Le cerf-volant bleu

This movie is great. It ends a bit abruptly but it is still a great movie. It sums up the way of life in China up until that part in a very poignant touching way without overdramatizing. I give it a ten. The sad part is that it was banned in china, only for telling the truth.

This brilliant film should be seen by anyone who appreciates great movie-making. Covering similar ground as 'Farewell, My Concubine', this time the story of China's political upheavals is told from the point of view of a simple family trying desperately to survive, as told from the point of view of the son. Lu Liping is amazing as the mother. A performance worthy of her contemporary Gong Li. Give me any of these performances over the theatrical machinations of a Meryl Streep or a Glenn Close any day. This is real acting at its finest. One warning: the ending will rip your heart out.

" The stories in the film are real, and they are related with total sincerity. What worries me is that it is precisely a fear of reality and sincerity that has led to the ban on such stories being told." - Tian Zhuangzhuang

The Blue Kite, a beautiful and courageous 1993 film by Tian Zhuangzhuang, describes the ups and downs in the lives of a young Chinese family from the early 1950's through the Cultural Revolution of 1966. The film, which has not been seen in China, deals with the social upheavals caused by the Rectification Movement, the Great Leap Forward, and the Cultural Revolution, three events in recent Chinese history whose effects for good or ill are still being debated. Narrated by their rambunctious young son Tietou ("Iron Horse"), this is a political film about ideological excess, but it is also about the strength of family and the love of a mother for her son. Tietou, played by three different actors (Yi Tian, Zhang Wenyao, and Chen Xiaoman), tells how the swirling tide of political events caused uncertainty and disillusionment among the villagers.

Tietou's mother, Shujuan, brilliantly portrayed by Lu Liping, is a tower of strength who must care for her son while coping with the sudden death of three husbands, indirectly due to the political turmoil. As the film begins, the drafting of citizens for manual labor is shown as part of the party's Rectification Movement, publicized through the mass media as an effort to remove "bourgeois" influences from professional workers. Shujuan's first husband, Shaolong (Pu Quanxin) falls out of favor with the Rectification Committee for his views (and because he has to go to the bathroom at an inopportune time). He is sent to a labor camp where he is accidentally killed by a falling tree. Her second husband, Uncle Li (Xuejian Li), dies of liver disease after confessing his role in reporting Shaolong and sending him to the labor camp. Shujuan then accepts marriage from a quiet intellectual named Lao Wu (Baochang Guo).

During this time (1966-69), high school students, known as the Red Guard or hong wei bing militants, were organized to promote revolutionary enthusiasm and political purity by turning against "outdated" values taught by the teachers in their schools. They soon spread from the classrooms and became roving gangs, closing shops and schools and parading errant professors through the streets. Tian depicts the excesses of the Red Guard in bullying and beating those whom they deemed to lack "political purity". For example, Lao is denounced as reactionary by the Cultural Revolution and is arrested and beaten by Red Guards. Some claim that actual physical violence never occurred during this period. What is certain, however, is that the campaign led to the emergence of factions that believed they had the right to impose their beliefs on others.

The Blue Kite is a powerful and involving film that says much about how ideological self-righteousness can undermine the things that are most precious -- a mother's love for her son, the strength and resilience of the family, and the right to speak our minds without fear of repression. The enduring values represented by the symbol of the blue kite are contrasted with the red banners and their changing political message. When the kite is caught in a tree, Tietou's father promises him, "I can make another for you"; by the end, Tietou makes a similar promise to a small child. And so it goes.

Superbly put together, this film gives an accurate portrayal of events during three revolutionary movements which make up some of the most appalling events that took place during the first thirty years of the People's Republic of China's existence.

Orocolorado's comments are tedious and naive; they betray a complete lack of understanding of what these periods of Chinese history were about, and what people living through those terrible times experienced and how they had to learn to cope with their circumstances.

It is a shame that these days we have been fed such a vast amount of exaggerated Hollywood material, that only that which is larger than life can be seen to be a true representation of anything.

I had to add a review of this movie, mainly because of certain reviewers choosing to criticize the politics instead of the actual film. To all of you budding western Mao-apologists...before you debate the merits of this story and the veracity of its presentation of life, you should consider learning Chinese, going to China, and talking to people. You will learn two things: 1)this period of time was hidden from an entire generation and is only now being discussed, re-examined and virtually condemned by China. 2)The culture of fear, paranoia and brutality among ordinary citizens is very real and its memory, and vestiges of it, still exist in those old enough to remember that era. Understanding this film is key to understanding the century of virtual trauma that China underwent, at the hands of others and then at the hands of its corrupt, megalomaniacal leaders and even its own people. And if one finds the tone a bit dark, remember: at the time of this film, the Tianamen square crackdown (that still is largely unknown in China...none of my college or high school students had ever heard about it...) was only 4 years old. China today is full of hope and looking forward, but still afraid to speak about the past.