| Director | Wang Bing |
|---|---|
| Genre | drama film |
| Runtime | 109 min |
| Country | Belgium, France, Hong Kong |
The background to the setting is Mao Zedong's disastrous Hundred Flowers Campaign from 1956 to 1957, during which Chinese intellectuals were advised to contribute their opinions on national policy issues. During the campaign, thousands of citizens were branded "right-wing deviants" for their criticism of the Communist Party, and were sentenced to forced labour. A new group of men arrives, are assigned to sleep in a miserable dugout and begin the long, slow process of dying. The work is intense, but dealing with hunger is the prisoners' and the film's main focus: shortage means that even rats are eaten; consumption of human corpses is not unheard of. Desperation drives one man to eat another's vomit. To make room for fresh arrivals, bodies of those who die are dragged out daily, wrapped in their bedclothes, and buried in shallow graves.