‘The Blue Kite’: A Quiet Defiance of Communism

This installment of ‘Movies for Teens and Young Adults’ celebrates the serene courage of ordinary citizens. 

A kite becomes a symbol of resistance against communism, in "The Blue Kite." Janettata/Shutterstock

Why are many young Americans drawn to communist-socialism like moths to a flame? An official from the Victims of Communism memorial once attributed it to dishonesty in pop culture. So, it’s fitting that “The Blue Kite” (1993), a long-forgotten film and a symbol of a more enlightened pop culture, offers a gentle counterpoint. It contends that young minds, nurtured by virtuous parents, can resist the hypnotic lure of communism.

Director Tian Zhuangzhuang tells his coming-of-age story through the eyes of a little boy, Tietou, growing from toddler to teenager in 1950s and 1960s Beijing. Instead of the state’s overt totalitarian violence, the film dwells on its covert assaults on marriage, family, parenthood, and childhood.

Tian Zhuangzhuang directed a perceptive film about Chinese communism: "The Blue Kite." Bryan Chan/CC BY-SA 2.0

The film shows how ordinary people can, often overnight, turn into foot soldiers in the service of tyranny, especially when self-interest turns them against each other.

“The Blue Kite” tells the story through courtships, weddings, and deaths. The film shows little Tietou buffeted by tumultuous change. Amid that whirlwind stands his soft-spoken, diminutive mother, Chen Shujuan (Lu Liping), quietly defying loneliness, betrayal, and forced labor. It’s her dignified heroism that ultimately prevents Tietou from morphing into just another foot soldier.

A forgotten film by a Chinese gives the real story of the evil of communism in China, in "The Blue Kite." 1000 Words/Shutterstock

Zhuangzhuang’s film is about growing up. Perhaps only virtuous parents can bring up virtuous children. Unless those children stay virtuous as teenagers, they’ll eventually marry as irresponsible young adults and establish homes that break the virtuous cycle.

In the latter half of the film, the angst of adolescence threatens to engulf a sullen and sulking Tietou. That’s when the beloved nursery rhyme that he’d unthinkingly recited for years as a toddler, subconsciously weaves its charm on the now restless teenager.

Crow, crow to me calls, crow is truly old. Crow is old and cannot fly, to the young crow cries. Young crow every morning brings food back, bringing food back first comes [and] feeds mother. Mother before fed me [well].

Willful as a child, the grown up Tietou senses that his mother has been teaching him to distinguish his true family from the false family of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), which seeks to claim him as their own. He sees how the CCP betrays its schizophrenic, duplicitous essence; it depicts revolution as both a solution and a threat, cracking down on “counterrevolutionaries” without a trace of irony.

CCP cadres sow suspicion and hostility among and between families, then wait for a harvest of hate. Some cadres tease families and friends into inadvertently criticizing the CCP. Cadres pretend to be critics themselves. They angle for that unguarded joke at the dinner table, or that stray comment at the kitchen sink that’ll expose scrupulously hidden loyalties.

The Great Leap Forward

The film doesn’t show the infamous denunciation boxes that enabled citizens to secretly report families they suspected of being underground counterrevolutionaries (or sudan). It does show how thought reform (or szuhsiang kaitso) threw a supposedly invisible cloak of terror over millions of homes.

Here, the flying kite is a motif for renewal and hope. It’s reminiscent of Albert Lamorisse’s flying balloon in his film, “Red Balloon.” Tietou’s blue kite represents something intimate—his ability to think and feel for himself—that even the state’s thought-police can’t control.

A little boy’s (Pascal Lamorisse) adventures with a red balloon, in “The Red Balloon.” Films Montsouris

Metaphorically speaking, even if a gust of wind shreds one of his kites, Tietou’s kite-making skills imparted by his father enable him to keep making and flying “new” kites.

One character’s failing eyesight is a metaphor for moral clarity that the CCP tries to distort. That character, young Shusheng (Ping Zong), tells his girlfriend that his illness will first enforce a narrower field of vision, before distorting his vision altogether. He jokes that he’ll be able to see her more clearly, even as everything else may dim.

CCP cadres announce allegedly soothing instructions to the public. They reassure everyone that Chairman Mao’s “guiding principles” may well be political, but “like a mild rain,” they also cleanse thoughts.

Some citizens are too dumbstruck to realize that surrender of their property under the guise of “collectivization” amounts to a surrender of their personhood.

Historian Sean McMeekin’s chapter, “Mao’s Moment,” from his withering critique of communism, offers a sobering lesson on the Chinese brand of communism. He called it “a war of the young on the old.” This 20th-century film warns misguided young 21st-century audiences that their war against the old is, in effect, a war against themselves.

These reflective articles may interest parents, caretakers, or educators of teenagers and young adults, seeking great movies to watch together or recommend. They’re about films that, when viewed thoughtfully, nudge young people to be better versions of themselves. 

Check the Internet Movie Database website for plot summary, cast, reviews, and ratings.

You can watch “The Blue Kite” on Kanopy, YouTube, and DVD.

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