Rating: 
Summary: Women under communism
Review: A timely reminder of how under communism, women become commodities that are used but not paid for.
Rating:
Summary: Hauntingly beautiful
Review: But not for everyone. When I was watching this film, I found it dragged a little in parts, but afterwards, I found myself haunted by some of the imagery and the tragic story. It really brought home the human cost of the Chinese Cultural Revolution -- not because of beatings and violence and denounciations, etc., but through the sheer waste of humanity and emotional suffering. Yes, this film is depressing - but beautiful.
Rating:
Summary: A good film, but yet too sad and painful
Review: Filmed in China without the government's approval, this movie marks the directional debut of Joan Chen who starred in The Last Emperor and who has also been seen on American television. It is a sad and moving story of a young teenage girl during the cultural revolution.Lu Lu is 15 in 1975 when she volunteers to be sent to the country in the sweep of patriotic fever and is sweeping the country. After a year she is sent on a special assignment: to learn horse herding in Tibet under the tutelage of an older man, Lopsang, who cannot function sexually because he had been castrated twenty years before. They share a dilapidated tent in a remote area of the grasslands of Tibet for what is supposed to be only a six month assignment. They learn to adjust to each other in spite of the fact that she is headstrong and a bit spoiled. He is good to her and a real affection develops between them. However, when the 6 months is up, she is abandoned by the government. The cultural revolution is breaking up and the project has been disbanded. A passing peddler then seduces her with promises of a travel visa, but he abandons her too and then there a series of men who visit her in her tent with empty promises. Through all this, the audience watches the changes in the once-hopeful young girl and the silent concern of Lopsang. It soon becomes painfully clear that this movie will have a tragic conclusion. I understand this film has won some awards and I hope it wins more. It certainly deserves it. Great acting and characterization. Fine cinematography. And a deep and stark reality of the corruption of the Chinese government. Some parts were unclear though and it could have used better editing. And even though it was only 100 minutes long, it was much too slow for my taste. In spite of its strengths, it is not for everyone. It was too sad and painful. There's enough of that on the news right now.
Rating: 
Summary: gratuitous tragedy
Review: i felt like i'd been beaten over the head with violence. then i felt like a puppeteer (joan chen) pulled at my heartstrings like a sad violin. all this would have been fine, and even good, if after the movie i felt there had been some truth revealed some chaos ordered into art. some character fleshed out beyond the narrow role of the story. but there wasn't. this is the kind of movie that leaves me furious --- a hallmark card made by someone with far too much talent to sink to this. it was heavyhanded melodrama, and perhaps the most gratuitous and two dimensional treatment i've seen in recent years. ugh, save yourself some grief and don't see this movie. if youre gonna be censored for what you do, at least make it worthwhile.
Rating: 
Summary: Profound -- realities and illusions
Review: I found this to be a profound story of love -- of both its illusions and its realities. While it does not portray the Cultural Revolution kindly, I suspect it was banned in China because in the movie it is the Tibetan horse-herder (who was mutilated by the Chinese) who sacrifices his good karma for someone who is Chinese. (Tibetan nuns explained to me that if a Tibetan kills someone, s/he moves backwards in karma -- it is a serious matter to take this on.) Heart-rending plot. Beautiful sweeping views of the steppes of China.
Rating:
Summary: Haunting...
Review: I have no idea why I've fallen for Chinese language (English subtitles) cinema, from "art house" to "wild action," but I'm glad it's happened. The movies I've seen have had a deeper impact on my own life than all the movies I've seen before, collectively. I tend to think of these movies as "stories" that someone felt had to be told, rather than as movies that often strike me as being 2 hour long commercials. This story had a life of its own and was just waiting for someone, like Joan Chen to write and direct it.
This story was that of a personal tragedy compounded by the fact that it took place in such a remote area, that the two main characters were virtually insignificant on the canvas of life. No one would notice or care about them except for those to whom they had meaning. Perhaps the whole movie could have been a flashback scene that explains what someone who came across Xiu Xiu and Lopsang in the following spring might have wondered upon discovering them.
The only "flaw" was Ms. Chen's seemingly deliberate desire to not go for the emotional jugular by showing Xiu Xiu deteriorating as she would have, under those conditions. The audience knows it's got to be happening. Maybe it's made more poignant by the brave face she carries. She seems to suddenly wake up with the realization that she's never going to make it back, in spite of her efforts. The thought process that went into the scene where she goes from trying to cripple herself -- to ending it all in the water took me into her head. Imagine realizing you're almost as good as "thrown away." She actually dressed for her own funeral.
Lopsang's behavior is better explained on a website that features an interview w/ Joan Chen. She explains the irony and symbolism of his character...someone who can shoot a gun as well as he can -- yet cannot defend Xiu Xiu when she most needs it.
