The Red Detachment of Women (1961 film)

Actress: Zhu Xijuan

Wu Qionghua is a maidservant belongs to a feudal landlord, Nan Batian. She is a tenacious, pungent, brave youth whose father was skinned by Nan Batian. She has been lived in hatred to the landlord for a long time and never yields even in water prison after being whipped. With Hong Changqing's help, she is able to join the Red Detachment of Women, where she grows from an ordinary soldier to a proletarian pioneer fighter.

Actor: Wang Xingang

Hong Changqing is the young Party representative of the women detachment. He is a firm, strong character who is loyal and enthusiastic towards the Communist Party. Because of the hardship his father suffered, Changqing struggled in the society at a young age and gained much experience, which made him mature. In the conversation with Wu Qionghua, he uses his self-experience to persuade her and helps her grow.

Actor: Chen Qiang

Nan Batian is one of the largest feudal landlords in Hainan Island. He is a cruel, fierce, crafty, and arbitrary character who believes himself of great talent. He has relationships with both government and local bandits. He also recruits militias and sets up checkpoints in the area he controls. Nan Batian is the archenemy of the Hainan Red Army.

Actor: Xiang Mei

Fu Honglian is also an honest, kind young woman who suffers feudal oppression. She was sold as a child bride at the age of 10. Her husband had already died, and she has been accompanied a "wooden husband" for ten years. Such mental torture pushes her to join the red army when Wu Qionghua comes to her house on a rainy night. They join the Red Detachment of Women together and fight side by side in the following battles.

Actor: Yang Mengchang

The majordomo of Nan Batian is a scholar image with a poker face. He is very careful and suspicious. He always does his best to fulfill his master's will. He also gives Nan Batian many ideas when Batian is dealing with tricky problems. When his advice is obstinately rejected by Nan Batian, he sighs for not having a wise master.

Song of the Red Detachment of Women

Red Flags Fly on Mt Wuzhi

The Cultural Revolution (1966–76) is often seen as a dark period of Chinese politics and violence. The government follows Mao’s order started a reform campaign. The main goal is to regulate theatres and sift through plays by only keeping the “good” ones and banning any plays that involved feudal content.[3] Later, all traditional and Western-influenced plays are banned as well. Yet this period also witnesses the creation of “革命样板戏 (revolutionary opera)”, The Red Detachment of Women is one of the few that luckily survived during the revolution period.

However, the real history is very different from the story on the screen. As a combat unit, the Red Detachment of Women lasted only 500 days before it was broken up by Kuomintang troops. Some of them died on the battlefield and a few were captured. Most of the rest returned to civilian life, hidden from view. It wasn't until many years later when their stories were discovered by accident, and they became the main characters in novel, movies, and stage plays. However, what happened to them after they put down their guns and the long life after that is rarely mentioned. During the ill-fated Cultural Revolution, the ballet version of “The Red Detachment of Women" became a must-have for leaders to entertain foreign guests, was also designated as a Revolutionary opera and was remade into a film, showing all over the country. These are two very different images: On stage, they are the heroes of the revolution; in reality, they are the objects of the revolution.

The reality is that some of the soldiers fell into a low ebb in the political movements after 1949 because of the experience of being captured by the Kuomintang or being married to "politically incorrect" people. Writers and artists who created the Red Detachment of Women series of works of art were also buffeted to varying degrees. Bai Shuxiang (白淑湘), the first actress to play Wu Qionghua in the ballet Red Detachment of Women, was labeled as “destructive Revolutionary opera" and "counter-revolutionary” and was once sent to a Labor camp. The screenwriter, director, and former head of the National Ballet of China, Li Chengxiang (李承祥), was dismissed as a "capitalist roader" and locked up in a cowshed until the capitalist needed him to play the villain "Nanba Tian南霸天".[4] The archetype and the artistic image, two groups that are far apart from each other, suddenly became class enemies. They are the shadow of the on-stage glorious Red Detachment of Women, where the light of history turns dark.

