Chris Viri
Hist 414
Movie Review

THE BLUE KITE

 This movie primarily dealt with one of the most devastating time periods of Chinese history, starting with the Hundred Flowers Rectification Movement (Shalong dies), and ending during the Cultural Revolution (Step Father dies). Tian used the deaths of the three fathers of the young boy Tiatou; to show what he felt was wrong with the Maoist era. This movie and Tian were banned from China because of it’s attempt to show how harsh and hopeless life may truly have been like for a normal family during this time period, and what seemed to me a negative portrayal of Maoist leadership. Tian also being a sixth generation director was apart of a class who for the first time made movies that criticized the entire party, and the people for participating in its policies, instead of making movies who place the blame on one evil person who created the faults in the communist party.
 I would like to address the question about what was wrong with the Maoist era. When the communists first came to power after the dramatic Civil War in 1949, there was the promise of peace and prosperity for the future of China. Through self-reliance, getting ride of imperial powers, taking power from the bourgeois and placing it into the hands of the poor-peasant masses (bringing them equality), among various other changes Mao instilled hope of a modernized China, that would eventually one day surpass Britain and the much hated U.S.A. and become a world power once again. These promise were symbolized by the Blue Kite, which Shalong made for Tietou. However, as Nielsen wrote as the Blue Kite was flown it would always get caught in a tree, and at the end of the movie the last image is that of the Blue Kite torn apart in a tree. I think this was meant to show that Mao’s, polices like the Hundred Flowers, the Great Leap Forward, and the Cultural Revolution, impinged on this promises and actually helped to suppress them, by killing many Chinese civilians, and starting a new revolution, which killed, imprisoned, or forced many of the intellectuals and people who could help modernize China into labor camps for being anti-revolutionaries. An example of this was when Tietou and his classmates criticized their principal, and rebelled at the school.
 It seemed that the communist party and its leader Mao did not care for its citizens at all. A flaw in the party structure directly influenced each father’s death. The first death of Shaolong, took place during the Hundred Flowers Movement. Shaolong was implicated as an anti-rightist (although I which fell in line with Mao’s demand that five percent of the people in each district was an anti-rightist. Although it was Shaolong’s best friend Uncle Li who told on him and was responsible for Shaolong’s ultimate death by a falling tree at a labor camp, I feel Uncle Li told on him out of fear of being sent to a camp himself. Many people had been executed for being anti-communists, which created fear of being named such among Chinese citizens. The communist government had taken away a young boy’s father who loved him very much, a love that Tietou would never experience again. The party also forced his mother Shujuan from Tietou, and made her work three months in farming, to produce agriculture for China. Once again Shujuan went to do this work because of the fear the party created within its people.
 Tietou’s second father was the very same man who told on Shaolong. Uncle Li, who was an army pilot, who lost his position because he went blind. In class it was mentioned that the communists party could not supply him with the proper medical treatment, but I am not quite sure if this was the case at this time. Uncle Li represented the Great Leap Forward Period. Mao’s policy at the time was to build massive irrigations systems, and force many people into agriculture labor. The food these people produced was then shipped to feed the urban cities, which Mao felt would be the one’s who would modernize China. Mao’s system of farming left much land desolate and unable to produce crops; also not enough grain was produced, which caused a mass famine and the deaths of twenty million people. Uncle Li said, “The Library came number one in the labor competition and I was rewarded for my hard work.” This quote shows that Uncle Li took part in this rigorous laboring of the fields. This was hard work that wore Uncle Li down so much that he couldn’t even play with Tietou. A short time later Uncle Li died because of a liver failure due to malnutrition, caused by the Great Leap Forward.
 Two other examples of the faults with the Great Leap Forward, was when Tietou went begging for food in the street. His begging was due to two facts: one that Tietou had no father who could supply the family with food, and also because of the shortage of food the Great Leap Forward caused. Tietou was not very old, and it leads me to believe that many young kids were in the streets begging during this leap. The second example was when the cadre came and confiscated the commune leaders buns, which she had saved from her hard work. The cadre leader said no one would eat these buns, which is an example of how food was taken from the peasants, and possibly ended up being wasted in the city. It was also an example of the lies the communist told. Such as if a person works harder and produce more then the quota, they would be rewarded with extra rations.
 The third father La Wu, who took part in the earlier revolution, was a victim of Mao’s Cultural Revolution. This started in 1966 and was basically Mao claming war on his people. He wanted the younger Communists to take part in a revolution for themselves, to feel the true experience of what being a communist meant. This lead to the creation of the Red Guards, who in the Blue Kite, were portrayed as a faceless uncontrollable mob, who went around China beating up anti-revolutionaries. La Wu was accused of this and the end of the movie has the Red Guards beating up Tietou, and his mother, taking her and his Third father away from him. (more then likely to be executed) This left Tietou all-alone to become a street punk, gambling and drinking all day in the streets, which can be attributed to him not having a constant father figure his whole life The communist party had taken all these fathers from him, because of the policies they implemented on their citizens.
 Another example of This Maoist era not caring for its people is seen in Auntie. Tietou mother’s sister, who throughout the movie supported the party, as was the case when she got in an argument with Uncle Li about Shujuan going to work in the fields. Auntie disappears in the movie, which suggests she was taken by the Red Guards, or was executed by the very party she gave all her support. Thus even party supporters fell victim to the insane actions of its leader Mao Zeadong.
 Tien, who made this movie in 1993, had seen the return of prostitution, gambling, drinking, and other deviant behavior from the old days to China. Thus China had seemed to come full circle and was still not modernized, meaning the Maoist period had accomplished nothing of great importance.

