Hao Yuejun

A documentary film by Hao Yuejun.

Snce the late 1950s, the state has invested a lot of manpower and material resources to protect the basic life of the Dulong people. At most, there are more than 500 mule horses. They belong to the state-owned "State Horse Caravan" and transport about 600 tons of food and other production and life every year. The materials entered the Dulong River basin to rescue the Dulong brothers. In April 1997, the road leading to Dulong River finally began to be built.Two years later, in 1999, the whole highway from Gongshan to Dulongjiang was opened. At the end of the year, the state-run caravan, which had been established for 40 years and had been managed by the Gongshan County Transportation Bureau, was officially disbanded. All the last more than 150 mules were auctioned.

The story takes place in a Karst mountainous area in southwestern China. There is a karst cave called "Fengyan Cave" inhabited by a Han village of 56 households and more than 280 people. Eight generations have been extended here. In the cave village, there is a special relationship that brings the whole village together to face the sinister nature; here, each member of this cave "big family" shares a "big roof"; they share the same Gods; drink a pool together; walk a mountain road to the outside world together...　

An anthropological documentary filmed by director Hao Yuejun in his early years. The film was filmed from 1992 to 1994 and premiered at the Beijing China Film and Television Anthropology Annual Conference in 1995, which caused a huge backlash. This is an important work after the Chinese ethnography documentary has revived, and it is also a product of a historical stage.

This film is an authentic documentary showing the marital and sexual norms among the Hani (Yiche), an ethnic minority of about 20,000 people, living in Yunnan Province, South West China. 25-year old Puji is a married man with a family, who nevertheless regularly leaves his home overnight to visit his lovers and spend the night with them, before returning home in the early morning hours. Such sexual behaviour is a frequent custom among the Hani and many men and women have extra-marital relationships.

This early Chinese ethnographic film documents festivals of the Yiche people of the Hani ethnic group -- their folklore and cultural phenomena, such as reproductive worship dance; their collective socializing on festival nights and marriage customs; and the "haruzhe," which has both characteristics of blood sacrifice and prayer, a ritual to offering for a good harvest. The directorial debut of documentarian Hao Yuejun, the film uses the language of documentary but with a specifically ethnographic focus on history and customs, and is recognized as an important historical work in its own right for 'restarting' ethnographic filmmaking after the end of the Cultural Revolution; in fact, this particular method of had never been used in China before.