Cinema
The Red Detachment of Women
紅色娘子軍
Xie Jin · 1961
Synopsis
Hainan, in the early thirties. Wu Qionghua, servant of the landowner Nan Batian, who killed her father, tries several times to escape and pays for each failure. Hong Changqing, an envoy of the Communist Party posing as an overseas merchant, snatches her from her tormentors and takes her into the mountains, where she joins, with Fu Honglian, a company of women of the Red Army. On reconnaissance, she fires on Nan Batian against orders, and the mission fails.
Context
Liang Xin drew the screenplay from his own work; in 1958, in a museum in Hainan, he had seen photographs of the real company, which the Nationalists dispersed after about five hundred days. In 1962 the film won four prizes at the first Hundred Flowers awards, including best film, director and actress, Zhu Xijuan. The ballet made from it in 1964 became a model work and was danced before Richard Nixon in February 1972. The Festival des 3 Continents showed it in Nantes in 2003.
Who it is for
A film of nearly two hours, a revolutionary epic in praise of the women fighters; no French release is established.
Prizes and reception
Named in 1995 among the ten best films of the century of Chinese cinema.