Tian Zhuangzhuang’s film The Blue Kite, filmed in 1993, was a highly controversial film. The People’s Republic of China ultimately banned the film from being viewed in China, however sold the rights to a foreign producer in order to make some money off its production. The Blue Kite, although filmed in the early 1990s, covers the period between the Hundred Flowers Movement and the beginning of the Cultural Revolution, early 1950s to late 1960s. This film portrays the actual hardships faced by the people during these three periods of Communist China. As mentioned in Hanna Nielsen’s article on The Blue Kite, the focus of the current generation of film makers in China, labeled the fifth generation, is the troubled relationship between the Communist Party and the people.

Oddly enough, for a government labeled The PEOPLE’S Republic of China, there has been a lot of hardship suffered by the people on the behalf of top officials in the party. The struggles of the various characters in the film shadow the struggles the general population faced because of these different movements. This is seen beginning with the Hundred Flowers part of the movie. Spence describes the Hundred Flowers campaign as a movement permitting the population to openly criticize the faults of the Chinese Communist Party. Despite this open invitation, people were still very hesitant to reply, as seen by Shaolong’s distress at having his name mentioned along with a critique of the Party. In Spence, a professor describes how an “invisible pressure” made the people reluctant to speak. Starting in the Hundred Flower campaign and continuing through the Great Leap Forward, is the concept of the people being forced to do something that they feel is wrong and if they don’t do it they are punished. One example is seen through Zhu Ying (I believe this is her name, the Uncle’s girlfriend) being reprimanded as a counterrevolutionary for not “dancing” with Party officials. By “dancing” the film really meant have sex with the officials. Young woman being placed in this position was a common occurrence during this period of history. Many attacks against woman by officials went unreported because the Party could not be seen as anything less than the guiding force of China to the people. This is a particularly disturbing image when she reappears later in the film, basically broken. She looks aged and tired. Zhu Ying suffered several years in prison for speaking against something that people would condemn as wrong. By looking at these incidents in the film and in real life, it is plan to see that the Party did not always benefit the people.

The Blue Kite takes a radically different view of Maoist China compared to Breaking With Old Ideas. The film Breaking With Old Ideas was a propaganda filmed, targeted at increasing peoples support and view of the Party. Characters are portrayed as heroic for following the Party’s revolutionary principles. Compared to the film The Blue Kite, Breaking With Old Ideas doesn’t realistically look at the struggles of the peasants, but says if you believe in the Party everything will work out. However, in The Blue Kite, characters are portrayed as victimized by poor CCP policies. Rather than the PRC being considered the savior of China, the people almost view it as a change in slave masters. The “bourgeois” Nationalist masters have been replaced with Communist oppression. If the people don’t do what they suppose to, they are labeled as counterrevolutionaries or “Capitalist Roaders.” Instead of paying rent 60 years in advance, farmers and workers are forced into communes, where they starve because of unrealistic production goals. Innocent people are condemned as “rightist” in order fill quotas set down by the Party. All of this ask of the people why they should trust a government that made some many mistakes.