Unlike Western feminism, Chinese socialist feminism was mobilized by the country’s leader and the Party gave authority and power to works of art that allow them to use the power of art to influence the public. One of the main goals of China’s revolutionary journey was to focus on the liberation of women. Under the Party’s mandate, women were emancipated from tradition and it is so important since this indicates a huge revolutionary change that women are as capable as men. “The Red Detachment of Women” was created base on the archetype of the all-female battalion and the film strongly promoted the theme that women can also serve as soldiers and do revolutions.[5] Mao has a famous slogan “women hold up half the sky”. Feminists around the world praised him a lot due to this line. Heroines under Mao’s communist theatre challenged the traditional stereotyped women. Theses female characters fought for women’s liberation and gender equalitarianism. Just like Qiong Hua, she fought for her unfortunate life and against feudal patriarchy.

However, in recent years some feminist scholars criticized what he called feminism politics. Revolutionary artistic production seems to embrace the female population, it also erased femininity.[3] The communist artwork heroine all have a common characteristic which is women act like a man. Therefore, Mao’s heroines are concluded as having the characteristics of “gender erasure”, and scholars consider this seems to be built on the stereotype of a pre-existing gender pattern assigned to women. This goes against the very spirit and purpose of feminism.

From the 1900s when cinema entered the market, it started to play an important role in the Chinese Communist Party's media strategy. Film like Operation Red Sea successfully merged patriotic narratives with a Hollywood type of story. This attracted numerous audiences and enhanced people's national assertiveness. Using movies to promote is nothing new. From ancient times to the present, CCP continuously oversees in the film industry, and the Central Propaganda Department takes direct control over the profession.[6]

Mao and his wife Jiang employed literature and art as propagandistic tools to influence the general public.[7] The Red Detachment of Women had an unambiguously intent on propaganda, and its production skill was undeniable. Villains were dark and showed up in dim color while the heroes were pure and they appeared with a bright and vivid atmosphere. This sharp color comparison created a strong visual contrast to the audience for ideological education. Later, the government started a moving cinema to bring the film to the villages. Through watching various revolutionary based communist movies, people enjoyed the entertainment, and at the same time they carried out a subtle influence.

In 1957, writer Liang Xin came to Hainan from Guangzhou to experience life. In Hainan, he met the old soldiers of the famous Red Detachment of Women.[8] He completed the first draft of the movie literary script "Qiongdao Heroine" (琼岛英雄花) in June 1958, and published it in "Shanghai Literature" in 1959. According to regulations, the movie scripts created by military writers must first be submitted to the August First Film Studio. At first, Liang Xin gave the script to August First Film Studio, but was denied for various reasons. Later, he was chosen by the director of Shanghai Tianma Film Studio, Xie Jin, and was renamed "The Red Detachment of Women". The film was eventually made by Shanghai Tianma Film Studio.

After making the decision to shoot, Xie Jin went to Hainan alone, spent half a year to select the shooting place for The Red Detachment of Women. In the summer of 1959, Xie Jin led Zhu Xijuan and other lead actors to come to Hainan for experiences in order to allow the actors to adapt to the roles as soon as possible. In addition to organizing them to read novels and memoirs that reflect the revolutionary struggle of the Red Army era, Xie Jin also asked every actor who played the female army to wear leggings, perform military exercises, and practice military actions to make these actions become their lifestyle habits.[9]

In the preliminary film script, there was a romantic relationship development between Wu Qionghua and Hong Changqing. Xie Jin agreed, and also filmed many scenes where Hong Changqing and Qionghua admired each other. However, under the influence of the political atmosphere at the time, these plays were later cut off.[10]

The story was turned into a ballet and later a Beijing opera during the Cultural Revolution and became famous in the West for its gun-toting ballerinas. The ballet was immortalized on film in 1970 and is now considered a foundational work of Chinese indigenous ballet.[11]

In 2006, at a time when the TV play had become the most influential genre in China’s flourishing TV industry, and the revival of the Red Classics was in full swing, The Red Detachment of Women was remade as a 21-episode TV series as a collaborative production of Hainan Radio and TV, Beijing TV, Beijing TV Arts Centre, and the Eastern Magic Dragon Film Company under the direction of Yuan Jun.[11]