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Recommended: women portrayal in movies

The Story of Qiu Ju, directed by Zhang Yimou, is a modern Chinese film about a young pregnant woman from rural China seeking justice for a local political leader’s crime of kicking her husband in the groin, potentially ruining their chances of having more than one child. Qiu Ju is the main character, a stubborn woman whose exhaustion from selling chilies and being pregnant does nothing to stop her from seeking justice. The film follows Qui Ju in her journey to higher and higher officials in the Chinese government to try and get justice for the actions against her husband. Though monotonous at times and tedious in others, this film offers a unique and powerful look into the history of women in Chinese society, offering a few very strong themes. The purpose of this paper is to offer a critique of the film in terms of how it represents some key themes about feminism in modern China, including women in rural areas versus urban, lingering Confucian ideals about women and the position of women in that time period, and finally, how older superstitions influenced the perceptions of the everyday life women.
Rural vs. Urban Life
In The Story of Qiu Ju, the young woman protagonist begins with lamenting her husband’s potential loss of reproductive power thanks to a kick to the groin from a local political leader during a confrontation. In addition, another young woman is introduced – Ju’s sister in law, Meizi, who accompanies her to many of her points of protest. Though set in present-day China, 1992 to be exact, the film’s rural setting translates well into many other historical periods of Chinese history. For instance, women in rural China were still expected to do their part regardless of their condition of pregnancy, and the small town’...

... middle of paper ...

...e film offers a modern interpretation of a very important issue – the seeking of justice. However, it also offers a view of modern-day issues with roots in very traditional and sometimes oppressive beliefs about women. From the difference women face in urban versus rural areas, the lingering Confucian ideals applied to women both externally and internally via simple habit, and finally lingering superstitions that may date even before Confucianism. These issues are well established not only in this film, but also in literature on the subject, particularly that of Confucian thought in renaissance in modern-day China. The film’s credit lies not in the plot itself, but in the underlying themes that help illustrate a woman’s plight in Chinese rural society even in the 1990s, many decades after the supposed end of Confucianism as a practicing belief system in the country.

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