Hibiscus Town

The film I selected was Hibiscus Town which was released on the middle of 1980s. It is directed by Xie Jin who is one of the best famous directors of the third generation in China. According to his personally experienced the period of culture revolution, he can straightly reveal and sharply comment the history. Furthermore, deep and dignified humanistic care is the most important characteristic of his movies. Overall, I feel the film was trying to highlight the criticism and introspection about the culture revolution because the powerful force of community that envelope the individual thought. From the movie, I realize the universal moral about breaking the social restriction and living for freedom and hope.

Firstly, the movie totally emphasizes the changeability of fate of different people who lived in a small town though the special time of culture revolution. By showing the distorted humanity of people during this darkest period ever in Chinese history, it brought up the introspections of extreme thoughts. Secondly, from the surface of the movie, it seems to represent a story of a widow's political rehabilitation. In the story, the director designed a significant street as the key role of the whole story with his intelligence. Using the green flag street as the center field, he put the part of a widow's bitter experience into a representative group of people which is particularly prominent the moral of the story. Every character is closely interconnected to each other with the development of the story. And the mostly important aspect that those special types of characters are composed a small society. Meanwhile, the director Xie Jin had achieved his goal to present the turbulent times in China though the small society in Hibiscus town. Overall, the twisting plot holds together through to the surprising climax and there is genuine tension throughout the movie.

From the movie, there is a miraculously special person named Qin Shutian which had advanced thought at the beginning of the 20th century. The wisest man often seems foolish and keeps silent but he exalted Nietzsche's rebellious spirit and loved the eternal creativity of life. However, due to this, he had become quite a bit separated from the social environment and finally he was suppressed in the bottom of society. Even so, he optimistically accepted reactionaries' criticisms and expressed his feeling with great courage. For example, when Qin Shutian and his wife fell into difficulty, he still asked his wife to live because of it was not easy to live at that time. As he said, no matter how hard the life, live like animals. He chose self-preservation to keep the conscience, happiness and the hope of life. On the other hand, his wife Yu Ying is a typical oriental woman with hardworking character and beautiful appearance. However, as a result of her beauty and good popularity with different kinds of people, she was basely slandered by some people act out of jealousy, especially a powerful woman. At that special time, there were little normal disciplines and human kindness in the political environment. Therefore, more and more people became crazy and addicted to play politics frame other persons, which means, if a person controls the power, he can do whatever he wants during that time. There were a lot of people failed in life because of the politic madness. For example, Yu Ying had been denounced because she was a rich woman and good personal relationship with some leaders on the town. According to Qin Shutian and Yu Ying's unfair suffering, this movie real reflects the darkness of the society at the time of culture revolution.

In my point of view, Hibiscus Town is a masterpiece condemning the evilness of the humanity in China. In these chaotic times, thousands of people cannot see ahead in the sightless society. Furthermore, the event of culture revolution without any recognizable goal in the political struggle and there is no explanation of the human malicious persecution in everywhere of China. As an example, in Hibiscus town, some senior cadres illegal used their rights to persecute the person they do not like. But no one can resist the unfair treatment because they fear and lack of power to over it. It seems difficult to control their own life while can easily destroy other people's life. Therefore, more and more people had no choice to distort their soul and surrender self- preservation during the darkest period. From the movie, I can realize that even that kind of social background brings much painful impact on human beings, but it does not able to control people's hope. Among the valuable perspectives on the research of culture revolution, it can be useful to study and draw experience to promote political development in China nowadays. Also, I believe that life is worth living and the belief will help to create the future.