The characters in The Blue Kite depict many instances of suffering and hardships that the Chinese had to endure during Mao Zedong’s reign. Although the characters in the film are not “rightist” in any means, they are loyal to Mao’s beliefs but encounter many adversities due to his policies. Through the devastating Great Leap Forward, and into his development of the Cultural Revolution, the horrible and graphic truths of the Communist Party are revealed. Chairman Mao’s teachings and influence is shown throughout the entire film, and although you never actually see Mao’s character in the flesh, his power and authority are extremely prevalent. The film makes the viewer question and see how devastating one man’s indirect impact on shaping a country and the kinds of regular people who fell victim.
In Schoppa, he points out that Mao has nothing but hatred for intellectuals and his strong anti-intellectualism was not only aimed at scholars, writers, and journalists but also at scientists, engineers, and doctors as well. So although this family never protests against the party but in fact supports Mao’s ideas they still fall victim to the system. Shujuan is taken to labor reform and later dies because of his time there. In an Interview with Tian Zhuangzhuang in the course reader he says in response to that scene, “In China, the way it is, if you have a struggle meeting like that, and even though none of these people is guilty, you need someone to be proven guilty. Life is strange. You are not directly involved in the struggle, but somehow, by accident, you become the object of the struggle.” This scene makes one question the rationale behind the Maoist Era and how illogical the Chinese were in making many decisions. Just because he went up to go to the bathroom he was then nominated by the group. Politics comes before everything, even the truth.
The reoccurring theme that “politics must come first” is shown many times in The Blue Kite. Chen Shujuan is a schoolteacher and Lin Shaolong is a librarian who are getting married in the beginning of the film. During the ceremony they must first pay respects to a picture of Chairman Mao before they do anything. This represents how important of a figure Mao is in the everyday people’s lives and the central role that politics plays in the peoples’ lives. Mao is held above all, including family. He is treated like their God, being intertwined in everything that the community does. During their wedding they continue to sing pro-red songs about how life is getting better and the workers love labor while the production grows. The ironic thing here is that this line couldn’t be farther from the truth. The Great Leap Forward spurred the greatest famine of all time leading to the downward spiral of Chairman Mao irrationality.
Schoppa highlights that “the core value regarding class was class struggle, which Mao believed would mark society until Communism was attained.” A person was literally branded either a landlord or a peasant, the “people,” who were the targeted individuals for Mao’s teachings. Mrs. Lan is a landlord who feels the reprucussions of her title by the Party taking away her buns because they felt she shouldn’t have had so much flour. She replied back that she had saved up the flour from her rations and doesn’t take advantage of her tenants by offering them low rent. Landlords during this time were seen as the ultimate evil; a capitalist who was benefiting from the “people.” According to Schoppa, once a landlord, always a landlord; once a capitalist, always a capitalist. Mao felt that social orders were a permanent, hereditary status. The theme throughout this film is the brutal and harsh reality of a country, specifically a family that is being constantly betrayed for their loyalty to the Party by the Party. This irrational and crazy time period gives the viewer a glimpse of the harsh realities of the Maoist Era and the innocent, regular people who suffered in the process.

“The stories in the film [The Blue Kite] 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
 
  Tian Zhuangzhuang’s film, The Blue Kite, depicts life in Communist China during the 1950’s and 60’s through the life of Tietou, a young Chinese boy, and his family. Tietou’s life is scarred by the chaos of the Cultural Revolution, or as the film refers to it, the Rectification Movement. Tietou’s father, Shalong, is killed in a labor reform camp in when Tietou is a young child. Shujuan, the mother, and Tietou, struggle to survive in the unstable, tumultuous political environment.
  The Hundred Flowers Movement is the catalyst of Tietou’s family’s troubles. His father and a few friends adhere to the concept of the movement and voice what they thought would be accepted and welcomed criticism of the Party. Instead, he was swept up in the one of the first waves of the Rectification Movement. This incident marks the beginning of the Cultural Revolution, lasting from 1966-1976. Chairman Mao used this movement to ultimately make war upon his own party; the very party he had built. After the failure of the Great Leap Forward, Chairman Mao faced a split in the party’s leadership. Fearing the return of the people’s enemies (capitalists, former KMT, and intellectuals), Mao chose to incite another revolution based on class struggle in order to maintain party control. He encouraged China’s youth to overthrow their elders, teachers, and eventually even local leaders in a new purging of the Party. Labeling many societal and political leaders as bourgeoisie or capitalistic, the Cultural Revolution would topple most of Chinese culture and society. In Schoppa’s words, “It was much better to be ideologically correct than to have the correct factual knowledge, better, in other words, to be ‘red’ than ‘expert.’”
  The Cultural Revolution was a chaotic, undulating movement that swept through China. The Red Guard, composed of militant Chinese youth, accused and purged millions of Chinese people throughout the movement. Mao further supported this behavior through military strength and even through purging quotas of 5% of the population. Tietou’s father was caught up in one of these purging quotas at the library where he worked and was sent off to a labor reform camp where he was killed by a falling tree. The film also depicts the movement’s purging of party cadres and government officials. According to Schoppa, around 70 to 80 percent of provincial and regional officials were purged. This is seen in The Blue Kite when Shujuan’s third husband, a high ranking member of the Party, is taken by a faceless Red Guard mob. In this disorderly, chaotic scene, Tietou and Shujuan are both beaten, and Shujuan is taken as well. This was typical of Rectification.
  The Cultural Revolution led to the eventual degradation of Chinese society. As the youth were taught to overthrow elders, teachers, doctors, etc., Chinese culture and society was made practically inept. With doctors purged, healthcare was heavily damaged, and since many teachers had been purged, society began to crumble. But somehow, in the chaotic environment and failure of the Cultural Revolution, Mao was never blamed. He cultivated a successful image as having been betrayed by “bad Communists” and constantly created scapegoats. One thing the film failed to portray, however, was the presence of resistance movements to the Cultural Revolution and the seemingly whimsical Red Guard. Groups such as the Scarlet Guard existed to combat the movement and even created fairly polarized areas, such as Shanghai, which served as literal battlegrounds between the two groups.
  The film continues to be banned in China because even though the Party now encourages critiques of the Mao regime, The Blue Kite is a bit too honest, crossing the censorship line. The movie brings up the historical point that the party had never succeeded in the past, and is not guaranteed to in the future. More importantly, however, it highlights the Party’s bloody roots. This is considered a threat and a soft ban has since been placed on the film, the directors, and those involved with the film.

