he only way in which they could save themselves was by demonstrating their ideological purity by denouncing others - are still felt in the country today.
It is against this background of a country tearing itself apart that both films are set, and the action of each film reflects the ways in which individuals - whatever they may be innocent or guilty of by contemporary standards - cannot escape the consequences of living in their particular historical moment.
"Xui Xui" is the story of a fifteen year-old girl, Wen Xiu (whose nickname is Xui Xui) who lives near the city of Chengdu near the end of the Cultural Revolution. She joins with other young people who are being sent into the countryside to be "re-educated" (by performing manual labor). Wen succeeds (in terms of proving her ideological worthiness) at her first assignment and is then sent to the borderlands near Tibetan to study with a horse herder named Lao Jin, who (while impotent) falls in love with her. But while Xui Xui likes her tutor, she always intends to return home after her six months with him.
The city girl - from a place so very different from the border country - cannot
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