China Synopsis
红高粱
An old leper who owned a remote sorghum winery dies. Jiu'er, the wife bought by the leper, and her lover, identified only as "my Grandpa" by the narrator, take over the winery and set up an idealized quasi-matriarchal community headed by Jiu'er. When the Japanese invaders subject the area to their rule and cut down the sorghum to make way for a road, the community rises up and resists as the sorghum grows anew.
Titles With Overlapping Themes
Films and series that share thematic tags with Red Sorghum. Number on each card indicates how many keywords overlap.
Other Titles From Xi'an Film Studio
Drama + War in China
45 China titles in our catalog blend the Drama and War genres. Below: the top-rated of them (excluding Red Sorghum itself).
The 1987–1989 China Window
Red Sorghum holds position #5 of 8 China films in the 1987–1989 window, below highlighted by audience rating.
The 1980s China Landscape
Catalog density by release year across the 1980s in China, 23 titles in total. Highlighted year (yellow) is when Red Sorghum premiered alongside 0 others.
Position in Catalog
The 31st China title from China we index (earliest catalogued entry: 1935).
Our China catalog contains 946 titles in total (747 films).
Audience Engagement
179 audience reviews — more than 84% of China films in our index.
Review volume (84th percentile) outruns trending popularity (68th) — a durable title with sustained audience attention.
Thematic Fingerprint
Tags on Red Sorghum, grouped by how common each theme is across the full Asian catalog. Rare tags are more distinctive signals.
- distillery · 1
- war crime · 1
- rural area · 26
- japanese occupation of china · 14
- based on novel or book · 288
- 1940s · 35
Reception Benchmarks
Ranked #268 of 946 China films indexed here (72nd percentile by TMDB audience score).
Rating is +0.5 points above the China average of 6.7/10.
Among China Drama productions specifically: #173 of 547 (top 32%).
Production Details
| Primary Country | China |
|---|---|
| Original Language | Chinese |
| Spoken Languages | Mandarin, Japanese |
| Production Companies | Xi'an Film Studio |
| Runtime | 1h 31m |
| Release Date | October 10, 1988 |
| IMDb | tt0093206 |