The movie "The Blue Kite" shows us the true horror of what was the Maoist years of china. In it we see how a small family must deal with the ever changing reality of there world and the madness all around them. Mao may forever be known as having liberated China from the KMT but history will remember the negativity of his reforms far more them any good he may have done.
 The Great Leap Forward was a terrible failure and caused millions of deaths. It was a process Mao had devised to bring China inline with the modern world. Mao felt that hard work and labor could over come technical skill and knowledge, this proved to be a fatal mistake. Mao’s personal hatred for intellectuals clouded his ability to see there worth. He forced his people to use poorly thought out farming methods to grow crops. Then imposed quotas on them in which there where no real rewards or incentives for meeting the quota, only punishment for failing to meet it.
The people also lost a lot of food from the crops when many of the workers where pulled away from the harvests, to work on another of Mao’s failed incentives steal production. Mao told the people that by making steal they would be on par with the modern world. He also said that it would be used to liberate Taiwan, which was still occupied by the hated KMT. That ultimately never happened because the impurities of the steal made it worthless, plus there was foreign interference that made any plans for invasion of Taiwan to risky.
Another mistake Mao made was distancing himself from the Soviet Union. Mao was angered by Khrushchev’s criticism of the former leader of the Soviet Union Joseph Stalin and his criticism of Mao’s ill-fated Great Leap Forward. This and more led to Mao cutting all ties to the Soviet Union there by losing all of Russia’s economic and scientific aid and most of there political aid. Mao in the end created a police state in which people where dying of malnutrition, disease and being worked to death. This is all represented in "The Blue Kite" where people are afraid to do anything to draw attention to themselves and there quality of life is extremely poor.
If it had ended there the Maoist period would have been remembered by some as horrible, some as livable, and others as some what good. Then Mao took it one step farther, feeling that he had lost the level of influence he wanted in his government. Mao decided to start a whole new revolution. Mao called it the cultural revolution. He encouraged the new generation of Chinese young men and women to rise up and over throw there elders, who had positions of power above them. People like teachers, bosses and even communist party political officials. Chinese society was on the edge of anarchy and Mao just watched it happen. In "The Blue Kite" we see the effects of all this has on one family and the people around them, except for the political aspects. It shows us the terrible things most Chinese people went threw during the Maoist era.
Mao’s unwavering belief that he and he alone knew what was best for China caused more harm then the KMT ever had and exposed China to the worst period in its history. In the end the only real cause of all the problems of the Maoist era was Mao himself.

