Gong Li Movie:

Editorial Review:
The kick is never shown, but the entire film is based around it. It's winter in the remote Shaanxi province. Pregnant Qiu Ju (Gong Li, 2046) is married to laidback farmer Qinglai (Liu Pei Qi). When village chief Wang (Lei Lao Sheng) kicks him during an argument, she sets out to ensure that her husband receives medical attention--and justice. Clad in a bulky jacket, face partially obscured by a thick scarf, the strong-willed woman, joined by sister-in-law Meizi (Yang Liu Chun), travels far and wide to find someone who can coerce Wang to apologize (she asked, he refused). All agree the chief was in the wrong, but each authority with whom she meets hands her off to another. Along the way, the couple is offered financial compensation (for medical care and lost wages), but an apology is as elusive as a dragonfly in December. Taking cues from both Frank Capra (Mr. Smith Goes to Washington) and Vittorio De Sica (Bicycle Thieves), Zhang Yimou (House of Flying Daggers) presents modern-day China as a country where bureaucrats run the show and the citizens--especially the women--must suffer the consequences. Fortunately, some are more persistent than others, and The Story of Qiu Ju is far from tragic. Just as their fifth pairing represents one of Yimou's rare contemporary efforts, the dressed-down title character is also an anomaly for Li, his real-life love at the time. The risk paid off and the result is one of their most cherished collaborations. --Kathleen C. Fennessy

The Story of Qiu Ju Reviews:
startling denouement highlights cultural divergency
2009-12-08 -
"The Story of Qiu Ju" features a very recognizable cultural stock figure. Gong Li plays the wife of a man who has been injured by a local official. While they are offered a small settlement, Qiu Ju refuses to accept it and so, basically, takes on the system. This is Silkwood or Phillip Seymour Hoffman taking on the tobacco industry or Mr. Smith in Washington or on and on and on. We all know this character, the plucky underdog who refuses to give up and who, through grit and determination and with an unshakeable conviction in the rightness of their cause fight overwhelming odds, never giving up until finally, at the very end, truth and justice triumph. The faceless bureaucrats lose and our hero carries the day. But this movie was made in China. They also know this character but they view this person in a completely different light. In Chinese society this person is "The Troublemaker." They don't know when to stop. They don't recognize the good that people are trying to do them. They don't appreciate the positions of others. In "The Story of Qiu Ju," the progressively more important officials that take time out of their busy schedules to hear out Qiu Ju are portrayed sympathetically. They listen. They want to help. They extend themselves (one of the highest actually squires Qiu Ju around in his limo, helping her find her way in an unfamiliar city.) In the end, and I don't want to give away too much, Qiu Ju herself is made to confront the fundamental error of her ways and she profoundly regrets the trouble she has caused. I watched this movie with my wife, who is Chinese and at a certain point we both knew how the movie was going to end: I was shocked and she was bored. Enjoy it.

The story of Qui Ju
2009-12-06 - this is one of my favourite Gong Li films which I have never been able to find in Australia. So being able to buy it though Amazon has allowed me to enjoy this film years after I last saw it. It tells the story of a peasant woman in contempoaray China taking on the buracracy. It's great!!!

Persistence Pays
2009-11-19 - Of this Movie, Janet Mason from The New York Times says, "SUPERB...The story of Qiu Ju reaffirms Zhang Yimou's stature as a story teller and visual artist of exceptional delicacy and insight". International film sensation GONG LI (Memoirs of a Geisha) gives a luminous performance as Qiu Ju, a stoic peasant woman who demands an apology when her husband is humiliated by the village Chief. But the Chief is a headstrong man who refuses to apologise, sending Qiu Ju on a futile trek through the complicated Chinese judicial system. From her small village, to a nearby city and finally to the large and impersonal district court, hers is a universal battle against bureaucracy and indifference. Winner of Best Picture and Best Actress at the Venice Film Festival, THE STORY OF QIU JU is "funny, touching, surprising, provocative and entertaining every step of the way".-David Sterritt, The Christian Science Monitor.

Another brilliant window into China
2009-10-24 - I have been impressed by all the films that I have seen directed by Zhang Yimou. In his films I not only have learned a great deal about China but have also been reminded or instructed about universal truths.

"The Story of Qiu Ju" brings the viewer into rural China and the perspective of a farming and tradition-minded populace interacting with Communist governance, including the limitations on child-bearing, the police and legal system, and the new, growing urban culture. I have a richer and I suspect accurate impression of China as a result of Zhang Yimou's intelligent artistry.

Alongside this almost documentary-like (yet superior to any documentary I can think of) portrayal of contemporary China, the director also presents a deeply moving and instructive account of the consequences of harmful human behaviors, behaviors that most of us (all of us?) indulge in frequently with little thought to the pain we are causing those around us. In Qui Ju the circumstances are comic and would remain so did we not see how sadly they play out at the film's end. A refusal by the village leader to apologize for hurting a man coupled with an equally stubborn refusal by the man's wife Qiu Ju to let go of her grievance bears bitter fruit for all concerned.

It is not the stuff of major tragedy but rather the expression of real, every day minor tragedies that makes "The Story of Qiu Ju" so poignant and powerful. See this film to learn more about China, but see it also to get a fresh vision of the sorrow of missed opportunities when people fail to forgive.

Full of beauty and suspense. . .but can we be aware of it
2009-09-29 - A beautiful, quiet movie full of significant conflict, of necessary rapprochement, of long-term loyalty. But, I worry, will today's audience see the beauty and sense the substance of this movie through the quiet?
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[An angry aside: What is happening film makers of the west? Why do I have to search so far(away from the trash--no temptation is the better word)far away from the comic book superheros, the special effects showcases, the remakes of remakes of mediocre movies, the overly-long adaptations of books (Dr. Suess's books!?!), of bathroom humor (have we graduated from 6th-grade yet?) . . .
A warning; a forecast: Eventually, I will disconnect the DVD player (or use it far less frequently; I have already disconnected the cable television.) and return solely to reading. But my optimistic self believes this is just what our overly-volted bodies now need. . .We need, as Clifton Fadiman wrote in The Lifetime Reading Plan, to "disenthrall" ourselves from the contemporary.]