Red is everything in Red Sorghum. It places the elements that matter most to the film along one continuum: binding the sacred, like ceremonial garb, to the profane: crops, wine, sex, and blood. It symbolizes birth and death—the big concepts—but also the living in between. It is everything.
Red Sorghum marked the directorial debut of Zhang Yimou, a man who appreciated the power of colour. A noted cinematographer, Zhang had brought his vision to Chen Kaige’s Yellow Earth three years before. He’d distinguished that film’s vast landscapes from an equally vast sky with forceful use of yellow, green, and brown against blue. Now, helming a film of his own, he chose a scarlet pallet both lurid and violent.
