RICKSHAW BOY

China, 1982, 120 minutes, Colour.
Directed by Ling Zifeng.

Rickshaw Boy is based on a famous novel by Chinese author Lao She. It is set in the '20s and '30s in the city of Beijing - a time of social upheaval and change. The film focuses on a young camel-herd who goes to the city to try to make his fortune with his rickshaw. He is trapped in the social and economic situations. Tricked into marriage, he fails to make a success of his career and after falling into debt is forced to sell all his possessions. He is compassionate for a young girl who has to sell herself into prostitution and who ultimately hangs herself. The film is grim in its tone though commentators say the film tones down the pessimism of the novel.

Filmed in Panavision, the film is attractively produced and pictorially striking. However, the pace is slow and the action tends to meander. It is an interesting example of the Republic of China's cinema of the early 1980s - dramatising a famous novel and looking back at the past.

1. An interesting film? Entertaining? Insight into the history of China in the 20th century? Pre-revolution China? Insight into the Chinese mentality and people?

2. Production values: Panavision, colour photography, locations, pictorial beauty? The decor and style of the '20s and '30s? Intimate sequences? Action sequences? The musical score and its atmosphere?

3. The focus on Xinagzi, the young camel-herd? The initial focus on the military situation? Violence and death? His escape? His taking the camels? Selling them desperately? His money and the hopes for being a rickshaw boy? His return home and the welcome? The employer and his lazy attitude? The employer's daughter and her infatuation with Xinagzi, tricking him, her pretence of being pregnant, the marriage? The complications of married life, his wife's pressures? Dissatisfactions? Xinagzi and the rickshaws? The friendship with the young girl? The difficulty of his wife's pregnancy, trying to get the doctor, the oppression and the lack of money, her death? The friendship with the young girl and her having to go into prostitution? His grief at arriving too late when she had hanged herself? His having to sell his rickshaw, the creditors and his having to go and sell everything he owned? His prospects? A grim picture of an ordinary young man?

4. The portrait of the wife - her competence, relationship with her father, business sense, wanting a husband, her tricking Xinagzi, the marriage, married life, the real pregnancy, the agony of her death? Her father selling his business and disinheriting her? Xinagz1's hostility towards his father-in-law when encountering him?

5. The young girl and her hard life in the city, pathos, going to the brothel, the madam and her talk, her hanging herself?

6. The incidental characters - how well delineated? The camel buyer at the opening, the rickshaw boys in the city, the clients, the doctors, the creditors, the brothel keeper? Authentic characters for this film?

7. Insight into human nature? The pessimism of the oppression of the city, economic situation? The film's comment on pre-revolution China?