The Old well = Lao ching

In an arid village in the Taihang mountains of Shanxi province the villagers have been digging unsuccessfully for water for many years. The village’s first college graduate tries to bring scientific rationality to their search for water. Zhiang Yimou, the director of “Red Sorghum” and cinematographer of “Yellow Earth”, plays the graduate. In contrast to Zhiang’s celebration of peasant earthiness in Red Sorghum, Wu, as in his earlier “Uncharted River”, brings a more realistic warts-and-all perspective to the portrayal of the Chinese people. As head of the Xi’an Studio, Wu was a key figure in the emergence of the ‘Fifth Generation’ of Chinese filmmakers. In Mandarin with English subtitles.