Chen Kaige's eagerly awaited third film, after Yellow Earth and The Big Parade, is both an intimate drama of a schoolteacher working in a remote country school and a comment on the mistakes of the Cultural Revolution. It is 1976; Mao's Cultural Revolution is ten years old and the authorities have been trying to stifle 7,000 years of Chinese history. Young people from the cities have been uprooted forcibly and made to work in remote areas. Lao Gar is such a youth, who was taken from the city and may never return. He's spent seven years working as a farm laborer, but now is told he's to teach at the local school, an exciting but intimidating prospect. He discovers a rather unruly class with no textbooks, but sets out dutifully to teach in the approved Mao manner. Gradually, though, he adapts his teaching methods and personalizes his work. This brings success, but also the disapproval of the local Party Secretary. In examining the impact of the Cultural Revolution on both country and city folk, the film contains many examples of humor. This simple story is told with haunting images which are beautifully composed and gracefully assembled. They are charged with emotion. David Stratton, Variety/SFIFF '89