Xiu Xiu: The Sent-Down Girl (1998) on Netflix
Sent from Chengdu in 1975, fifteen-year-old Wenxiu, called Xiu Xiu, learns horse herding on the Sichuan steppes with Lao Jin, a Tibetan eunuch. Six months there should take her home.
- Netflix4.3/5
- IMDb7.5/103,900 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes96%
Trailer
Plot summary
Wenxiu, fifteen and known by the nickname Xiu Xiu, lives in Chengdu when the Cultural Revolution's Down to the Countryside Movement sends her away. Her posting is a remote part of the Sichuan steppes, where she is to learn horse herding from Lao Jin, a nomadic Tibetan and a eunuch horseman who becomes her only friend. He looks after her and teaches her the work. She has been promised that after six months she will be called back to the city to take charge of an all-girl cavalry unit. The six months pass, and Xiu Xiu learns that she cannot go home.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Xiu Xiu: The Sent-Down Girl (1998)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- Joan Chen smuggled film out of China almost every day of the six-week Tibet shoot, fearing authorities would confiscate it if they learned what she was making. She could not watch playbacks, which rushed the schedule.
- After the film won at Taiwan's Golden Horse Film Festival, Taiwanese media reported Joan Chen had circumvented China's Film Bureau to shoot in Tibet; she was fined and briefly banned in China.