Edited by author 05-15-2004 03:28 PM
        The Blue Kite is a Chinese film that is intuitively about the sufferings endured by one family in Mao's China through the 1950s and 1960s. The story is told by a young boy named Tietou. Tietou's mother, Shujuan, marries three times, and each husband creates a another section of the film. Shujuan's first husband suffers through the the Rectification Movement(an order to try and rectify the Party membership's work style, in general, and that of the leading cadres, in particular, through studying selected documents, summing up work results, analyzing situations and conducting criticisms and self-criticisms)when he is sent to rectification camp. Her second husband falls victim during the Great Leap Forward (the failed attempt to achieve collectivisim and industrialisation at an unprecedented scale in human history). Shujuan's third and final husband is criticized by the party during the Cultural Revolution(aiming to achieve ideological purity by removing all ‘bourgeois’ influences through education and re-education). In each section, the director demonstrates how the condemnations of party disrupt the family's happiness and drive them further away from their earlier optimism. Each marriage shows how the politics of the revolution altered the family's togetherness in a destructive way. Shujuan clings to Tietou as her one true source of gratification and joy. The bonds between mother and child remain strong, no matter what.
      Even though Shujuan held a strong bond with Tietou, during this time period, family life alway came second to Maoist ideology. At one point an official says to a young female in the army, "I hear you have a boyfriend. Why haven't you reported it? Let me remind you- politics always comes first." The same official calls upon this young girl to “dance” with her commanding officer. The request for a “dance” is refused and the young woman quits her job because of the underlying hint of gender discrimination. She is later put in prison during the Hundred Flowers campaign of 1957. This seems to be a realistic example of one of the errors of the revolution. Some people who were not political enemies were punished because of appearances of their actions or because of demonstrative cadre. She was released during the Cultural Revolution, but towards the end of the film she is seen boarding a train. The viewer is given the suggestion that she is returning to imprisonment.
      Intolerance, uncertainty, lost innocence, oppression and political disorder are a few of the significant elements in The Blue Kite. In the beginning of the film, an image of a soaring blue kite provides a allegorical consistency through the ambivalence of Tietou's life. The viewer is left the final vision of a tattered kite caught between the branches of a barren tree, waving in the breeze. The kite symbolizes resilience in the face of hardship and frustration. The director paints an unforgettable picture of the bonds of humanity and family.

The Blue Kite

 This movie was incredible in its portrayal of the three eras beginning with the Hundred Flowers Movement, progressing to the Great Leap Forward, and culminating with the Cultural Revolution. It truly brought the failures of the Communist Party to light in following the plights of Tietou, his mother, and the three fathers he has through the movie. By showing a small family and their friends and family the director was able to paint a much more moving and personal picture of how people during these times were taken in and spit out by the leaders that were supposed to be helping but were often only hurting.

 The opening scene of the movie starts it all off by showing just how deeply Communism had become imbedded in the lives of its subjects. With the report of Stalin’s death the wedding of Tietou’s natural father and mother is postponed, and when it finally does occur you see Mao’s picture watching over the ceremony. The song they end up performing is even full of Communist propaganda. Every aspect of people’s lives has been invaded by Communist ideals or at least its presence. Everything old was no longer to be accepted. The article we read by Nielson does a wonderful job of talking about this and a lot of other imagery that spoke of how the Party was taking the place of the male in families, so I’ll try not to repeat her. She didn’t touch as much on the movements. Tietou’s natural father Shaolong fell victim to the Hundred Flowers movement. This movement was interesting for it first encouraged free criticism of the Party, but it later went back on that and came after those who had spoken out. Mao and others decided that five percent of all leaders in all areas were to be labeled rightists and arrested. Some believe it was a way to catch dissenters; however, there is a good chance that the government might have been surprised by the amount of criticism they received and decided to put an end to it before it got out of hand.

 The second father, Uncle, was there during the time of the Great Leap Forward. The movie portrayed this time period really well as the audience watched Uncle Li, the model worker, deteriorate before their eyes as he gave all to the Communist Party, and it took everything away including his life. At this time the communes were in competition to see who could produce the most of everything and though this movie didn’t really show that competition, it did show the effects in the form of Uncle Li. The leaders of the communes did the managerial work, and often times they lied about how much they really had which caused them to place more of a burden on the people to produce but allowed less and less food to stay in their towns. The movie did show the wastefulness brought in by the starting of communal kitchens. Everyone could eat and eat together, but more food was wasted. It also did not show the problem of cannibalism and other atrocities which reared their ugly heads at this time. The book says that people weren’t even allowed to move to other places in search of food and that even things such as boiled water became luxuries as wood became scarce with deforestation. People were cutting down trees as work for the government yet weren’t even able to use it themselves. The labor was there but not the benefits. Though Uncle Li earned the title of model worker he finally met his end of overwork and malnourishment. This greatly showed how people were seen as expendable, for they were worked beyond their reasonable limits and were underfed in the process ultimately leading to their deaths. Even those seen as model workers were not safe from the Party eventually crushing them.

 The third father was interesting, for their seemed to be no affection in the family. He was merely a male parent. It was like this was how it was expected to be, so they were doing their duties to the Party by forming this unit. This was a brilliant picture of what had happened to the traditional family. The government had taken everything about the original family and replaced it with its own hierarchies. Though a Party veteran, he is not even safe from what occurs as the new revolution, encouraged by the Cultural Revolution, leads Red Guards to his door and causes his death and the ending of the family. This final character does a wonderful job of showing the progression between characters closer to the Party. Tietou’s fathers moved from a librarian, to an uncle trying to join the Party, to a party member, and in the end none of them were safe from the final outcome of being betrayed by their believed instrument of salvation but which had become the instrument of their dooms.

