Multimedia Collection
New Year Sacrifice (Chu fu)
VHS
100 minutes
1956
PN1997 .C4891 1983
New Year Sacrifice is the first film to successfully transfer a work by Lu Xun, one of China's foremost contemporary writers, to the screen. Still a popular favorite at home, New Year Sacrifice has made appearance at numerous international film festivals, winning a special award in Czechoslovakia.
The story takes place in the years just before and after the Revolution of 1911, when the Qing Dynasty was overthrown. On a farm in Zhejiang Province lives a young widow, Xianglin, whose family tries to sell her to peasant He, who wants her for a bride. Xianglin instead manages to escape to the village, where she works as a housemaid. But Xianglin's family finds and kidnaps her, and the marriage takes place. Xianglin and He slowly fall in love, and their union produces a son. But tragedy strikes the family. First her husband dies, and then her baby is eaten by wolves. Returning to her former post as maidservant, Xianglin is treated as a pariah, eventually being forced to leave. She becomes a half-crazed beggar, finally dying on a village street on New Year's Eve.
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