Red Sorghum (4½ Stars)

I was lucky enough to discover this Blu-ray box set last week. It was released in 2023, but I missed it because it was only released in Australia. It's now being offered for horrendous prices on Amazon's web sites, but I was lucky enough to find it for sale on Ebay, direct from Australia. The Blu-rays are locked to Region B, which isn't a problem for me, because Australia is in the same Blu-ray region as Europe. It's only a problem for American customers.

Note that Greenland is also in Region B. If Donald Trump succeeds in taking over Greenland, it will cause problems for Blu-ray sales. I'm betting that he never thought about that.

Of the eight films in the collection, I only owned one as an individual Blu-ray. I had two of the films on DVD, and I'd never seen the other five. Zhang Yimou is one of my favourite directors, so I've been looking for these five films for years. Thank you, Australia!

The box set collects the eight films that Zhang Yimou made with the actress Gong Li. "Red Sorghum" was the first film that he directed and it was Gong Li's first film as an actress. They began their careers together.

The film is told in two parts. In the first part, that takes place round about 1930. A poor woman is given in marriage to a rich leper who owns a distillery that makes sorghum wine. She doesn't love him, but her father wants her to marry him to receive a wedding gift of a black horse. It's a sad world when that's all a woman is worth. A short time later the leper is murdered, and the woman (who's never named) marries a sedan carrier. She takes over the wine making business, and becomes rich.

Nine years later the Japanese invade. The sorghum fields are cut down to make a new highway. The woman leads the resistance against the Japanese.

It's a very patriotic film. The sorghum symbolises the Chinese spirit. It grows wild, and nobody can remember who planted it. When it's cut down, it grows back. And the wine tastes so sweet.