Five Golden Flowers

Dali in March is sunny and comfortable. Ah Peng is a Bai ethnic minority youth from Jianchuan county in Dali Bai Autonomous Prefecture. On the opening day of Dali's March Fair, Ah Peng is on his way to a horse racing. Along the way, he meets a group of girls whose wagon breaks down by the roadside. Ah Peng helps them fix the wagon, but that almost causes him to miss the horse racing. Leaving in a hurry, Ah Peng drops his tools. One of the girls, Jin Hua, is impressed by Ah Peng's skill and kindness. She carefully puts the tools in her handcrafted pouch.

Ah Peng was late for the race. He sped up and surpassed his competitors. Among the crowd of spectators, Jin Hua and her friends cheer for Ah Peng. After Ah Peng wins the horse racing, Jin Hua finds him and gives him her pouch. Staring at Jin Hua's golden embroidery, Ah Peng falls in love with her.

By the Butterfly Spring, Jin Hua and Ah Peng express their love for one another by singing a Bai duet. Ah Peng gives Jin Hua his steel knife, which symbolizes his faithfulness. Jin Hua promises Ah Peng to meet at the same place at next year's March Fair. She tells Ah Peng her name, Jin Hua.

A year later, Jin Hua does not show up at the Butterfly Spring. Without the girl's surname, Ah Peng starts looking for her in the Cang Mountain. He comes across two cultural workers who come to collect the region's songs and paint the natural sceneries. Ah Peng offers to be their coachman. On their way, Ah Peng realizes that Jin Hua is a common name for local Bai women.

The first Jin Hua they meet is a manure collector. Although she is not the right person, Ah Peng picks up a sickle in the lake for her. The second Jin Hua is a stockyard worker who was extremely busy helping a cattle give birth. Eager to see Jin Hua, Ah Peng starts singing their song outside the window. Misunderstanding Ah Peng's purpose, the second Jin Hua throws a bucket of water at him.

Without feeling discouraged, Ah Peng continues his journey in the company of the two cultural workers. Arriving at the foot of the Cang Mountain, he hears people calling out the name "Jin Hua." Ah Peng soon joins the rescue team and saves a group of female foundry workers on a hillside from a bear attack. The third Jian Hua is one of the foundry workers. She shows Ah Peng a piece of ore that they discovered. Ah Peng, who used to be an experienced foundry worker, estimates the ore contains up to 60% iron.  

Ah Peng and the two cultural workers then arrive at the commune's tractor station where a wedding is taking place. The bride, also named Jin Hua, is a tractor driver. However, Ah Peng mistakes the bride for his Jin Hua. Heartbroken, he goes back to the Butterfly Spring to reminisce about the day they met.

Ah Peng leaves the tractor station and runs into the Jin Hua whom he rescued from the bear attack. She just has a quarrel with her husband about the low production of iron. Ah Peng, who is a warm-hearted youth, decides to help her. He devotes himself to working in the foundry. The production of iron increases rapidly because of his expertise.

Jin Hua at the foundry speaks highly of Ah Peng. She also takes care of Ah Peng after he lost his love. Her husband, the foundry director Yang becomes jealous and he asks Jin Hua, the vice-president of the commune, to settle this problem. It turns out Ah Peng's beloved girl is the vice-president of the commune.

With the help of Jin Hua from the foundry, Ah Peng finally finds the girl of his dream and clears up the misunderstandings. Ah Peng and Jin Hua reunite at the Butterfly Spring. Other girls named Jin Hua and their lovers gather around them to celebrate the moment with a final chorus.

• Yang Likun as Jin Hua (vice-president of the commune)
• Mo Zijiang as Ah Peng
• Sun Jingzhen as Jin Hua (manure collector)
• Tan Yaozhong as Jin Hua (stockyard worker)
• Wang Suya as Jin Hua (foundry worker)
• Zhu Yijin as Jin Hua (tractor driver)
• Huang Zhong as painter Meng
• Yan Jie as musician Li
• Zhang Xiong as uncle
• Li Wenwei as grandpa
• Wang Chunying as foundry director Yang
• Zhao Yuqing as fisherwoman

