Tiffany Mei In China, there are a lot of films about rural stories, they delivered audience the impression of Chinese country life, and the honest but obstinate personality of people living there. The film The Story of Qiu Ju is one of the masterpiece directed by Zhang Yimou in 1992, describes an ordinary rural woman, Qiu Ju, who has similar personality as others born and live in countryside, despite she is more stubborn and persistence. Her strong personality is related with the influence of the opening-up and reform policy of the day, women have the awareness to seek for justice. In fact, most of Chinese films talk about political implicitly, especially at the year of 90's. In The story of Qiu Ju, we can see the difficulty of find justice under the old bureaucracy in China. In order to find righteousness，Qiu Ju, a woman from China's undeveloped area, small village of Shaanxi, when her new married husband is kicked in the groin by the village head, she goes to the closest town, then the bigger city to try to deal with the bureaucrats and find justice in spite of her pregnancy.The story of Qiu Ju is a Chinese comedy-drama film, the genre category is established based on the storyline. For the character delineation, I think Zhang Yimou express the personality of the characters with some connotative details. Especially Qiu Ju, at the beginning of the film, crowed people walking towards the camera, Qiu Ju is one of them, ordinary and common. I think her name Qiu Ju also have same meaning, Qiu Ju means autumn chrysanthemum in Chinese, which can be seen every where and have Strong vitality. However， Qiu Ju is stubborn, but she is also humble and timid. The long take of the old man ask money for writing indictment, the pedicab driver fraud Qiu Ju's money, which shows her cowardice. Also, we can see her determination to find justice, no matter how much it takes. It is quite uncommon for a poor rural woman. The delineation of the village head is also great. Most scenes about him was shoot in his home with high angle, he was squat while Qiu Ju standing in front of him. He is not that kind of village head, which lean on the position and bullying villager. But as every government officer in China, he do not want give what Qiu Ju need because of saving face. I think he saves Qiu Ju and her son's lives not due to he forgive Qiu Ju's stubborn, but the responsibility of a village head. He need every villager respect him. Moreover, the scene did show but we all clear, he had an argument with Qiu Ju's husband, because he was insulted due to he have four daughters but no son. In traditional Chinese concept， son preference rooted in every people's mind. We can see a warmhearted but too proud village head according to these scenes. Also, I believe one of the reason push Qiu Ju insist to find justice is because she is pregnant but she can not sure if it is a boy.The narrative approach is based on the time line, the development of the story. The story was happened in a harvest autumn to cold and snowing Shaanxi winter until they celebrating New Year, one more evidence is during Qiu Ju's pregnancy to she give birth to her son, straight forward from what happened to the end. The cinematographic style is as simplicity as the characters. Most of scenes took by long shoot, and according to Zhang Yimou, he took candid snapshot in order to keep the villagers acting naturally. One thing need to mention about cinematographic style is the close-up of Qiu Ju's face. Her face expresses multiple emotions after she knew the village head is caught then run after the police whistle, which are surprise, unbelievable, awkward and sense of loss. She is seeking for an impartial end, not money, not this one either.To sum up, the film is a story of bureaucracy and ordinary people, traditional code of conduct and the law. Every time I saw Qiu Ju walking on the white snowing country road, then get free ride to the town and city, I was touched and wondering how long will rural people live in China will go through to get justice. As Zhang Yimou said about the film, every person in this film is good and decent, but the result is not. In most cases, the law can give us justice, but it does not comfort our heart, and the atmosphere of forgiveness. The most important thing in human's relationship is understanding. However, the officers in this film is all kind and dedicated to helping Qiu Ju, I think is not common in China, there is barely no one like Yan. Maybe it is the way the director encourages rural people to find justice, just as Qiu Ju did.

hupfons5 Another fine performance by Gong Li in a story that takes too long to reach its disconcerting conclusion. (SPOILER) Her character's determined struggle to seek a just settlement for the local Communist party official's assault on her husband is impressive. She is not deterred by physical hardship, swindlers, party bureaucrats, or the arrogance of the party official himself.(SPOILER) The plot twist that occurs at the birth of her baby almost redeems the slow pace of the film up to that point of the story, but not quite.The location shots (in the cities and rural areas) enhance the story but not quite enough for this reviewer. Not a waste of time for those with enough patience to wait for the story to reach its conclusion, but not as good as many other of Gong Li's & Yimou Zhang's work.

jokercard88 In a word...simple. All the plot is about is a wife whose husband got kicked in the d*** by some chief or governor (I didn't pay attention to> their ranks). Despite this, the movie is still great, Gong Li isn't as beautiful as usual (that jacket makes her look like a marshmellow), but she gives her usual beautiful performance. 9/10.

Charlie-209 Really enjoyed this one. Qiu Ju is the wife of a man who has been kicked by a neighbor, his village chief. She presses for an apology, largely (if subtitles do it justice) because, even though his chest is what hurts longer, he's been kicked in the "privates" and she wants more than one child. She takes her quest for the apology up the chain of officialdom.I couldn't get enough of the scenery - houses, city, carts, clothes, painted paper banners, dried peppers and corn - and the faces of people. As other viewers noted positively, the people in it didn't seem to be actors but real people, caught up in daily affairs and catching us up, too. The nearby village is somewhat familiar to her, but her trip to the city may have been her first. Watching her trying to find her way around, haggling for fair rates and help from a produce buyer, a bike-cart driver, a letter writer, a hotelier, and a lawyer was a lot of fun. Her trips seemed like a great introduction to the culture.One of the things I loved was how the families and neighbors kept having complex interactions with each other throughout the ordeal. And the social roles in this were interesting: Farm/village chief to farmer, sister to sister, daughter-in-law to her in-laws, Party officials to their hierarchy and to citizens, country to city, women's role in general (as in what sex babies are preferred) and the strong stance of a specific woman like Qiu Ju, who seemed to be empowered as much as frustrated by the system and by her family and neighbors.I read reviews of this as a negative comment on bureaucracy. If so, it showed a remarkably humane one. Flaws were on display but the overall tone was of acceptance.The sudden ending left me feeling for the main characters. I seemed to see a judgment in it, but wasn't sure what that judgment was. I wanted to know how the story was interpreted in China, so I came to IMDB to at least see how others took it.