Five Golden Flowers (Chinese: 五朶金花; pinyin: Wǔ duo jīnhuā) is a 1959 Chinese romantic musical film directed by Wang Jiayi and produced by Changchun Film Studio. The screenplay was written by Zhao Jikang and Wang Gongpu. Set in the Dali City in Yunnan Province, the film is about a Bai ethnic youth, Ah Peng, searching for his beloved ethnic girl Jin Hua (Golden Flower). Made during the Great Leap Forward, the film celebrates socialist construction and agricultural collectivization. The theme song of the film "By the Butterfly Spring," composed by musician Lei Zhenbang, was one of the most well-known folk songs in China. The film was produced and released in 1959. It received exuberant responses from audiences and was exported to 46 countries after its debut. During the Cultural Revolution, it was banned and attacked by Jiang Qing for promoting romanticism. In 1978, the film was re-released. At the Second Asian-African Film Festival in Cairo in 1960, the film won the best director and best actress awards. In the 2000 Changchun Film Festival, Five Golden Flowers won first place in the "Top 10 Chinese Films of the Century" selection.
Plot Dali in March is sunny and comfortable. Ah Peng is a Bai ethnic minority youth from Jianchuan county in Dali Bai Autonomous Prefecture. On the opening day of Dali's March Fair, Ah Peng is on his way to a horse racing. Along the way, he meets a group of girls whose wagon breaks down by the roadside. Ah Peng helps them fix the wagon, but that almost causes him to miss the horse racing. Leaving in a hurry, Ah Peng drops his tools. One of the girls, Jin Hua, is impressed by Ah Peng's skill and kindness. She carefully puts the tools in her handcrafted pouch.
Ah Peng was late for the race. He sped up and surpassed his competitors. Among the crowd of spectators, Jin Hua and her friends cheer for Ah Peng. After Ah Peng wins the horse racing, Jin Hua finds him and gives him her pouch. Staring at Jin Hua's golden embroidery, Ah Peng falls in love with her.
By the Butterfly Spring, Jin Hua and Ah Peng express their love for one another by singing a Bai duet. Ah Peng gives Jin Hua his steel knife, which symbolizes his faithfulness. Jin Hua promises Ah Peng to meet at the same place at next year's March Fair. She tells Ah Peng her name, Jin Hua.
A year later, Jin Hua does not show up at the Butterfly Spring. Without the girl's surname, Ah Peng starts looking for her in the Cang Mountain. He comes across two cultural workers who come to collect the region's songs and paint the natural sceneries. Ah Peng offers to be their coachman. On their way, Ah Peng realizes that Jin Hua is a common name for local Bai women.
The first Jin Hua they meet is a manure collector. Although she is not the right person, Ah Peng picks up a sickle in the lake for her. The second Jin Hua is a stockyard worker who was extremely busy helping a cattle give birth. Eager to see Jin Hua, Ah Peng starts singing their song outside the window. Misunderstanding Ah Peng's purpose, the second Jin Hua throws a bucket of water at him.
Without feeling discouraged, Ah Peng continues his journey in the company of the two cultural workers. Arriving at the foot of the Cang Mountain, he hears people calling out the name "Jin Hua". Ah Peng soon joins the rescue team and saves a group of female foundry workers on a hillside from a bear attack. The third Jian Hua is one of the foundry workers. She shows Ah Peng a piece of ore that they discovered. Ah Peng, who used to be an experienced foundry worker, estimates the ore contains up to 60% iron.
Ah Peng and the two cultural workers then arrive at the commune's tractor station where a wedding is taking place. The bride, also named Jin Hua, is a tractor driver. However, Ah Peng mistakes the bride for his Jin Hua. Heartbroken, he goes back to the Butterfly Spring to reminisce about the day they met.
Ah Peng leaves the tractor station and runs into the Jin Hua whom he rescued from the bear attack. She just has a quarrel with her husband about the low production of iron. Ah Peng, who is a warm-hearted youth, decides to help her. He devotes himself to working in the foundry. The production of iron increases rapidly because of his expertise.
Jin Hua at the foundry speaks highly of Ah Peng. She also takes care of Ah Peng after he lost his love. Her husband, the foundry director Yang becomes jealous and he asks Jin Hua, the vice-president of the commune, to settle this problem. It turns out Ah Peng's beloved girl is the vice-president of the commune.
With the help of Jin Hua from the foundry, Ah Peng finally finds the girl of his dream and clears up the misunderstandings. Ah Peng and Jin Hua reunite at the Butterfly Spring. Other girls named Jin Hua and their lovers gather around them to celebrate the moment with a final chorus.
