live in the countryside of Shaanxi province
  • the Chinese bureaucracy (what is a bureaucracy? do those bureaucracies in socialist and communist political systems differ from those in more democratic systems? how are bureaucracies structured? where does the "village head" (Wang Shantung) in the movie fit into the bureaucracy in Qiu Ju's world?
  • general attitudes towards bureaucracy in China? overwhelmingly negative!

Theme

What is the central theme of the movie?

A one-woman crusade against the bureaucracy in China?

Why make a movie with this theme? (everyone can relate to it!)

What is Qiu Ju fighting? (tradition! bureaucracy (the futility of working through the rungs of China's bureaucracy)! provincialism!)

What is she fighting for? justice? why not simply take the village head's money offer? why drag this issue through the various levels of the Shaanxi bureaucracy and eventually to court? why is Qiu Ju so obstinate?

the scene where Qiu Ju "loses" her sister on the busy street corner: how is this related to Qiu Ju's plight?

Style

Is there a sound track in this movie? Why not?

What kinds of movies generally do not have sound tracks? (documentaries!)

Does this movie resemble a documentary? How so?

Are the characters in this movie actually acting?

How many professional actors appear in the movie? Was the woman who played Qiu Ju's "sister" a professional actress?

Tempo

What is the tempo of the film? Slow? Tedious?

Why would Zhang Yimou deliberately do this?

Does this slow tempo reflect or express the characters' emotion(s)? How so?

Did you, as viewers, feel frustrated? Did the lack of a soundtrack heighten this effect?

The End


What was Qiu Ju's reaction to hearing that the village head had been carted off to jail? Why wasn't she satisfied? Why did she run after him?

What is the final "verdict" in the movie?

The bureaucracy doesn't work? Peasants like Qiu Ju are too obstinate? One cannot never get justice in this system?

Qiu Ju may have been obsessed, but all she wanted the authorities to do is to force the village head to apologize for kicking her husband in the groin.

Why wouldn't the village head say "I'm sorry"? Loss of face?

The officials in the government refused virtually all of her requests! Why? Because they were corrupt?