Xiu Xiu: The Sent-Down Girl

R

Released May 7, 1998

1h 39m

Drama

List

96%

Tomatometer

24 Reviews

84%

Audience Score

1,000+ Ratings

During the Cultural Revolution in China, Mao Zadong's regime sends countless adolescents, including a bright young girl named Xiu Xiu (Lu Lu), to rural lands in order to participate in various kinds of physical labor. Xiu Xiu is torn away from her caring relatives and close friends to live and work with Lao Jin (Lopsang), a rancher. Though he treats Xiu Xiu kindly, she yearns for her old life and eventually turns to a degrading life of prostitution in hopes of earning the means to return home.

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Critics Consensus

A superb first outing from debuting director Joan Chen, Xiu Xiu: The Sent Down Girl uses one person's grueling ordeal to probe a dark chapter in Chinese history.

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Globe and Mail

Rated: 3/4

Apr 25, 2003

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James Berardinelli

ReelViews

Rated: 4/4

Jan 1, 2000

Full Review

Roger Ebert

Chicago Sun-Times

In a time of movies about sex and silly teenagers, here is a film that arrives with a jolt of hard reality.

Rated: 3/4

Jan 1, 2000

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Film Threat

Rated: 3/5

Dec 6, 2005

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Emanuel Levy

EmanuelLevy.Com

Rated: 3/5

Aug 8, 2005

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Susan Tavernetti

Palo Alto Weekly

Rated: 3.5/4

May 20, 2003

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Jeff V

Tragedy and sadness mixed with beauty. Amazing film that exposes the horrors of a vile idealogy which people seem infantuated with. This should be what they show to kids in school.

Rated 5 out of 5 stars

08/31/23

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Audience Member

banned in china what for i d/k

Rated 3 out of 5 stars

01/21/23

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Audience Member

This shit's fucking depressing. It looks great, and the acting's great, but towards the middle you just feel sorry for the two mains. And if you really think about it, it's the story of a government-sponsored whore.

Rated 4.5 out of 5 stars

01/19/23

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Frances H

Tragic story that is symbolic on so many levels--a political condemnation of the Cultural Revolution, a young girl going from childhood innocence and hope to sexual knowledge and despair of the corruption of how the world works, Eve and Adam in paradise, but she eats the apple and the paradise turns to a life of hardship that leads to death. The cinematography is breathtakingly beautiful, also turning from the beautiful flowers of spring and summer to the cold and barrenness of winter. A lovely, if grim fable.

Rated 4 out of 5 stars

07/18/14

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Audience Member

The main actress Li Xiao Lu is a household name and face in China. More recognizable to most Chinese than the American President or Oprah. She has become one of the great comic actresses of her generation, believe it or not (if you have only seen her in this). She is a modern young woman in real life and by training yet all the gestures and expression in this film are acted, as the girls of that generation she is playing behave and express quite differently to Li Xiao Lu's generation, something we do not appreciate in the West and where, when we do similar (as in costume dramas) we do it so poorly, the actors with little or no knowledge of the past (the worst example to mind being the BBC series on the Pre-Raphelites, which was an absolute travesty of justice) we homogenize the past into our present moeurs of sex and violence and personality. This film therefore shows absolute tour-de-force acting by Li Xiao Lu, by any standard. The film has a whole symbolic meaning that reverberates through the drama. It is about the death of beauty and the consequent suicide of culture. Xiu Xiu is the perfect flower of her culture (of the past), of inward beauty (that might not be able to be appreciated by most Western eyes watching this). Portraying the inwardness of beauty is the triumph of Li Xiao Lu's unsurpassable acting. This beauty starts out in innocence, but gets sullied, then trampled on. The final scene (sorry to give it away, if you haven't seen the film don't read on) is the man (who in his way loves her) shoots her in the face with the rifle, to put her out of her misery, as you would an animal. Then he kills himself, because if you destroy beauty you destroy yourself. This is what China has been doing - what America leads the way on. The power of the ending is precisely because of the symbolic backdrop: it is beyond tragedy, I don't know what it is. Heartbreaking I guess. Joan Chen's achievement was in providing the frame for all this and the thought. She's a great woman.

Rated 5 out of 5 stars

02/18/23

Full Review

Audience Member

Desesperanzadoramente Bonita y tristemente entretenida. Uno no se aburre. Ideal para botar ese molestoso exceso de optimismo por la vida (y por la buena voluntad de las personas) que a uno le invade a veces. Una rareza tambien porque no es comun que las peliculas chinas traten los topicos que esta pelicula trata. Y menos de la forma que los toca. Xora. (Y)

Rated 4 out of 5 stars

01/17/23

Full Review

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Joan Chen

Director

Xiaolu Li

Wenxiu

Lopsang

Lao Jin

Qian Zheng

Li Chuanbei

Gao Jie

Mother

Zhizhung Lik

Headquarter's Chief

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Synopsis

During the Cultural Revolution in China, Mao Zadong's regime sends countless adolescents, including a bright young girl named Xiu Xiu (Lu Lu), to rural lands in order to participate in various kinds of physical labor. Xiu Xiu is torn away from her caring relatives and close friends to live and work with Lao Jin (Lopsang), a rancher. Though he treats Xiu Xiu kindly, she yearns for her old life and eventually turns to a degrading life of prostitution in hopes of earning the means to return home.

Director: Joan Chen
Producer: Joan Chen, Allison Liu, Cecile Shah Tsuei
Screenwriter: Joan Chen, Yan Geling, Yan Geling
Distributor: Stratosphere Entertainment
Production Co: Good Machine, Whispering Steppes L.P.
Rating: R (Strong Sexual Content)
Genre: Drama
Original Language: Chinese
Release Date (Theaters): May 7, 1998, Original
Box Office (Gross USA): $1.0M
Runtime: 1h 39m
Sound Mix: Surround, Dolby Stereo
Aspect Ratio: Flat (1.66:1)