Bangzi Melody

China | 100 minutes | 2017 | Fiction | Chinese Regional Dialect | English and Chinese Subtitles | 14A
中国 | 100 分钟 | 2017 | 虚构 | 河北井陉话 | 中英文字幕 | 14A
North American Premiere 北美首映

In the 1980s, with the end of the Cultural Revolution, China has begun a vast land reform in its rural areas to launch the so-called household-responsibility system, which aims at ending the egalitarian distribution method performed in Maoist China.

1982, a small village in the Hebei Province of North China. With the Spring Festival approaching, Party Secretary Wang asks the villagers to rehearse a classic bangzi opera to impress visiting cadres. The rehearsal, led by Uncle Lu, becomes entangled with land-dividing. The best, most coveted peanut field has been long guarded by Kuisheng, the “Mad Man” of the village. All the villagers then try to put him into exile, except the kind-hearted Xiaofen, Lu’s daughter, who is in love with Kuisheng’s son, Shuman.

Shot in black and white with great humanistic spirit, Bangzi Melody recounts the personal sufferings, political gambling and historical ambiguities as a microcosm of rural China during the land reform.

《村戏》改编自作家贾大山的短篇小说。故事发生在1982年的河北农村，包产到户前。春节将临，县领导要来视察，王支书要村里恢复演出老戏。排戏的任务落在了“戏篓子”路老鹤的身上。他安排杨志刚和女儿路小芬一起主演《打金枝》，小芬却极不情愿。

小芬的意中人是“奎疯子”的儿子王树满。“奎疯子”看守着村里最好的花生田“九亩半”——谁都眼红，谁都想在分地的时候抢占。“排戏”“分地”在戏里戏外交织，牵出一段集体与个人的历史悲剧。