Rickshaw Boy

Xiangzi, who pulls a rickshaw in Beijing, wants a cart of his own so as to depend on no one, and saves for years to get it. He marries Huniu, his employer’s daughter, but she dies in childbirth; then poverty comes between him and Xiao Fuzi, whom he loves, and she is lost as well. Xiangzi begins again each time, and each time what he has is taken from him, until his resistance finally gives out. Ling Zifeng’s hundred and seventeen minute Chinese film was adapted from Lao She’s novel of the same name; it won Siqin Gaowa, who plays Huniu, the Golden Rooster award, and the film was named best picture. It was completed in 1982 and became the first film made in the People’s Republic of China to get a theatrical release in America.