Volume 36, Number 3 · March 2, 1989
All the Rage in China
By Frederic Wakeman
He shang [River Dirge]
A six-part film for television directed by Xia Jun
He shang lun [About 'River Dirge']
Compiled by Cui Wenhua
Wenhua yishu Press, 232 pp., 2.45 yuan
For the past six months in China and among Chinese-speaking communities abroad there have been circulating videotapes of a six-part television series, He shang, which was broadcast in the People's Republic last summer. The series soon became the most talked-about television documentary in recent Chinese history. The writers of the script and the director of the series—Su Xiaokang, Wang Luxiang, and Xia Jun—have been interviewed extensively by the Hong Kong press. Numerous articles for and against the film have appeared on the mainland (some of which are reproduced in the collection He shang lun along with the original script), and pirated copies of the tape can be bought in street-corner shops in Taiwan. In a special seminar held with Xia Jun and Su Xiaokang in Beijing in September, supporters of the young men hailed them for their intellectual honesty and political courage.
Review, 3744 words
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