After watching this movie, I got a true look at China during the Maoist period. I believe the realism of this movie is what kept me, so interested in this movie. The Blue Kite is separated into three time periods. Each period is represented with a different father and a different time period of Maoist China. Although each period directly affects the two main characters Tietou and his mother Shujuan.
 The first period directly reflects the hundred flowers campaign, in which took the life of Tietou’s father, when he was clearing trees in the countryside. One of the trees fell on him. The main and key point of Tietou and his father is the multiple kites that where made for Tietou and evitable where caught in the tree. The kite with father and son symbolized the father desire to have the son reach as far as he could, but inevitably the kite meaning his hopes and dreams would get tangled and destroyed. The director tried to make the overarching trees the government and the kite it’s people. The government with intent or not was destroying and limiting its people in their possibilities to move up and better themselves within society. Shaolong, Tietou’s father was also a victim of the period in Maoist China that people where allowed to criticize the government and theoretically get away with it. When the government began to crack down and calls these people counter-revolutionaries, they called for quotas of five percent of people being counter-revolutionaries. Shaolong during his libraries quota, made the mistake of going to the bathroom during voting time, and he then became victim of the quota system. The ironic aspect to this hundred flowers campaign is that Mao believed that I would bring unity to the party and people. But, once he saw his creation of flowers turn to weeds, he essentially pulled the plug on a voice against the party. For Shaolong’s, voice against the party, he was sent to a labor camp, one for speaking out against the party and two for going to the bathroom at the wrong time. In the end, he paid for his mistake with his life.
 The second part of the movie deal with the Great Leap Forward, and the symbol for the Great Leap Forward is Uncle Li. He was a co-worker of Shaolong, and he felt terribly guilty about Shaolong being sent away and inevitably dying, because in q sense he had a responsibility in the death of Shaolong. He represents the Great Leap Forward, because of his very hard work ethic, and an ethic that was demanded and propagandad to the Chinese people by party leaders. It doesn’t say specifically when Uncle Li worked, but many of the programs that Chairman Mao instituted where major economic and human disasters. In China, generally there was not much industry in the countryside, however, Mao believed in the power of the people and he believed the people could make the countryside into industry as well. Mao tried to establish communes that have steel furnaces and the institution of the mess hall.
 With steel mills essentially in communes this caused a great deal of deforestation in direct relations to keeping the fires as hot as they could get to keep the furnaces going. The people of China had faulty techniques in making their pig iron the iron would easily crack. The tools that they used where of little value because they broke easily and could be used anymore. The mess halls, if Mao intended to or not took away the gathering of the family to enjoy dinner together. But the main purpose of the mess hall was to get more time out of their workers thus improve agriculture production. This leads back to Uncle Li, he was overworked and malnourished, and ended up dying of liver failure. This great program for China was killing off its people and further destroying the next generation.
 Uncle Li tried to give Tietou everything he wanted, and be a dad to him. Although he does not have the kites like Shaolong had, Tietou gained from him a work ethic and a desire to make others happy.
 Finally, to Tietou’s stepfather, he was able to provide a good life for Tietou and Shujuan, but he was not a father figure to him life father was. He have him everything that he wanted, but during the Cultural Revolution, good times for the new family were going to come to an end. As the Cultural Revolution began to heat up, the stepfather began to feel the heat as well. He was called a counter-revolutionary and was come after. Before hand the stepfather warned the family and gave them money to survive on. As a government official the stepfather was susceptible to violence due to his policy with people. The stepfather was killed.
 One interesting part of the movie that I noticed was Tietou’s easiness with his niece, and how he continuously made kite for her. I believe this symbolizes Tietou’s knowledge that has come about from his father. That if he could not achieve his dreams because of the oppression of his government, that maybe his niece could get the riches of the hard work of people like Shaolong and Uncle LI.
 I think the most important message behind this movie, was that the government in their political institution will destroy and further plummet the next generation. Shaolong was destroyed by voicing his opinion, and because of the seizure of his mother and the death of three fathers, Tietou will forever be destroyed.

