In the Heat of the Sun
(阳光灿烂的日子 Yangguang canlan de rizi)
Film poster of In the Heat of the Sun
Screenplay: Jiang Wen, Wang Shuo (from his novel Dongwu xiongmeng [Wild Animals])
Cinematographer: Gu Changwei
Producer: Manfred Wong ; Liu Xiaoqing ; (execs:) Guo Youliang ; Hsu An-chin; Ki Po
Music: Guo Wenjing
Cast: Xia Yu, Ning Jing, Geng Le, Tao Hong, Liu Xiaoning, Sun Jing, Zhang Wei, Wang Fu, Siqin Gaowa, Wang Xueqi, Wang Shuo, Jiang Wen (narrator)
Studio: Hong Kong Dragon Film ; China Film Co-Production Corporation. 1994
Description: VHS; B/W and color; sound; 123 or 134 minutes.
Historical Background
Set around 1970 during the Cultural Revolution, after the disbanding of the Red Guards and the sending of the youth to the countryside, the film portrays a group of young people who were too young to go to the countryside, but old enough to get into trouble.
Synopsis:
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Jiang Wen (1963-) is one of the most exciting and important figures in Chinese film today, both as an actor - he is the dominant male performer of his generation on the mainland - and as a director. His second directorial effort, Devils on the Doorstep, in which he also stars, took the Grand Prix at the 2000 Cannes Film Festival. As an actor, Jiang Wen is perhaps best known to international audiences for his starring role opposite Gong Li in director Zhang Yimou's breakthrough film Red Sorghum (1987).
Born into an army family in Tangshan, Hebei province on Jan. 5, 1963, Jiang Wen moved to Beijing at age 6 and showed an interest in acting at an early age. He entered China's foremost acting school, the Central Academy of Drama, in 1980. After graduating in 1984 he was assigned to the China Youth Theater, and gave many stage performances with the troupe. He began acting in films the following year. His performances have won him numerous awards at home and abroad, but for Chinese audiences it was his starring role in the 1992 Chinese TV series "A Beijinger in New York" which made him one of the best-loved actors of his generation. He also starred in such other well-known Chinese films as Hibiscus Town, from director Xie Jin, Black Snow, from director Xie Fei, and The Emperor's Shadow, directed by Zhou Xiaowen. His second collaboration with Zhang Yimou came on that director's 1997 film Keep Cool.
Jiang wrote and directed his own first film in 1994. In the Heat of the Sun, adapted from a novel by Wang Shuo, which won the Best Actor prize at the Venice Film Festival for its young lead Xia Yu and numerous other prizes, including Best Feature at the Singapore Film Festival and six Golden Horse awards in Taiwan. It was cited by Richard Corliss in Time as the best film of 1995.
Since 1996, Jiang Wen has been a professor and researcher at his own alma mater, the Central Academy of Drama. In 2003, he was also seen on the screen in director Zhang Yuan's Green Tea. (This biography of Jiang Wen is provided by Filmbug.com.)
About the stars:
Xia Yu (1976-) was a skateboard-loving middle-school student in Qingdao when he was selected by Jiang Wen to play Jiang's alter ego Ma Xiaojun in In the Heat of the Sun, which won him the Best Actor Award at the 1994 Venice International Film Festival, the Golden Horse Award, and the 1st Singapore International Film Festival at age 17. After graduation from high school in 1995, he attended the Central Academy of Drama in Beijing, and starred in Shadow Magic (Xiyangjing, 1998), which was nominated for the Best Actor at the 23rd Tokyo Film Festival, Where Have All the Flowers Gone (Nashi huakai,1999), Cala My Dog (Kala shi tiao gou, 2003), Waiting Alone (Duzi dengdai, 2003), etc. Like many of today's actors in China, Xia Yu also has an extensive TV career.
Ning Jing (1972-) was born in Guiyang, Guizhou, and studied performance and modeling at Guizhou Art Institute and Shanghai Academy of Drama. She appeared in many films and TV series. Her major works include Red Firecracker Green Firecracker (1993), In the Heat of the Sun (1994), Warrior Lan Ling (1995), The Bewitching Braid (1996), Red River Valley (1997), Lover's Grief Over the Yellow River (1999), Lotus Lantern (1999), Missing Gun (2002). Lover's Grief Over the Yellow River stars Ning Jing and her real-life American husband Paul Kersey and won her the Best Actress Award at the Golden Rooster Awards in 1999.
Questions to ponder: These are a few questions suggested for you to think about while reading the assigned articles and watching the film. Please jot down ideas and notes on details or scenes you think are relevant for class discussion. 1. What is the representation of the Cultural Revolution in this film? How is it different from that in Hibiscus Town? What socio-historical changes can account for this difference in representations? 2. What is the narrative mode of this film? What is the role of the older Ma Xiaojun's contemporary voice-over narrative? What is the film's take on questions of memory and history? 3. What is the role of gender in this film? |
  
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Relevant readings:
Braester, Yomi. "Memory at a Standstill: From Maohistory to Hooligan History." In Braester, Witness Against History: Literature, Film, and Public Discourse in Twentieth-Century China. Stanford: Stanford UP, 2003, 192-205.
Liu, Xinmin. "Play and Being Playful: The Quotidian in Cinematic Remembrance of the Mao Era." Asian Cinema 15, 1 (Spring 2004): 73-89. [deals in part with In the Heat of the Sun]
Lu, Tonglin. "Fantasy and Ideology in a Chinese Film: A Zizekian Reading of the Cultural Revolution." positions: east asia cultures critique 12, 2 (Fall 2004): 539-64. [mostly about Jiang Wen's In the Heat of the Sun]
Web Sources:
A brief film review by Shelly Kraicer.