Jampa and PLA soldier

Minority film is a relatively new genre that had an appeal to China's audience in the 1950s and 1960s. Ethnic minorities in China mainly include "Mongols. Tibetans, and Uighurs in the north and northwest, the Miao, Yi, Zhuang, and Bai minorities in the southwest, and Koreans and Manchus in the northeast."[7] The exotic settings allowed filmmakers to explore the less represented subjects, such as love, oppression, and class exploitation, which extends beyond ethnic boundaries. Serfs (Nongnu, 1963), a minority film set in the northwest region, presents the suffering of the oppressed Tibetan peasants. Jampa was a Tibetan serf. Growing up, he was constantly exploited by his master and became extremely introverted, refusing to speak to anyone.[8] Jampa's life was saved by a People's Liberation Army soldier who died in the rescue. The Han soldier is symbolic of advanced culture and ideology, and savior of ethnic minority groups.[9] After years of silence, the first words that Jampa uttered was "Chairman Mao," when he directed his gaze towards a portrait of the leader on the wall.[10] The deserts of the northwest made the portrayal of class struggle palpable to the Han audiences. Serfs further achieved a degree of realism by casting a large number of "non-professional actors/actresses and actual former serfs. They played the roles of protagonists, integrating their real identities with their cinematic roles."[11] The film promotes the virtues of the Han Chinese by showing that the Communist revolution in China saved the entire Chinese nation from class exploitation.

In contrast to the violent reality in Serfs, minority films set in the southwest region "routinely featured picturesque landscape, melodious music and songs, beautiful costumes, exotic customs and romantic love."[12] Typical of the southwest genre is Five Golden Flowers. Set in Yunnan, a frontier region of southwest China. It is a musical version of a love story that avoids the depiction of class struggle. To stay close to the reality of the Bai minority, "the representation of songs and dances in Five Golden Flowers corresponds to the reality that singing was an important and integral part of the Bai people's daily life expression and communication."[7] The Han musician in the film has a line, "There is a variety of folk songs here. Even the song that expresses anger is enchanting (zheli de minge ke zhen fengfu, lian maren de ge dou name haoting)." The line indicates the Bai people's "singing while living (ban ge er ju)" lifestyle.[13] The Bai people dressed in colorful costumes with delicate ornaments were engaged in song and dance while they declared their love. Yang Likun, a Yi ethnic actress, played the female protagonist in the film. However, the film did not deviate from the mainstream message of the political campaign by "projecting a utopian vista for community and society."[14] Characters were figured as "model workers" who were fully committed to socialist construction. Minority films in China provided journeys to the infinite landscape in the northwest or the "tropical climes" in the southwest, a world that was seen as foreign to the Han audiences.[7] All the ethnic characters in minorities films speak Mandarin instead of dialect in order to achieve a national unity and bridge the linguistic gap.[6]

Five Golden Flowers differs from many other minority films in that it lacks the depiction of the suffering caused by class conflicts, and the representation of the Communist Party as a savior of the exploited peasants. Third Sister Liu (Liu Sanjie, 1960), based on a Zhuang minority folktale, tells the story of a courageous woman rebelling against abuses by landlords. The film not only "combines a series of melodious folk songs with picturesque scenes," but also presents minority peoples as participants in the class struggle.[8] The Zhuang people united in order to overcome the oppression of their class enemy, the landlords. However, Five Golden Flowers focuses on an enjoyable subject matter, simply showing the Bai minority people participating in the construction during the Great Leap Forward and engaging in romantic affairs. During the Cultural Revolution, the film was banned due to its "romantic exuberance," and was labeled as an "anti-socialist poisonous weed" (ducao pian) that glorified feudalism and romanticism.[17]

When Five Golden Flowers was criticized during the Cultural Revolution, actress Yang Likun was accused of being anti-revolutionary. Prior to that time, she had a mental health illness because of an unsuccessful relationship, and she recovered after hospitalization.[18] Before the Cultural Revolution, she starred in another Bai minority film, Ashma (Ashima, 1964). The Ministry of Culture canceled the release of the film in 1965 for it told the story of the dead, did not praise the achievement of the socialist revolution, and glorified "the supremacy of love" (xuanchuan aiqing zhishang). During the Cultural Revolution, Yang Likun was labeled as "black sprouts" (hei miaozi) and "characters of the black line" (heixian renwu). The prosecution and torture she faced in the Cultural Revolution were the cause of her schizophrenia. She was once missing in the frontier town of Zhenyuan. In 1970, she was forced to wear a counter-revolutionary hat, which led to her mental breakdown. In the 30 years that followed, Yang Likun never walked away from the nightmare and did not act in any movie. In 1973, Yang Likun was married to Tang Fenglou, a youth from Shanghai. She gave birth to twin boys the following year. With the help from local government and community, she was rehabilitated in 1978. Yang Likun died on July 21, 2000, at the age of 59 in Shanghai after years of illness. Half of her ashes were buried in Shanghai, the other half in Kunming.[19]