This has been my favorite film so far. I thought this film really touched the heart and left me with this heavy feeling. It is understandable why the government prohibited (and still do) the distribution of this film in China. This film revealed true life for a family struggling during the Great Leap Forward and the major faults of the Communist Party and its lack of care for the masses in society.
 This film was extremely different from that of Breaking With Old Ideas since that film was pure propaganda for the Communist Party. However The Blue Kite revealed the truth and chaos that was occurring during the Great Leap Forward. The people in this film seem to fear the New China. There are banners and flags everywhere around the courtyards supporting the Communist Party; despite the fact that many of these people don’t agree with the decisions of the party they still hang their posters in fear of a struggle with the youth guards of the Red Army.
 I believe that this film was banned in China because it added to the criticism of Moa that was expressed through the encouraged critiques. If a mass audience viewed this film in China, they could come to realize that it was not only their family who suffered dramatically during that time, but mostly all of society, and also question the future ability of the party. In the film we see how the new policies are not benefiting the peasants. Even though there are mass productions the resources are not reaching the peasants who are still left in hunger and poverty, while at the same time fearing their government. I don’t see how such a system ever worked. In the film the youth gangs are just children who have no sense of responsibility or respect for elders, and this youth is suppose to be the future of China. The worst part is these youth gangs have no education since they boycott school and are discouraged from reading anything other than what the party allows them. This movement seemed more like anarchy.
 It is clear why the youth were targeted for the Cultural Movement since they are young and easily influenced. These children have been instilled with radical communism, and feel that they are creating a better China.
 This film really touches the heart with its realization of the brutality of the Communist party. I believe this film was so successful in doing so because it portrays the life of one family throughout the years. It is a shame that the people of China are banned from seeing the truth and the blood that was shed for the Communist Party.

Tian Zhuangzhuang’s film The Blue Kite captured the tragic results of the Chinese Communist’s Party attempt to change China into a truly socialist state by means of ‘The Great Leap Forward’ and the ‘Cultural Revolution.’ From the early 1950’s to 1976, at the end of the Cultural Revolution, the people of China were forced to endure starvation, over-exhaustion, and the break-up of traditional family structure and livelihood. All of this was an attempt by Mao and other communist leaders to prove to the world that socialism would surpass capitalism and China would rise above the West. However, as was portrayed in the film The Blue Kite, communism was not working. Instead the people of China were only being manipulated, deceived, and murdered by their government ‘for the people.’
 The first scene of the film is the wedding of Shujuan and Shaolong, portrayed as an occasion of hope with this new union between two people and the singing of a communist song showing the hope of a better life under the new government. Even shortly after the wedding, a greater sense of hope and innocence is added by the arrival of their newborn son, Teitou. The marriage and birth seems to echo the overall atmosphere at the beginning of a Communist China. Shortly after the revolution, China experienced a “honeymoon” period where for the first time since the fall of Imperial China, rural peasants were able to farm for themselves and stomachs were fed. This was a result of the Communist Party fulfilling its promise to redistribute land from the rich landlords. However, just as this honeymoon period is quickly destroyed by actions of the communist party, so is the marriage of Shujuan and Shaolong. Tian’s hopeful introduction of the film helps to convey that part of the tragedy of communist rule is that it started with such hope but would turn to disaster for the people as he portrays through the childhood of Teitou and the family he will lose to the party.
 Tian portrays the first devastating deception of the Communist Party with the “100 Flowers Movement.” Here Mao drew upon traditional Chinese philosophy and opened up the Communist party to constructive criticism from the people. However, shortly after Mao claimed the counter-revolutionaries were taking advantage of this opportunity and thus the “100 Flowers Movement” soon became an “Anti-Rightest Movement.” As a result many Chinese were sent to labor reform camps or even executed. Tian shows how an innocent people were deceived and torn apart by this movement with Shaolong. Shaolong’s best friend Uncle Li slips and tells of some criticisms that Shaolong expressed about the party. And Shaolong foolishly leaves a meeting at his work to use the bathroom right before they are going to take a vote on who around them are ‘rightest’ to fulfill a quota of persons to be sent to labor camps. Thus, two minor events condemn Shaolong to his eventual death. Just as the party was crashing down on the people, so would a tree crash down upon him and kill him. Here the Communist Party committed several crimes against their people. First, they asked for their criticism and then turned it against them and second they were undermining traditional Chinese family structure. Not only were families being forced into small communes at this time, but innocent people were being taken away to their deaths.
 Tian goes on to demonstrate the continual destruction of the family by the Communist Party through two future marriages of Shujuan. Out of guilt, Uncle Li takes care of Shujuan and Teitou during the “Great Leap Forward’ era. Overtime Uncle Li becomes a second father figure to Teitou and companion to Shujuan. Thus, looking out for her son, Shujuan tries to complete her family again and remarries. But shortly after, Uncle Li also becomes another victim of the Communist Party. Due to over-exhaustion and mal-nutrition that was common during the Great Leap Forward, Uncle Li becomes ill and dies. This era also stripped people of their dignity. Tian portrayed a frustrated Shujuan when she is forced to punish Teitou for attempting to steal food, but she knows that he is hungry. Because of a failing economic system, people were forced to behave in manners that they would normally look down upon, but unfortunately, they had no choice.
 Shujuan married again, to a Communist Party member and leader in hopes of protecting herself and Teitou, but Tian even shows that under the Communist Government, not even their own were safe from accusation and attack. Her third husband, Lao Wu, becomes a victim of another Mao movement, the Cultural Revolution. Mao implemented this movement as a response to growing criticism from with in the party. Everyone knew that the Great Leap Forward was a tremendous failure, just resulting in millions of deaths of Chinese people. Thus, they began to question whether party ideology was more important or feeding the mouths of China. One leader in this criticism against Mao was Deng Xioaping. Thus Mao called upon the youth of China to rebel against the old revolutionaries who lost sight of the goal of China. Tian portrays this movement when Teitou comes home to tell his mother that the children at school denounced their teacher as counter-revolutionary and when Lao Wu is hunted down in his home by a young faceless mob of revolutionaries. As a result of these events, Teitou loses his mother to a labor camp and he himself is left alone and beaten on the ground. Thus, Tian doesn’t spare the Communist Government form this era of any criticism. Through the deaths of Teitou’s three father figures, the loss of his mother, and he a child beaten by the mob, Tian denounces the Party for beginning with such hope to only turn around and strip people of their dignity and livelihood.
 The film The Blue Kite vividly demonstrates the failure of the Communist Party from almost its beginning up until the late 1970’s. Tian told the story in three stages and through the eyes of a boy. In the article, “The Three Father Figures in Tian Zhuangzhuang’s film The Blue Kite,” by Hanna Boje Nielson, Nielson illustrates the impact that Tian created in telling this story in this manner. Teitou is young and represents innocence. Hence just as an innocent boy was stripped of his family and hope, so was a nation of innocent people stripped of the promise for a better life under a government that claimed to know what was best for their survival. The three stages show how the party progressively took more and more from its people. Thus, as each death occurred from each stage of the Communist Party, the viewer witnesses how invasive the Communist government was in every aspect of a Chinese citizen’s life. Hence as is apparent in the last scene of The Blue Kite, Tian portrays the Communist Government as evolving into a faceless, evil entity that beat its people down and stripped them of their deserved human rights.

