Kang Jianning
2021Interesting Times: Xiao's Long March
Kang Jianning
Directed by Kang Jianning (under the pseudonym Wu Gong), and part of the 'Interesting Times' series with Duan Jinchuan's The Secret of My Success and Jiang Yue's This Happy Life. The film chronicles the progress of a lazy Chinese teenager who has a rude awakening when he joins the People's Liberation Army. The original film was finished in 2001, was titled 当兵 (Soldier), and is 88 minutes. It has never been broadcasted. There are two other, widely available versions: An English dub cut for BBC, which is 40 min, and a three-episode CCTV version that adds footage shot in 2003.
Interesting Times: Xiao's Long March
楚成旦巴和托林寺
Kang Jianning
A dilapidated temple in the ruins of the Zada county in the Ali region, more than 1,800 kilometers away from Lhasa, with only two lamas, makes it impossible to imagine its former prosperity-a famous Tibetan Buddhism revival period more than a thousand years ago Great Temple: Torin Temple. Torin means "never fall in the air." Old Lama Chu Chengdanba spent his childhood here. In the 1950s, he was once sent to transport grain, responsible for stacking grain in the red and white halls of the monastery. In 1960, Chu Chengdanba went to India because of some frightening rumors. In 1967, Tibetan residents in and around Zanda County gathered in the monastery and demolished most of the buildings in a month. Only the red and white halls survived because of the pile of food.
Chucheng Danba and Torin Temple
沙与海
Gao Guodong, Kang Jianning
Liu Zeyuan is a farmer on the edge of the desert at the junction of Inner Mongolia and Ningxia. He grows food and raises camels, and his family's annual income is 5,000 yuan. Liu Picheng is a fisherman on Jingwa Island, part of the isolated Liaodong Peninsula; he is unwilling to attract attention and becomes hostile to the camera. The living environment and conditions of these two families are different, but the directors try to find some common ground while expressing unique lifestyles. In fact, these lives are firmly swayed by nature: sand storms can destroy everything, just as the ocean tide can destroy everything, and for the two protagonists, the difficult grasp of the future and their children also brings them the same loneliness. Filmed in 1989, Sand and Sea (a 50-minute cut) received the Grand Prix award from the 1991 Asian Broadcasting and Television Union. The more known version of the film, however, was broadcast on Chinese TV in 2003, and is much shorter (25 minutes).
Sand and Sea
生活
Gao Guodong, Kang Jianning
A 1995 film co-directed by Kang Jianning and Gao Guodong that, most likely, grew out of their earlier film Sand and Sea, and saw at least Kang returning to the family in the desert that he interviewed for that film. Not to be confused with another film of this same title by Kang, from 2003, which includes more up-to-date footage, was itself edited down for broadcast on Chinese TV as part of the 'The Weight of Time' series, and does not include any contributions from Gao Guodong.
Life
闯江湖
Gao Feng, Kang Jianning
The landmark work of early Chinese documentary. Examines the survival status of the Ningxia Loess Plateau in the 1980s from a more comprehensive perspective, applying the key words of the popular rock song "Nothing": The first part, "Nothing"; the second part, "This is you / The tears are flowing"; the third part, "The ground under your feet is shaking"; the fourth part," You follow me." In the film, the author also clearly discusses the life in the Plateau from several aspects: water, food, poverty alleviation, education, and labor exportation. A large number of interviews were conducted with local farmers, government officials, poverty alleviation working groups, etc. — trying to find the main factors leading to infertility and the methods that can be adopted to get rid of it, discussing the feasibility and effect of "going out" in the second half. The whole film objectively reflects the living conditions of the countryside at that time.
Crossing Rivers and Lakes
生活
Kang Jianning
Sand and Sea (shot in 1989) was a collaboration between filmmaker Kang Jianning and Liaoning Television producer Gao Guodong. That film depicted the lives of two families: one living in the Ningxia desert and another, a Northeastern fishing family, living on a remote island. For the 2003 broadcast version of Life — which aired as part of the 'The Weight of Time' series on Chinese TV — Gao did not participate, thus this film is only about the desert family, headed by father Liu Zeyuan. Since 1989, Kang has remained in contact with the family and returned to film them multiple times over the years. Kang's filmmaking largely consists of striking landscape shots of the desert and rather tortured interviews with reticent family members, who often provide one-word answers to Kang’s audible questions. Kang himself also appears, and is an important catalyst to drawing out responses. The filmmaker emphasizes a deep connection to place, as opposed to an eventful or dramatic narrative.
Life
阴阳
Kang Jianning
In the village of Doupo, Pianxian Township, Pengyang County, Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region, there is a villager named Xu Wenwen. He is a Feng Shui master and who goes by the name “Yin Yang.” Due to the drought in the mountainous areas, it is difficult for farmers to use water for both domestic and agricultural purposes. In order to solve the problem of farmers' water use, Pengyang County Water Conservancy Bureau plans to help farmers repair the water cellar through government subsidies, so that the rainy season can be stored in the cellar and then used for farming, but due to limited funds, it is not Every family can receive subsidies, so everyone decides the right to play in the cellar by grasping the way. The cellar is laid, the water storage is increased, and the corn is also planted. The life of the mountain people seems to have hope.
Yin Yang