The Butterfly Spring on the slopes of the Cang Mountain range

Travelers and tourists are drawn to the Butterfly Spring in Dali because of the film Five Golden Flowers. Butterfly Spring is situated at the foot of Shenmo Mountain (the first peak of the Cang Mountain) in Yunnan Province, 27 kilometers in the south of Dali ancient city. It covers an area of 50 square meters. Butterfly Spring was turned into a park in 1978, and in 1982 "the Dali Municipal Development Committee invested four million yuan (US$1.3 million at the official exchange rate, approximately US$400,000 at unofficial rates) to develop the park into a tourist site."[17] The park was designed to mirror the famous Butterfly Spring scenes in Five Golden Flowers, which were shot at a studio in Changchun rather than on location. An ancient tree branch above the pool had served as the model for the tree branch behind Jin Huan in the film when she sings by the Butterfly Spring. After the ancient tree died, a fiberglass branch "covered with real bark" was constructed to match the setting of the film.[17]

In 1974, the Qujing tobacco factory in Yunnan manufactured "Five Golden Flowers" cigarettes. The factory registered the "Five Golden Flowers" trademark in 1983. On February 5, 2001, scenarists Zhao Jikang and Wang Gongpu filed a lawsuit against the Qujing Tobacco factory, alleging the "Five Golden Flowers" trademark violated their copyright. The Supreme People's Court in Yunnan Province issued the decision that Zhao Jikang and Wang Gongpu's copyright of Five Golden Flowers, the screenplay they wrote and published in 1959, was protected by the law. However, the current Copyright Laws did not make clear the protection of the work's title. "Five Golden Flowers" was the work's title and therefore was not protected by copyright law. Zhao Jikang and Wang Gongpu's allegation that the Qujing tobacco factory's use of "Five Golden Flowers" as their trademark violated their copyright was disapproved.[20]

• Songs in Five Golden Flowers are "performed by professional singers and lip-synched."[6] Jin Hua's singing part is performed by Zhao Lvzhu, a Bai ethnic singer from Dali.[21]
• One of the reasons Xia Yan selected Wang Jiayi to direct Five Golden Flowers is Wang Jiayi's international outlook. Wang Jiayi studied filmmaking in France for a short period of time and had the "experience of making films with an international audience in mind."[6]
• Director Wang Jiayi took a long time to find the correct actress to play the protagonist Jin Hua. One day, he came to Yunnan Song & Dance Ensemble. A girl who was cleaning the rehearsal room's window caught his attention. The girl was Yang Likun, who was only 16-year-old when she starred in the film.[22]
• Five Golden Flowers was filmed in the midst of the Great Leap Forward. The film crew also took a "leap forward." They finished shooting within 4 months.[22]
• The representation of songs in Five Golden Flowers, "singing by character as solos, duets or in chorus," was considered as a forerunner to ethnic musical film. Inspired by folk music, Lei Zhenbang later composed the theme songs of two other minority films, Third Sister Liu and Ashma.[6]
• The film originally showed that Jin Hua misunderstood Ah Peng and returned the steel knife. Viewing the film, the leader of Changchun Film Studio felt the scene undermined Jin Hua's positive image. The crew then changed the part to Jin Hua's grandpa returning the steel knife to Ah Peng.
• During the filming process, Wang Jiayi gave serious consideration to the morale of the story. He eventually decided that the film should convey the admiration for Bai ethnic minority group, for the community they live, and for those tenacious working people.[23]

Cairo Second Asia-Africa Film Festival, 1960

• Silver Eagle Awards (best director) — Wang Jiayi
• Silver Eagle Awards (best actress) — Yang Likun

Cinema of China — Early Communist Era

• Full movie on YouTube