While Weibo and other Chinese social media platforms continue to generate congratulatory content about the animated box-office smash “Ne Zha 2,” the reception for “Living the Land,” a moving and realistic film about life in the Chinese countryside in the early 1990s, has been decidedly less welcoming. After its director and screenwriter, Huo Meng, won the Silver Bear Award for Best Director at the recent 2025 Berlin Film Festival, Weibo was flooded with negative comments, including accusations that the filmmaker played up rural poverty in China to curry favor with foreign audiences.
A promotional poster for Huo Meng’s film “Living the Land”
“Living the Land,” whose Chinese title is 生息之地 (Shēngxī zhī dì), depicts a year in the life of a Chinese farming village in 1991, as several generations of farmers try to come to terms with the massive socio-economic shifts that will soon remake their lives. The film’s young protagonist, a boy named Chuang, is part of the first generation of “left-behind children.” After his parents decamp to Shenzhen to seek work, taking their two older children with them, third-born Chuang is left in the care of his uncle Tuanjie, who never lets Chuang (who has a different surname) forget that he doesn’t quite belong in the village. When the boy innocently wonders where he will someday be buried, his uncle mutters, “This is not your place.” With non-professional actors and realistic settings, “Living the Land” explores complex intergenerational family dynamics, state-enforced family planning policies, developmental disabilities, “left-behind children,” farmers seeking ways to supplement their incomes, encroaching industrialization and urbanization, and more.
Despite the hostile reaction to Huo Meng’s Berlin win from some Weibo users, the film garnered positive reviews in a number of overseas trade publications. Even the Global Times noted that it marked “the first time in six years that a Chinese-language film has won an award at one of the ‘Big Three’ European film festivals, and the first time in 24 years that a Chinese film has won the Best Director award in Berlin.” The Global Times article went on to mention some of the past Chinese films that earned accolades at the Berlin Film Festival, including Chen Kaige’s “Yellow Earth” in 1984, Zhang Yimou’s “Raise the Red Lantern” in 1991, and Diao Yinan’s “Black Coal, Thin Ice” in 2014.
A recent article from WeChat account “Writer” discusses the dilemma of Chinese cinema today, particularly for arthouse films that find themselves locked in a “damned if you do, and damned if you don’t” dynamic with domestic audiences:
At the 75th Berlin Film Festival, Chinese director Huo Meng won the Silver Bear Award for Best Director for “Living the Land.”
The film hasn’t been released in China yet, so it’s just a bit of news. Filmmakers are pleased about it, as are those eager to see Chinese films make a resurgence. Some people aren’t pleased, however, as we can see in the [Weibo] comments below:
怒海狂蛟79 (from Guangdong): Theme of “rural misery” = a young director’s ticket to kudos from international film festivals
Vivid飞 (from Shanxi): Europe still hasn’t managed to release “Ne Zha 2 in theatres,” but in 2025, a film that pretends to be objective (but actually aims to slander China) won an award at a European film festival.
Minar2018 (from Shaanxi): You call this a movie? It’s obviously Western-manufactured propaganda.
顽石风烟 (from Jiangsu): Not another one of these films.
马蹄岭番鬼局 (from Guangdong): No surprise, foreigners love this sort of subject matter.
Overly域 (from Chongqing): China’s not just countryside—there are modern cities, too.
In other words, whether you’re pleased or not depends on your reaction to this bit of news. The film, reportedly told from the perspective of a “left-behind” child, chronicles how the changes taking place in rural China in the 1990s—and the attendant clash of values, individual anxieties, and collective difficulties—affected individuals, families, the village, and the world outside the village. Perhaps just reading some of these words will make some folks unhappy.
Chinese cinema has never been as conflicted as it is today. If your box-office earnings are low, they say you’re incompetent; if your box office earnings are high, they say it’s because you’ve got backers with deep pockets. If you’re too ambitious, they say you’re trying to copy from the West; if you’re not ambitious enough, they say you’re an embarrassment to China. If you make “popcorn” commercial movies, they call you superficial; if you make hard-hitting arthouse films, they say you’re slandering China. If you don’t win awards, they say you’re useless; but if you win a big international award, they say you’re just in it for the accolades, that you’re sucking up to the judges, pandering to Western tastes, or only focusing on China’s “backwardness.”
[…] In movies, literature, and drama, there is no such thing as “Eastern tastes” or “Western tastes,” only “human tastes.”
[…] Movies, like literature, should portray human lives and human destinies. Society is just part of the backdrop.
If movies were only expected to portray the glamorous side of life, then there wouldn’t be many such films. “Les Miserables” is set in Paris, the most glamorous city in France, but it shows people fleeing through the dark, filthy sewers. “Léon: The Professional” is also set in a glamorous city, but depicts exploited streetwalkers and brutally corrupt law enforcement officers.
[…] And when it comes to “smearing its own reputation,” no one beats Hollywood. We need not mention [serious fare such as] “The Shawshank Redemption.” Even in a romantic film like “Waterloo Bridge,” the heroine falls into prostitution; even in a comedy like “Roman Holiday,” there are sleazy tabloid reporters who stir up gossip for profit.
The South Korean film “Parasite,” which won a Best Picture Oscar, might be the most serious example of Korea “smearing its own reputation” by depicting class conflict, economic inequality, rich folks humiliating the poor, the pitiful pride of the poor, and even violent resistance and bloody fights. But oddly, I don’t think Korean society is really like that—I think “Parasite” is a universal metaphor, and the events it depicts could happen in any corner of the Earth.
So the Koreans are happy, but I’m left feeling jealous: remember the glory days when mainland Chinese and Hong Kong films and TV shows were dominant in Asia and on their way to conquering the world? Where were Korean films and TV shows back then? Nowhere, but now they’re leaving us in their dust!
Chinese films are facing strong interference from the forces of cultural conservatism. But actually, people like that never set foot in theatres.
The development of the internet has allowed a small number of people to specialize in hurling abuse at certain writers, directors, novels, movies, companies, and entrepreneurs. In every case, they are simply “pouring dirty water into their own courtyard.” This is the true definition of “smearing China” and it is simply self-destructive. [Chinese]