Having seen "To Live," I knew, almost by conditioning, where the maternity ward scene was going. The invevitable, in Xiu Xiu's case, was compounded by the callousness of those nurses. Maybe the crippled guy was supposed to add some 'comic relief' when he actually ran away from Lopsang (I think), but everything else about this scene further demonstrated how worthless Xiu Xiu was to everyone but Lopsang. Aside from the educational experience, the point this movie made to me was that human life, no matter how remote or unseen, matters. She was just "another one," to so many...and Lopsang wasn't even on the map anymore. Yet, in the end, both mattered. I also find it ironic that this program ended in 1976 and that she was "sent down" in 1975. She may have made it past the finish line -- but she never got the chance to know.
Now, all I want to do is to find the SOUNDTRACK. I'm glad the credits were also in English, or else I wouldn't have discovered who Chyi is. I'm having trouble finding good links to info on Chyi, but from another post, I hear she is very popular in Taiwan. That movie and song will haunt anyone with a soul.
Rating: 
Summary: A tragedy of a film
Review: I just saw this movie today in class and found it verydisturbing. At first I was totally upset and wondered why any teacherwould put a class through this film. After reading what other people have said I realize this was an important part of history that needed to be told. The actress who portrayed xiu xiu and the actor who protrayed Loa Jin did a wonderful job at getting the point across about oppression in China during the revolution. If nothing else it makes me glad I was born in America.
Rating:
Summary: Visually stunning, emotionally wrenching film
Review: I saw this movie in the theaters, and I find it absolutely unforgettable. The Tibetan high plains suffuse the movie with incredible beauty, and the Tibetan lead actor, Lopsang, is so evocative that he actually expresses more when he is not talking. It is a beautiful movie of a time when China went crazy and extreme behavior became the norm. Equally beautiful is the story "Celestial Bath" on by Geling Yan, on which this is based. That story is in a book called *White Snake and Other Stories* by Geling Yan, also on amazon.com.
Rating:
Summary: Disturbing
Review: If you want to see breath-taking cinematography, the quiet beauty of Chinese landscapes, and can handle disturbing images of an innocent girl being graphically sexually ravaged and destroyed by older men and a cruel Communist regime, see this film. If however, the prospect of watching one of the bleakest, most disturbing loss of innocence films gives you pause, this is fair warning. Joan-sorry about the one-star. It's not the directing, acting or cinematography (all of which is stellar). It's just that sick feeling you get when the credits roll and you realize you just watched an innocent person destroyed to their core. There is no pleasure in this film. But maybe that's the point.
Rating:
Summary: Well done, but somewhat manipulative
Review: In many ways, "Xiu Xiu, The Sent Down Girl" is a great film and an impressive director's debut for Joan Chen. "Xiu Xiu" is visually arresting film. The Maoist street scenes in Cheng-du and the sparse Tibetan mountain region where most of the story takes place are visually arresting. The film's portrayal of Communist Party corruption and abuses during the Cultural Revolution are sickeningly accurate. Anyone who does not think so can read the accounts of former Red Guards such as Liang Heng, the author of "Son of the Revolution". The film depicts Xiu Xiu's abuse and sexual exploitation by local Communist Party cadres very effectively. The first cadres to arrive are rather poor and treat her with some degree of consideration. They come in the day time, avoid Xiu Xiu's tent mate, and converse with her to some extent. The final cadre arrives in the dead of night, using larger, more impressive transportation than his predecessors. Unlike them, he displays complete indifference toward the presence of Xiu Xiu's tent mate. He unceremoniously wakes her up for sex and without so much as a word, he takes her in an animal fashion. After he leaves, the formerly modest Xiu Xiu bathes herself in front of her tent mate. Her degradation is complete and only her demise remains. Despite the accuracy and effectiveness of the film, it contains several flaws. The young man who narrates the film is only a peripheral character with no connection to the central part of the story. His narrative is more of a strange annoyance than a useful dramatic effect. Sadder yet, Chen floods us with the obvious and attempts to manipulate us in a similar manner to the wretched Oliver Stone. Instead of showing us the scenery in a subtle fashion, she bombards with its beauty. While the abuses in the film are very realistic, they are frankly just a restatement of more effective films such as "To Live" and "Farwell My Concubine". Sure, this one takes place in a rural area and deals directly with "Learn from the Peasants" movement, but it really doesn't tell us anything new. Cultural Revolution = abuse and stupidity. Yup, saw that already. I'm afraid that I must also fault Chen for the film's effusive, mushy music. Ironically, it is very similar to the music used in one the Chinese Communist Propaganda films that she made in the late seventies. If you haven't seen "Xiu Xiu" yet, then I definitely recommend you check it out. Despite my complaints, I do think it is impressive in a lot of ways and shows Chen's potential as a director. I hope that in her next project Chen displays more of the subtlety and craftsmanship Zhang Yi-mu, or Chen Kai-ge and less of the manipulative qualities of Oliver Stone.
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