Cast
Yang Likun as Jin Hua (vice-president of the commune) Mo Zijiang as Ah Peng Sun Jingzhen as Jin Hua (manure collector) Tan Yaozhong as Jin Hua (stockyard worker) Wang Suya as Jin Hua (foundry worker) Zhu Yijin as Jin Hua (tractor driver) Huang Zhong as painter Meng Yan Jie as musician Li Zhang Xiong as uncle Li Wenwei as grandpa Wang Chunying as foundry director Yang Zhao Yuqing as fisherwoman
Production
Background
Great Leap Forward In 1958, Changchun Film Studio's workshops and canteens all turned into studios. Big-character posters that discussed film scripts were hung on every wall. In the same year, Changchun Film Studio launched 31 "satellite" films. No one dared to say anything about the poor artistic quality of those films, because saying that demonstrated an "incorrect attitude" (taidu wenti) and "incorrect standpoint" (lichang wenti). In the first two years of the Great Leap Forward, 180 fiction films were produced. The number exceeded the total film output (171 films) from 1949 to 1957. A new genre called "documentary art film" that projects a new utopian society emerged as the style of the Great Leap Forward. Chen Huangmei, deputy head of the Film Bureau, identified the new genre as a product of the frenetic moment. During the production, filmmakers sought to follow the mass line by shortening the production period and reducing the budget. The pursuit of quantity at the expense of quality led to a series of problems such as limited subject matter and uniform theme that lacked creativity and technique. In a meeting with representatives of literary and art on May 3, 1959, the Premier, Zhou Enlai made a speech titled "On the question of cultural and arts work walking with two legs" (Guanyu wenhua yishu gongzuo liangtiaotui zoulu de wenti), in which he proposed ten issues for literature and arts work to "walk on two legs". He put forward a harmony between ten seemingly opposite concepts (motivation and pleasure, goal and capability, ideology and aesthetics, romanticism and realism, learning Marxist theory and putting into practice, basic training and literary accomplishment, politics and welfare, labor and health, innovation and scientific evidence, originality and compatibility). Zhou Enlai corrected the mistakes of privileging ideology over aesthetics. In his words, "Ideology should lead, but that doesn't mean that aesthetics is not important. Ideology is conveyed through aesthetic forms." Advocating Zhou Enlai's "walking on two legs" policy, the Film Bureau advised filmmakers to slow down the production and improve the quality of films.
10th anniversary of the People's Republic of China The Central Secretariat in 1958 pointed out that the film production in 1959 shouldered the task of producing "gift presentation films" (xianli pian) for the tenth anniversary of the founding of the PRC. Xia Yan, who was appointed in 1954 as Vice Minister of Culture, made a report on "gift presentation films" in 1958. He emphasized the role of the gift presentation films to "introduce and propagate to the world the Chinese revolution and socialist construction". To accomplish this goal, Xia Yan stressed the requirements in both the political and the aesthetic value of the films. Zhou Enlai also reintroduced the importance of artistic creation in film production, stimulating the filmmaker's passion to explore new themes and styles. In 1959, the Ministry of Culture selected 36 films as the official gift presentation films to commemorate the tenth anniversary of the PRC. A number of gift presentation films, The Lin Family Shop (Linjia puzi, 1959), Five Golden Flowers (1959), Nie Er (1959), Lin Zexu (1959), were considered masterpieces of filmmaking.
Creation After viewing several gift presentation films, Zhou Enlai was disappointed that they lacked "a sense of beauty, joviality and vivacity". He suggested Xia Yan find a joyful and lighthearted subject matter. To break from the serious topics dealing with revolutionary and war, Xia Yan instructed the Propaganda Department of the Yunnan Provincial Committee to produce a comedy film that features singing and dancing and the picturesque landscape in Yunnan, a film that was based on the romantic love story of the Bai minority people in Dali's Cang Mountain and Erhai lake. Xia Yan emphasized that the director should avoid the explicit representation of political slogans, class struggle, and the leadership of the Chinese Communist Party in order to exhibit this film in "capitalist nations that were harsh in censoring socialist messages". The beautiful scenery in Dali and the robust personalities of the minority people were sufficient to convey the success of China's socialist construction. Following Xia Yan's instruction, director Wang Jiayi and cinematographer Wang Chunquan went to Yunnan Province to produce the film Five Golden Flowers.
Writing The screenplay, written by Zhao Jikang and Wang Gongpu, was originally titled Duoduo Jinhua and featured twelve golden flowers. After reading, Xia Yan reduced the number of golden flowers to five. Xia Yan in his comments on the script encouraged the scenarist to liberate their thoughts and try to keep the story entertaining. Five Golden Flowers was made with an "international imagination". Xia Yan hoped that the film would be shown in many countries and propagate the achievements since the founding of new China. Chen Huangmei advised the scenarist to enhance the comedic elements of the play and to portray the moral quality of the protagonist through a series of misunderstandings. He reminded the film crew to avoid shooting the big-character posters of the Great Leap Forward that might appear on walls. Xia Yan and Chen Huangmei reviewed many drafts of the script. The final draft was modified and approved by Xia Yan in mid-May, 1959. He required the director to finish shooting before October, 1959.
Minority Film