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Red Sorghum Movie Review

Red Sorghum is a 1987 Chinese historical picture directed by Zhang Yimou and starring Gong Li. It’s a solid, but inferior debut from this great director.

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“Hey, young lady. Sing for us“

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When a leprous winery owner in 1930s China dies a few days after his arranged marriage, his young widow is forced to run the winery to make a living while contending with bandits, her drunkard lover, and the invading Japanese army. The movie favors style over substance and simplicity over complexity in terms of storytelling. At first, I appreciated that. However, later down the line I found the film lacking, especially in its absence of emotional investment.

I simply did not care about any of these characters as the film did not make me care for them due to its somewhat cold and distant approach. Gong Li is excellent in the role of the protagonist and highly memorable. She stole the show from everyone else, but that wasn’t that difficult of a task as the others are significantly less developed, though strong as a group.

Red Sorghum is excellent in the area of technicalities. The color red that is hinted in the movie’s title is present quite a bit throughout the entire movie and it made the film very unique and gorgeous to look at. The sorghum field provides the best, most memorable imagery coming from this movie along with the sedan. I found that first act slow, but highly intriguing and wonderfully meticulous in details as it transports you to this time and place stupendously.

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But everything surrounding the wine business was a bit silly to me. The group dynamics are strong, but the movie struggled in terms of tone between being dramatic and comedic. The narration is excellent and very endearing, though. I also liked some of the dialogue, though this minimalist movie favored stylist storytelling over the auditory one. As for Zhang Yimou, his direction here is pretty good, but again it’s clear that this was his debut feature as thematically and emotionally, the movie left a lot to be desired.

Although visually arresting and particularly memorable in the use of the color red and in the sorghum field imagery, the aptly-titled Red Sorghum is a case of style over substance as it is lacking both thematically and emotionally. Gong Li is very memorable and the first act is quite interesting, but overall the movie left a lot to be desired in script and pace, leading to a solid debut from Zhang Yimou that is clearly far from his later, best works.

My Rating – 3.5