The Blue Kite is a Chinese film that was made in the year 1993. Tian Zhuangzhuang directed the film. He went through a great deal of trouble to make this film. The film was immediately banned by the Chinese government and is still banned in China. The film portrays the Communist Party in a harsh light that many deem as simple reality.
 The story line of the movie follows the life of a child, Teitou, as his life takes turns for the worst. The movie reflects that these are just more than circumstantial problems that Teitou faces; they are problems that the government has created for all of the proletarian citizens in China at this time. Teitou loses every member of his family by the end of the movie and ends up as a bitter street urchin who is alone on the streets. The system failed him terribly. The system also failed all of those around him, killing off his father and causing pain and suffering to the other families that live in the same communal area as Teitou.
 The people in this movie look desperate, hungry, and miserable. This is one of the reasons that the government had the film banned the second that it was released. People around the world were exposed to the mistakes made by the Communist Party. The last thing that the Communist Party wanted was a movie that was as radical as The Blue Kite showing in theaters to millions of Chinese people. These people could potentially gather together, after becoming riled up over the situation they all suffered from as well, which is shown in the film, and overthrow the government. We discussed this in lecture for quite a while. The mistakes that the government made in regards to how they ran the country during the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution are a serious threat to the people following them. It is taboo for the people to discuss the mistakes because of the chance that they could be singled out as many were in the movie, but one day, or maybe one movie, it is going to change and the people will have the opportunity to rebel against the government in mass instead of individually.
 Individual rebellions did not work because, as we saw in The Blue Kite, the government would quickly squash anyone that dare spoke out against something or voiced an opinion other than the Maoist one. The perfect example of this is the uncle’s girlfriend, who goes to jail for not wanting to take part and for disagreeing. People follow Mao blindly at this period in time that the movie is reflecting upon. People give up everything they have for the sake of the group. As reflected in the reading, no one dared be the one who attempted to branch away without consequence.
 Contrary to the film Breaking With Old Ideas, The Blue Kite actually portrays what was occurring in China during these harsh times. The Great Leap Forward was a very desperate period of time in Chinese history. Many people died in the attempt to change culture. It is unfortunate for the Chinese people that they are unable to see films that are more historically accurate than Breaking With Old Ideas. Breaking With Old Ideas is a Communist Party film that was designed to help the Chinese people and the world see that the government was good and trying to improve peasants at this time in history. The Blue Kite shows the truth, as we see in the reading, about how many people suffered and died over this time period.