Scars on Screen : How Is Maoist China Depicted on Film?

Abstract: After the end of the Cultural Revolution, restrictions on art production in China eased considerably, and alternative accounts of life under Mao emerged, conflicting earlier official accounts of life in Maoist China. Since then, a number of films depicting the so-called decade of turmoil and the years preceding it have been produced. This essay studies and compares two Chinese films: Hibiscus Town (1986) and In the Heat of the Sun (1994). Both films depict life in China during the Cultural Revolution, but differ greatly in how they depict the era.